Didn't I see that Zombie Last year?
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is going on right now. And although we here at the CC couldn't get a ticket this year, we did manage to hack the exclusive feed that gamespot has from the show. But when it comes to the biggest games of the show, much of the suspense is already gone: the industry has come to rely more heavily than ever before on sequels. Even the show itself is something of a sequel, as many of the games featured this year have been previewed already.
"It's going to be a really exciting E3, but at the same time it's going to be really disappointing, because the biggest games, the biggest software titles, are going to be the same ones we saw last year," said Dan "Shoe" Hsu, editor of leading games magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. Among the sequels starring in this year's show that also featured in the last E3 in some form are Halo 2 from Microsoft, Half-Life 2 from Valve Software and Gran Turismo 4 from Sony.
Just as we have been predicting the U.S. sales growth for the games industry has slowed from double-digit gains to single-digit increases. For the current year, estimates vary widely, with some analysts seeing growth of as little as 3 percent unless sales get a boost from console-hardware price cuts.
While growth slows, some also see a crisis of creativity as the industry seeks to minimize financial risk by repeating proven franchises over and over again, taking a page from the Hollywood model of reprising material that works as many times as the public is willing to buy it. And we are left with more and more uinspiring and un-original games.
Because the show is not open to the public, most fans will have to be content to get details on the hottest new games from websites, either from the one run by the show operators themselves, E3Insider.com, or from one of hundreds of other fan pages.
Going into the show, though, people cannot wait to see some games.
Of the 200,000 or so people IGN/GameSpy surveys for its GamerMetrics.com research product, the most eagerly anticipated games are Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2 from Nintendo, Half-Life 2 and Gran Turismo 4.
All of those games are expected to be on display at the show. According to the Entertainment Software Association, which runs the show, nearly 5,000 different computer and video-game products will be on display.
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