Video game giant Electronic Arts Inc (EA) on Saturday courted fans with titles such as Star Wars Battlefront and snatched the spotlight ahead of a major industry trade show in Los Angeles.
Gamers who have become stars on YouTube for streamed play or commentary joined EA executives in the Hollywood Palladium to provide world premiere glimpses into eagerly awaited games.
The event kicked off a three-day “fan fest” where people can get tastes of coming games.
Photo: AFP
EA Live is to end today on the eve of the official start of the historically trade-only Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
“There is a lot of interest in the industry to speak more directly to the gamer,” Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc worldwide studios chairman Shawn Layden said.
E3 took the unusual step this year of making about 15,000 tickets available at US$149 each for fans to explore the show floor and attend panels.
Photo: AFP
EA held the first of a series of news events by console and game makers in the days leading up to E3.
Games showed off included blockbuster shooter Battlefield and a sequel to a Star Wars Battlefront game that met with criticism after its release about two years ago.
“We got a lot of feedback; a lot of it positive and a lot of it constructive,” EA chief executive officer Andrew Wilson said on stage. “That is a euphemism for not as positive.”
EA provided a glimpse at what appeared to be a new science fiction shooter work titled Anthem from BioWare and a character driven, buddy prison break game called A Way Out that can only be played cooperatively with a friend.
EA’s “fan fest” comes as the video game industry flourishes and shifts to cultivating ongoing relationships with players instead of simply selling them blockbuster games in packages or as digital downloads.
Historically an event exclusively for the industry, E3 appeared to be adapting to the trend of game makers building ongoing relationships with players in online communities.
“E3 is evolving to try to bring in people who are not involved in the industry, who are fans, “ Jon Peddie Research senior video game industry analyst Ted Pollak said.
Hot trends at E3 this week are to include the rise of streaming games, to be played subscription-style as a service or to be watched as spectator sports on the booming eSports stage.
Amazon.com Inc-owned Twitch and Google’s YouTube are once again at E3, streaming announcements, game trailers, interviews and other game content to viewers around the world.
Microsoft Corp launched a subscription service for Xbox, letting players pay a monthly fee for access to a library of video games for its console.
People who already subscribe to an Xbox Gold service can pay an extra US$10 monthly for the new “Game Pass.”
E3 is to once again be an arena for competing consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo Co and Sony Corp to battle it out.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 has dominated the market, while Nintendo’s recently launched Switch has been a hit, with fans snapping up the console and a Legend of Zelda game that has become a must-play title.
Microsoft yesterday was to spotlight a muscular new Xbox model, referred to in development as “Scorpio,” at a special E3 news event.
The PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One are both performing better in the market than their respective predecessors, and Nintendo “is back in a big way” with Switch, Piscatella said.
Meanwhile, PC has quietly become the most played and money-generating platform for games, analysts said.
“The juggernaut of PC gaming can’t be hidden any more,” Pollak said.
The makers of graphics chips and computer “rigs” are among those strutting wares at E3.
“It seems every segment in the video-game market is going pretty darn well and there is a lot of room for optimism,” Piscatella said.
The Electronic Software Association behind E3, with help from NPD Group Inc, pegged overall spending in the US video-game market at US$30.4 billion last year.
“You have people of all ages and genders playing games more than they have before; it has become more ingrained in our culture than ever,” Piscatella said.
After several years flying high as Asia’s best Nvidia Corp proxy, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is increasingly vying with other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks for investor attention. Stock traders are chasing a wider array of beneficiaries as mainstream usage of AI creates demand for hardware beyond the most-advanced chips TSMC makes for Nvidia. Subthemes from the deepening memory crunch to advances in robotics are also luring bids. At the same time, investment caps on single stocks are pushing funds to diversify, while retail investors long familiar with TSMC through its US depositary receipts are being offered a broader set of
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS