Nintendo’s Wii is what gamers came to see. Console image © Nintendo of America Inc. All photos courtesy of Rick DeMott.

Now having attended three E3s, I can manage the terrain much better. As the mecca for the gaming industry, the event is a must attend for all involved in the $10 billion entertainment sector. However, this year, the crowds seemed lighter and that’s not a bad thing. The volume of the booths was dialed down from 11, which was a good thing. And the amount of booth babes (which was advertised as being more discreet) remained the same, which is good or bad depending on one’s own perspective.

Wii Non-Gamers Are the Future
The word on everyone’s lips at this E3 was Wii. That’s pronounced “we.” The renamed Revolution — Nintendo’s next-generation console — was the must see item of the convention. Attendees anxiously waited each morning to rush in and be the first in line to get their hands on the revolutionary console’s unique controller. Some waited up to six hours to get into the booth.

For those who don’t already know, Wii features a motion-sensor controller that can mirror the movement of a tennis racket in a sports game or a samurai sword in a fighting game. The controller also features a second controller attachment, which makes the combined controller look like a numchuck. This second controller features a joystick for more complex gameplay. The controller also features a speaker, creating a depth of sound experience in Wii games. For instance, Nintendo demoed the new Zelda game where players simulate the action of a bow by pulling back the Wii wand like the string. In the controller, gamers hear the tension of the string as the pull back and once they push the button to fire hear the whish of arrow.

I’m not a hardcore gamer at all, and can safely say the Wii system is very intuitive for people who do not play regularly. It’s people like me that Nintendo and the rest of the gaming industry is really eyeing. The idea behind Wii is to attracted people who use to play games but have stopped or people who have never played. I think the easy to use controller will help in attaining this goal.

Over the last four years, retail sales in the gaming industry have been flat. If the industry wants to grow, it needs to attract new consumers. In many of the conference sessions, various insiders talked about this time in the gaming industry as a critical point where they need to push the boundaries and find new ways to build their business.

Nintendo wants to bring in new players with a new way of playing. Many others spoke of the growing sector of casual games. People who have grown up on games are getting older; however, they have less time to play. Casual games are a way for those players to fit in gameplay in their down time. This especially extends to mobile devices, which may not save the gaming sector, but is a huge area of growth. For the mobile market, Nintendo has found huge success in Japan with the Brain Age puzzle series and those games have just hit the market in the U.S. with early success.

With Wii as the big reveal this year, Nintendo stole a lot of Sony’s PlayStation 3 thunder. Wii and PS3 are set for release in time for the holidays shopping season. However, the word at the event is very cautious in regard to PS3 mainly do to its $599 price tag. Nintendo hasn’t released the price for Wii yet, but promises it will be affordable. As it stands, 44% of GameCube owners and 40% of Xbox owners also own a PlayStation 2. With Xbox 360 (which sells for $499) only in 1.2 million homes thus far, the future of next-gen systems is fuzzy. Many at E3 felt, players who purchase two consoles will picked Wii because it’s so different then make a choice between Xbox 360 and PS3 as their other console.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess road the Wii buzz. © Nintendo of America Inc.

With everyone talking about the new hardware, many of the top buzzed about titles seemed to garner less attention from attendees, who some felt the games on hand were just more of the same. However, highly anticipated games still included: Halo 3, Chromehounds and Gears of War for Xbox 360; Heavenly Sword, Devil May Cry 4, Metal Gear Solid 3: Guns of the Patriots and Killzone for PS3; God of War II and Final Fantasy XII for PS2; and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy for GameCube and Wii. Additionally, multi-platform releases include Resident Evil 5, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Unreal Tournament 2007, Madden Football 07, Sonic the Hedgehog, Spore (from the creator of The Sims), John Woo Presents Strangehold and Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam.

Hollywood Wants a Piece of the Pie
The movie and TV industries have firmly jumped into the gaming sphere and some in the gaming industry see the dark cloud of acquisitions loaming in the future. The first conference session I attend was even titled, “When media giants muscle in: Why the game industry should care about the acquisition appetite of News Corp., Viacom and others.”

The panelists included: Graham Hopper, svp/gm — Buena Vista Games, Turner Game Network; Jeff Yapp, evp — MTV Networks Music and Logo Enterprise Group; Stuart Snyder, gm — GameTap, Turner Gaming; and Ralph Rivera, vp/gm — AOL Games. The consensus is that the hype about big media firms gobbling up gaming publishers is just that hype. The panelists conceded that they’d love to buy a big publishing firm; however, the price they’d have to pay isn’t in their best interests. In addition, a merger would have to meet key criteria — will it harm the media firm’s core business and can it continue to add value?

At the “Entertainment business summit: Where the increased integration of music, movies, TV, and games is headed” session, the panelists included Mark Caplan, exec director interactive — Sony Pictures Consumer Products; Emily Della Maggiora, vp — Nielsen Interactive Ent.; Nick Earl, vp/gm — Electronic Arts; Bill Kispert, vp, interactive — Universal Studios; and George White, svp strategy and product development — Warner Music Group.