Innovation the biggest draw at E3 2009

Valerie | 08 Jun 2009, 09:34

Despite the credit crunch and global financial uncertainty, the gaming industry appears to be in good health if last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 was anything to go by.

The BBC reports that the gaming industry’s most significant trade event saw a return to form, after it was scaled back in 2007.  More than 30,000 people descended on Los Angeles for the three-day event where game makers rubbed shoulders with industry analysts, retailers and media to showcase the latest innovations in entertainment hardware and software.

Opening the event, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr unveiled a new video game to be released on the Microsoft Xbox 360 console that allows music fans to play along to their favourite Beatles songs. Their presence added additional clout to an event that also included star studded appearances from Steven Spielberg, Pele, James Cameron and Mickey Rourke, with the announcement of joint projects with Cameron and Spielberg illustrating the increasing convergence of the worlds of gaming, film and music.

Despite high-profile efforts to appeal to novice players, the Wall Street Journal observed that the video-game industry remains more focused than ever on pleasing its core crowd of existing customers with fast-paced, difficult-to-play shooter titles.

The biggest news came from the three big console manufacturers who announced new ways to get players interacting with their games consoles , kicking off what has been called the “controller wars”.

At its press conference on Monday, Microsoft landed some early buzz with its unveiling of “ProjectNatal,“ a video camera that captures a player’s movements to control a game - thus eliminating the need for a separate game controller. Demonstrated by c&binet ambassador and Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux, the Telegraph described it as “a seminal moment not just in video games, but in technology too”.

Sony meanwhile also demonstrated its new motion-control technology using handheld controls similar to those on the Nintendo Wii, with Sony Computer Entertainment America boss Jack Tretton confirming that devices would be available on the market by next spring. In addition, it confirmed the industry’s “worst kept secret”, a new handheld gaming device called the PSP Go, which is 50 percent smaller than the existing PSP.

Not to be beaten, Nintendo offered users a modified Wii controller, called the Wii Motion Plus, which was announced last year, and a pulse measuring device called the Wii Vitality Sensor.  However, even the announcement of new Metroid and Super Mario Galaxy games failed to live up to the high expectations of the gaming industry, with many finding the Nintendo press conference a low key event, suggesting that rivals are rising to the challenge with their own innovations.

But it was on the show floor where you could really sense an upturn in people’s mood from previous shows, the Telegraph reported, with publishers and developers recognising that innovation is the key to survival.

Commenting on the industry reception to the conference, Colin Sebastian, a video-game analyst with Lazard Capital Markets said:

“This is an industry that continues to push innovation to drive growth. But the core gamer is still the stable customer base here. Publishers and platform companies would be ill-advised to abandon that market.“

Piers Harding-Rolls, Screen Digest analyst added:

“We saw a lot of good tech demos, which is a shot in the arm for the games industry and gets both publishers and developers excited about the future.”

E3, stripped of the glitz and glamour of previous events, “revealed an industry bullish in the face of economic problems and confident enough in its own vision to continue innovating and pushing the boundaries”.  With filmmakers and musicians alike now looking to video games for inspiration and to bring cross platform technologies to life, the future of all these creative industries are perhaps now more intertwined than ever before and events such as the c&binet forum will provide a timely opportunity to discuss ways to ensure their future prosperity.