Category: Hot Topics

Well it’s true – E3 modifications

Next-Gen.biz: It was an opportunity to take stock of the industry as a whole – the people, the products and the trends. Many greeted the news that E3 had gone with shock. But, in reality, its days were numbered. Here’s why…

1. The People Who Pay Weren’t Happy E3 was a great showpiece for the industry as a whole. But the industry as a whole does not pay for E3. Individual companies pay. They need to be able to demonstrate tangible benefits for that expense, just as they would for any other marketing cost.

2. Four People Said ‘Enough’ The fact is that all it took were a very small number of company presidents to talk with each other, and figure out that if they all decided to pass, none of them would need to be there. Once Nintendo, Microsoft, SCEA and EA had stepped out, E3 was history. It was multilateral disarmament.

3. Media Irrelevance There was a time when the game industry could enjoy its little May media window, as major news networks sent their reporters to the show to talk about the state of the industry. The fact that they usually filed stories on either videogame violence or new hardware launches that would have been reported anyway, seems to have been allowed to slide. These days, games are a major entertainment for people of most ages. News editors can’t afford to just cover games during E3, or with a pre-Holidays buyers’ guide. Games are always on the radar.

4. The ‘E3 Winners’ Farce The ‘who won E3?’ contest beloved of we in the media had become a real problem. E3 is not a sporting contest, and yet it was increasingly seen as some form of championship.

5. Rise of Publisher Events Media events held by companies to show off their own products offer publishers more control, lower costs and a more intimate atmosphere.

6. Common Sense Then there’s common sense. For example – Nintendo’s aim at E3 was to get Wii into as many hands as possible. There must be better ways of doing this than spending $20 million making a bunch of developers and blog editors stand in a line for three hours.

7. The Internet The Internet generally gets the blame for bringing old establishments to their knees, and this is no exception. Information is disseminated faster and at better resolution than ever. The need to go to Los Angeles to look at a game is somewhat negated when you can download a movie, or play a demo on Xbox Live. No, it’s not the same, but it’s close enough to make a difference.

8. The High Cost Convention Centers the world over charge extortionate prices for mundane services and LACC is no exception.

9. The Herculean Effort E3 isn’t just measured in terms of the cost of the booth, the floor-space, the party, the hotel, the flights etc. There’s also the incredible amount of effort that goes into preparing for the show. Marketing teams are focused on E3 for a good six months of the year. Developers are whipped along as they try to get games ready for what is, essentially, an artificial deadline.

10. Big Shows are Passe For all of the reasons above, massive pan-industry events are feeling the squeeze.

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Even though this is all meant to help the industry at large, I have the feeling that it will hurt it in more ways then one. The biggest thing now is that the media will have to hop around to different locations around the US or globally to attend different media conforences. Do they really think this will make things better for them?

E3 was THE place for everyone in the industry – developers, publishers, media, etc – to come together. Now it’s gone. We don’t need another GDC or Siggraph. We need E3.

URGENT: E3 No More!

Next-Gen.biz reports: The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) shindig has been a staple of game industry life since the mid-1990s. However, we understand the larger exhibitors have jointly decided that the costs of the event do not justify the returns, generally measured in media exposure.

Publishers believe the multi-million dollar budgets would be better spent on more company-focused events that bring attention to their own product lines rather than the industry as a whole.

ESA president Doug Lowenstein will likely announce the news some time within the next 48 hours, possibly on Monday. It’s likely that the ESA will seek to limit the damage by organizing some form of lesser event in May, possibly even with the E3 brand, but this will be no more than a fig-leaf. The days of an industry event attended by all the major publishers, spending big money, are gone.

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Gamespot.com Reports:

GameSpot has learned that tomorrow the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) will announce changes to the format and scale of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the game industry event that typically draws in excess of 60,000 attendees and includes over 400 exhibitors.

On July 28, the Web site of UK trade magazine MCV reported discussions had taken place between the ESA and E3 exhibitors which addressed the future of the annual trade show.

Sources said that rather than fill the 540,000 square feet of the cavernous LACC, the show will take place at a location that would support exhibitors in meeting room space only, with companies showing their wares to a select group of attendees numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands.

One reason behind the downsizing of the show can be attributed to the dollar cost of the event to exhibitors, including the demands on companies to assign large numbers of staff to focus on the show, expenses associated with travel to the show, and the added expense to polish game builds and demos to be shown to attendees.

One source added that the new format of the show may actually result in a more productive environment to demo games to the media, although they stopped short of full disclosure: “My lips are sealed until after the weekend,” the source said.

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Pretty major stuff here. I don’t know what to think of it. To some extent I understand why this decision is being made. I mean E3 is really meant for the press and it has gotten out of control in recent years as companies are spending more money on their booths then on their games yet it’s harder and harder to play the demos. Even so this is a major loss… This was the trade show convention to attend and now it seems just like any other convention.

I wonder what impact this will have on GDC since that is already aimed at the core business.

Xbox 360 price cut this Holiday season?

This has been a recently debated issue and I must say no. The price will not be lowered until at least mid-2007. The 360 is in no threat of the PS3, I say PS3 and not Wii because Microsoft is more so competing against Sony and not Nintendo.

The PS3 will only have a couple million units to the market this Holiday. When the stores are out of them the consumers will buy the 360. The PS3 will be out of stock at least until February, just like Microsoft was with the 360. The PS3 may even have a longer drought than the 360 because it’s a more complex machine.

The next reason is that Microsoft needs the Games Division to turn a profit. Now that the production costs of the 360 are decreasing, as more units come into supply, Microsoft may just be able to sell enough software to out-weigh the hardware cost.

Another reason is price value. You look at the 360 and see $399 for the high-end while the PS3 is $499 for the high-end, the consumer will question why when the games look exactly the same! The first wave of PS3 games will look very similar to the graphic quality of the 360 games. It won’t be years until there’s an actual difference here. The consumer will think that they get more bang for their buck.

With their saved $100 they’ll be able to spend it on a much larger library with more variety than the few PS3 launch titles.

It’s next holiday that Microsoft needs to “worry” about the 360’s price. Microsoft will most likely act in response to any price cut that Sony makes. Microsoft has the advantage and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

Of course we don’t have to even get into why Nintendo’s Wii will outsell the 360 and the PS3 over the long haul.