Interactive gaming, console prices create Buzz at E3 - Retailing & Entertainment: Video Game Update - Electronics Entertainment Expo

DSN Retailing Today, May 5, 2003 by Doug Desjardins

Video games based on popular films helped drive the game market to record heights in 2002 and that trend will continue this year. Game publishers will be rolling out new movie-based titles at E3 with groundbreaking graphics that recreate the movie experience.

"This is a year when you're going to see a lot of sequels come out based on franchises like you did last year with 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'Harry Potter,'" said David Cole, president of DFC Intelligence in San Diego.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" was one of the best selling games of 2002 and its third installment "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" will arrive later this year in advance of the film. While "The Two Towers" game used models and scenes from the movie, "The Return of the King" will feature characters whose movements are digitally transferred from the film.

Movie-based games are recreating the in-theater experience thanks to plenty of help from film producers. That's the case with "Enter the Matrix," which publisher Infogrames will release May 15 the same day the sequel "The Matrix Reloaded" hits theaters. The creators of "The Matrix" wrote a separate script for the game and filmed additional scenes during "The Matrix Reloaded" specifically for the video game.

"We're going to see a real cinematic resemblance in the graphics of games this year starting with 'Enter the Matrix,"' said Richard Ow, senior account executive with The NPD Group. "There's a lot of synergy going on with film producers and game developers and that's a good thing for the industry."

Vivendi Universal will get into the act next month when it releases the video game version of "The Hulk" on June 3 prior to the film's release in theaters June 20. The publisher has created a plot for the video game that takes place after the events in the film.

Industry giant Activision will be promoting new games based on the sequels "Spider Man 2" and "Shrek 2" and Infogrames will unveil a new "Terminator" title based on the new film "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" due in theaters in July. Buena Vista Games will showcase new games based on the upcoming films "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Spy Kids 3."

Publishers will also be promoting plenty of new games with military themes to capitalize on the growing popularity of titles such as Nova Logic's "Delta Force: Black Hawk Down" and "Medal of Honor: Frontline." Activision will introduce a new military-theme series called "Call of Duty" based on battles in World War II.

Online gaming gets off to a quick start

The market for online console gaming is only about six months old, but the early results indicate it has a bright future.

Microsoft, which designed its Xbox console as a portal for online gaming, has already attracted more than 350,000 subscribers to its Xbox Live network, more than double what it had expected at this point. And Sony announced that it has shipped more than one million online adapters for its Playstation 2.

As the number of players continues to grow, game publishers are getting more interested in re-creating the worlds they've made for console games on the Internet.