Michael Pachter, analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities, writes a good e-mail subject line. The quotable gaming expert titled his note to investors this morning as “Entertainment Software: E3 2008 Review: The Bad, The Great, and the BORING!”

In it, he made his pick for best E3 press conference:

Microsoft had the most impactful presentation of the three console manufacturers, in our view, with an expanded offering of interactive games (e.g., 1 vs. 100) and the announcement of a partnership with Netflix. We think that Sony had the least impactful presentation, trying to address too many topics for the time allotted. Nintendo’s presentation was “just right”, but hardcore gamers were disappointed at the lack of a major Mario or Zelda game announcement.

He named the top publisher of the show:

There were few surprises on the software front, with most of the publishers showcasing games that had previously been announced. Electronic Arts had the most impressive presentation of the publishers, in our view, showing highly polished content and having developers make many of the presentations. We were impressed by Activision’s Rock Band rip-off, Guitar Hero World Tour, and expect the battle of the bands to heat up this fall as MTV Games/Harmonix appears to be up to the challenge with Rock Band 2. We were similarly impressed with Ubisoft’s showing, focused on a mix of hardcore and casual games.

He named his favorite E3 party (MTV’s, not his own!) as he declared that E3’s pulse will fade if changes are not made:

In our view, E3 is headed for extinction, unless the publishers and console manufacturers wake up to the fact that nobody cares about the show anymore. We believe that show is ill-timed, coming after most major holiday announcements are out, and landing during “quiet period” for most of the companies (making meetings with investors near-impossible). The lack of a spectacle will likely keep media away in the future, the lack of surprises will keep retailers away, and the lack of interaction with management will likely keep investors away. Without these three constituencies, the show will likely lose its relevance. We strongly believe that E3 should be held no later than early June (when companies can meet with investors and when some “secrets” have yet to be revealed), and believe that the spectacle should be restored by increasing the size of the show space.

I’ll second Pachter’s call for an earlier show. Even though E3 ran in July for the second consecutive year, many game publishers hosted “pre-E3″ events in May or June. If games are going to be available for demonstration that early in the year, what’s the point of a July show? It just extends the drip-feed of information instead of letting press and creators focus on a game once in the spring/summer before going about their normal jobs.