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Fifty thousand video game players, developers and marketing
executives are meeting in Los Angeles for the annual Electronic
Entertainment Expo. Hundreds of software makers and Big Three hardware
rivals - Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft - are promoting their latest
products.
Carolyn Rauch of the Entertainment Software Association says video
games are an $11 billion business in the United States and more than
double that worldwide. She says this annual meeting is the largest event
in the industry, with 400 exhibitors.
"We have every kind of game and interactive entertainment software
that's ever made here," said Carolyn Rauch. "So we have cell phone games,
we have console games, we have PC games, we
have online games, any kind of interactive entertainment, you'll be able
to see here on our show floor."
The annual convention assaults the
senses with sounds and colored graphics on overhead screens. Gamers are in
heaven as they try the latest games and hardware.
"Unbelievable, really really cool," said one.
Much of the interest here focuses on the three big console makers,
including Microsoft, which launched its Xbox 360 console at this expo last
year. Market leader Sony is introducing its Playstation 3 at this year's
convention. Sony spokesman Alex Armour says the new platform will build on
the success of Playstation 2, which has sold more than 100 million units.
The new device will go on sale in November, with a new ultra-fast
processor and Sony's Blu-ray high definition video system.
"So what does this all mean for the consumer? It really gives them a
more immersive game-play experience," said Alex Armour. "There's going to
be better shading, better graphics, animations, facial animations that
we're going to put people right into the game and make it more realistic
for them."
Playstation 3 and Nintendo's new game console, called Wii, both have
motion sensors, letting players determine the action by moving handheld
controllers. In Nintendo's case, players can swing their arms to play
virtual games of golf or tennis.
Game sales have slowed down as gamers await the new consoles, unveiled
at this convention. But game software remains the heart of the industry,
says Angela Emery of Buena Vista Games.
"We're the interactive
entertainment arm of the Walt Disney Company," said Angela Emery. "So
therefore we can make games based on all of the Disney films, television
shows from ABC, the Disney Channel, to publishing and all the ancillary businesses within the Walt Disney Company."
The company has games based on the films The Incredibles, The
Chronicles of Narnia, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
It is also creating games with fresh characters and story lines, like
one called Spectrobes, made for the Nintendo DS dual-screen portable
console.
"There are over 500 characters in the Spectrobes
universe, and you uncover, unearth, excavate them, utilizing your stylus
on the touch-pad, as well as awaken them by telling them their name and
using your voice to command them to wake up," she said.
Most of those attending the game expo are young, but the average age of
players is rising. Carolyn Rauch of the Entertainment Software Association
says the typical gamer is now in his or her mid-30s.
"And both men and women play games," she said. "What we've found is
that people who have grown up with games are bringing them with them into
their adulthood. As my generation, television was the most natural thing
in the world, for them video games are the most natural thing in the
world. They played as kids and they're playing as adults and they'll play
their whole lives through."
She says despite the slowdown in sales in this year of transition to
new game consoles, video gaming is still the fastest growing sector of the
entertainment business. | 
