Weeks later, and I'm still wondering how many of Microsoft's millions it took to get those two to do that on the world stage.

Anyway, Natalephants aside, this was a fairly memorable E3, one which some might even deem a landmark event: The event itself returned to its former glory (or at least something more closely-resembling it than the past few years have shown), Sony and Microsoft finally pulled the trigger on the motion control revolution, and Metal Gear returns to Microsoft (Metal Gear Solid 2 was on Xbox, if you'll remember).

Naturally, it leads one to wonder what some of the creators of our favorite titles thought of the event. To that end, Famitsu caught up with Q Entertainment's Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Grasshopper Manufacture's Goichi Suda, and Level-5's Akihiro Hino to see what they thought of the event.

As one might expect, Project Natal was a definite show-stealer for Mizuguchi and Suda alike. "We developed No More Heroes with the Wii remote in mind," Suda says, "but now I want to think about games with Natal in mind. I have to ask myself, as a game designer, what new games can be done with this, what can be an interesting experience and challenge, and I'm looking forward to that."

Mizuguchi shares his comrade's enthusiasm, noting that "With new technology announcements like Natal and the [PS3] Motion Controller, it's like I have a feel for the new generation, or that the door to the future has been opened."

"It's a wholly different impression of the future than we had before," he adds. "It's not a shift from 2D to 3D or in the number of polygons, but it's games trying to open up an entirely new door. I thought it would take longer, but it's happening faster than I expected."

On the software side of things, Suda found Splinter Cell: Conviction to be enticing. "The game takes the emotional situations you experience in movies and lets you really control and feel them in a game environment," he fondly recalls. "Things that used to be handled in movie form aren't anymore; we're beginning to see perfect synchronization between movies and video games."

Of Assassin's Creed 2, Hino said that "the visual quality was so impressive that I doubted it was even a game," adding that he felt that this would be the standard from now on. He also feels things will be more difficult for him going forward, as he feels his efforts won't be recognized if they don't match the quality of games such as this and Final Fantasy XIII.

For Mizuguchi, however, whose games are more inclined towards music than bloodshed, the answer was clear: "It's finally come to this!" he says of his first impressions of The Beatles: Rock Band, recalling how only five years ago, most publishers thought there would be no market for music games as he attempted to sell musical-puzzle game Lumines.

Of Alex Rigopulos, head of Rock Band developer Harmonix, Mizuguchi adds "He deserves a lot of respect for the effort he took to make The Beatles: Rock Band a reality. He's one of the people opening doors for us."

Suda summed up the event as ""the first E3 in a while where we've really gotten an idea of what the future will be like," noting that games are no longer approaching Hollywood, but are now fused with it and shifting into a new direction.

Equally optimistic, Mizuguchi says "I'm really excited about all the possibilities, but when I try to get it all together in my mind, I feel like I'm lost in this vast universe, so I'm trying to keep it to the areas I'm best at. Even with that, I've got all sorts of ideas, which makes me really happy."