NPD Group Blog » E3 Here We Come

E3 Here We Come

Thursday, May 28th, 2009
By Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games

Many of us in the video games industry eagerly await E3 next week in Los Angeles. As we’ve been busily working on our meeting schedules, invariably the conversation turns to, “What do you think will be the big announcements coming out of E3?”

While the industry is certainly an ecosystem in which marquee content sells hardware, hardware sales increase the install base and drive more software sales, and both hardware and software spur accessories sales, the truth is that content remains king. For that reason, at E3, I am most looking forward to what I learn about upcoming game releases. As has been abundantly clear from the last two months of sales results, when the aggregation of new game releases doesn’t quite measure up to what was released last year the entire industry suffers. Clearly, the first third of 2008 was quite unusual in the number of top-selling games released early in the year - and compared to any other prior year, 2009 is stacking up quite nicely. This just underscores the importance of big game releases in driving the total industry to new heights this year, as they did handily in 2008.

So while I’m keenly interested in the E3 news around digital distribution, hardware, and corporate announcements, the games are what I’m going for

What are you looking forward to at E3? We’d love to hear what’s on your mind. See you in LA!

Be sure to follow us on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/NPDFrazier and http://twitter.com/NPDGroup

Share and Enjoy: