Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 07 July 2008 11:35
Opinion and Analysis
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DFC explained that it was the “personal computer”, the good ol’ PC, that was the No.1 gaming platform in 2007, with online gaming revenue passing US $7b in 2007 and predicted to reach a massive US $19 by 2013.
Given the PS3 and Wii have had most of 2007 and all of 2008 so far to play with and the Xbox 360 even longer than that, it’s unclear whether PCs will rule the roost in 2008 as they did in 2007.
Indeed E3 is about the right time, the midpoint of the year, for each company to truly bring out its “big guns” to rally as much of the gaming attention over to their respective causes. It is, after all, still the golden age of gaming, and if the surprises are as spectacular as has been promised, long may that golden age continue!
Already Micosoft has promised “fantastic surprises” in a very
recent interview with MCV gaming website, where David Gosen, a former Nintendo employee and now a top marketing VP for Microsoft in Europe.
Gosen was asked to provide a sneak-peek of what Microsoft would announce at E3, with Gosen quoted as saying: “It would be churlish of me to ruin the fantastic surprises awaiting everybody at E3. Clearly we’ll use that to make a number of announcements.
“We place a huge amount of importance on R&D and innovation. We’re always working on new things. And you’ll continue to hear lots of things from us that we believe will be game-changing. But you’ll just have to wait for those to be officially announced by us.”
Rumours that Microsoft would announce Halo 4 have ebbed and flowed, but new titles, new experiences and a new wireless controller are the obvious guesses for Microsoft’s “fantastic surprises”.
Nintendo of course also
famously promised “big announcements” at E3 too. In an article with ICGamers, US Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Amie was explaining that E3 would be the platform for “great new content maximizing all of our key franchises. It’s gonna be a good second half. There’s gonna be a big game for the holidays that the gamers will want.”
Fils-Amie continues, saying: “”All I can tell you is what we announce during E3 is going to be fantastic. The gamer’s gonna be excited, and the expanded audience is going to be excited. We’re gonna have a ton of great content.”
Of course you would expect the bosses of gaming companies to say just those kind of things. That’s what they do, and we have to hope that come E3 they can back it up.
Continued on page 3.
