CHEAT SHEET
THE EDITOR E3 WAS A QUIETER SHOW BUT A BETTER ONE A
s E3 came to a close I contacted a number of our smartest retail
readers to get their thoughts. The plan was to create a few
nice tables and charts over: the best moment of E3, the announcement of E3, the game of the show, what was missing and, of course, who won E3? Except it became quickly
apparent this wasn’t going to work, because all the answers I received were diff erent. I actually had nine diff erent
‘games of the show’, there wasn’t a single consensus on the ‘moment of the show’ and ‘who won E3’ included Ubisoft, Nintendo and Sony. It highlighted what a varied
E3 it was where not a single product particularly shone over any other, but equally nothing we saw was in any way disappointing. It wasn’t a wow show. There
weren’t any big surprises. The drama of E3 2013 all but forgotten for a respectful, nicer and more focused event, where there were well over 250 games on show. It was also a quieter expo.
Event organisers ESA insist the number of attendees were up over 2013, but either their numbers are a bit off , or more people spent less time at the event this year (in fact, we know of several people that went home on the Wednesday). Because this time we didn’t have to queue for 25 minutes to get a coff ee in the South Hall, there were plenty of spare seats at the Marriott hotel... some lucky execs even found a place to park. Perhaps most worrying
for the organisers was the empty spaces. A handful of big
June 20th 2014
It was a varied E3 where not a single product shone over any other. But equally nothing we saw was in any way disappointing.
companies didn’t take stands this year, and some that did took slightly smaller ones. Walking around the outskirts of the halls made for some depressing viewing. Yet, although it may not be
music to ESA’s ears, the result was a nicer show. I always felt it was ridiculous that a trade event can attract 50,000 people. And no matter how many people you send, getting around to see everyone is a nightmare, particularly as you need to fi ght the crowds every inch of the way. I didn’t miss an appointment this year. I even turned up early to most of my meetings. Back in 2007, ESA announced a new E3. A quieter show for an industry fed up of the expensive glitz and glamour. Two years later, everyone scrapped that idea and went back to the days of over-indulgence. So it’s always been diffi cult
to get the balance right between the need to have big audiences and excitement, with the desire to have a pleasant trade show experience. But I feel that E3 2014 just about got it right.
14 T
he Assassin’s Creed publisher has been quite vocal in its feelings towards Wii U this
past week.
And for good reason – the company is one of the few Western third-party developers still making products for it. The fi rm’s CEO Yves Guillemot even told us that the fi rm has a
Market Data
The market continues its downturn and things are going to get worse over a very, very quiet summer for the boxed games industry
£30m £15m £31.9m 830,432 units £10m £11.3m 371,603 units £00m
Week Ending May 31st
Week Ending June 7th
£8.4m 293,631 units
Week Ending June 14th
www.mcvuk.com
game it won’t release until Wii U’s install base grows. He’s even gone as far as to suggest Nintendo might want to consider lowering the price. It may sound like Yves is strong- arming Nintendo into taking action, but in reality he is just answering questions repeatedly posed to him at a Ubisoft dinner before E3. I was there, and he was actually quite coy
THE WEEK IN VIDEO GAM UBISOFT VS WII U
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