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The game industry tends to move so fast that a single day can usher in a world of difference. 365 of those days can change, well, just about everything. 2009 was a tumultuous year of new announcements, new games, new products, and sadly, the departure of several game studios that closed up shop. We've compiled a list of some of the biggest news stories of the year in one place for your perusal. What was the biggest news of the year?
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Motion sensing coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
1990s rave accessory or 2010's first motion-sensing system?
Two-and-a-half years after Nintendo first brought the Wii to the masses, Microsoft and Sony unveiled their own motion-sensing technology at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June. As rumored, the Xbox 360's system, code-named Project Natal, is camera-based with no controller required. "You are the controller," boasted Microsoft as it demonstrated the tech with a dodgeball-like modified version of Burnout and Milo from Fable-maker Lionhead Studios. The latter game has a player befriend and interact with a young boy who senses the player's emotions based on Natal's vocal- and facial-recognition technology.
Less than 24 hours after Microsoft trotted out Natal, Sony showed off its own technology, which had first been revealed in a patent in late 2008. The still-unnamed system will use the PlayStation Eye camera in conjunction with two controllers, each with a light-emitting diode on the end that the camera can track in real time. In a brief demo, Sony demonstrated how the controller could be used as players wield swords and shoot arrows in a fantasy action game. Unlike Natal, though, the PS3 system has a release window--spring 2010--meaning the next round of the console wars has almost begun.
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"Recession-proof" game industry sales sink
Game companies' earnings weren't exactly flying high in 2009.
Last year ended with analysts predicting that 2009 would be a rough time for the game industry. Few, however, could have imagined how rough. After posting record sales for 2008, the US game industry showed signs of life in January and February. However, March saw domestic sales of software, hardware, and accessories shrink 17 percent--the first of six straight months of double-digit declines, which reached as high as 31 percent. After briefly evening out in September--thanks to the release of Halo 3: ODST--game sales resumed their southward march, and even the record-setting release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 could not pull the industry out of its nosedive in November.
December's NPD Group report isn't due until mid-January, when the book on 2009 will be (mercifully) closed. However, even a gangbusters holiday season would come too late to the thousands of people who lost their jobs from the downturn. From console-makers Microsoft and Sony to third-party publishers, such as Sega and THQ, companies of all sizes eliminated jobs and closed studios. Particularly hard-hit was Electronic Arts, which began the year by cutting its workforce by 11 percent and ended the year by sending a further 17 percent of its workforce packing. As part of those cuts, EA all but shut down Pandemic Studios after having paid hundreds of millions of dollars to buy it almost two years ago.
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Wii slows, PlayStation 3 rises, Xbox 360 in third?
Why is this man smiling? Oh. That's a pretty good reason.
Since the current-generation console war became a three-way race in November 2006, the Wii has consistently outsold its competitors. And while the end of 2009 saw Nintendo's console still on top, it also saw sales fall precipitously from the year prior. During this past Thanksgiving week, 550,000 units of the console were sold, compared to 800,000 during the same period in 2008.
The all-important week--which includes "Black Friday," the busiest retail day of the year--also saw the PlayStation 3 sell 440,000 units. The figure capped a late-year surge for the console that began with the introduction of the 120GB $300 PlayStation 3 Slim in August. When you throw in an improved marketing campaign ("It only does everything") and a series of high-profile exclusives (Uncharted 2, Demon's Souls), the PS3 appears to finally be selling at the levels overconfident Sony executives thought it would sell at launch.
So where does that leave the Xbox 360? As the year came to a close, the first current-gen console to hit the market had fallen behind its competitors, coming in third in October and November. That situation could persist as the platform begins to show its age: The first major 360-console exclusive of 2010, Mass Effect 2, won't be able to fit on a single DVD--the format used by the 360. (It is also being released for the PC.) Whether Natal (see above) and Halo: Reach (due in the fourth quarter of 2010) can reinvigorate the console's sales remains to be seen.
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RIP Eidos and Midway
Alas, the epic that was to be This is Vega$ may now never see the light of day.
At the beginning of the current decade, Eidos Interactive and Midway Games were among the most recognizable game companies on the planet. The former was the publisher of the popular Tomb Raider series and the critically acclaimed franchises Deus Ex and Thief. The latter was one of the companies that helped put gaming on the map, having been behind such arcade hits as Defender and Mortal Kombat.
As the '00s come to a close, though, both Eidos and Midway have effectively ceased to exist. Once flush with Tomb Raider loot, the Britain-based Eidos was bought by SCi Entertainment in 2005, which promptly changed its own name to Eidos. Soon, though, the new company was also in financial trouble and began considering buyout offers from a variety of suitors. In the end, Japanese role-playing-publisher Square Enix won out, scooping up the publisher and promptly renaming it Square Enix Europe. And while the Eidos name will continue to be used by some developers, such as Eidos Montreal, the publisher is essentially no more.
Midway was not lucky enough to be subsumed by a larger organization. Following years of expensive misfires, such as BlackSite: Area 51 and Stranglehold, the company's effective owner, media mogul Sumner Redstone, dumped $30 million in shares for $100,000 in late 2008. In 2009, it was all downhill, with the company declaring bankruptcy in February when it was also delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. With cash running low and creditors calling in their debts, the company tried to stave off the inevitable by copublishing the new IP the Wheelman with Ubisoft. Unfortunately, the game's tepid reception at retail sealed Midway's fate, forcing its executive to sell its prized properties and Mortal Kombat studio to Warner Bros. for $49 million. THQ picked up Midway San Diego for $200,000, and the publisher's other offices--as well as its Chicago HQ--were shuttered by summer's end.
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OnLive and PSP Go: The dawn of the downloadable content-only era?
The future of gaming or just another doomed startup?
The growth of digital delivery means that gamers are purchasing more downloadable content than boxed games at retailers. This year, some major players placed some huge bets that many gamers wouldn't want physical versions of their games at all. The PSP Go--Sony's sleek redesign of its PSP portable--does away with the custom-made UMD drive format altogether, relying instead on direct purchases from the PlayStation Store. (Those purchases can be made on the PSP Go itself or via a PlayStation 3 or PC.)
OnLive is even more ambitious. Announced at the 2009 Game Developers Conference, the startup has the lofty goal of marrying gaming to cloud computing via high-speed Internet connections. Instead of buying an expensive graphics card, gamers will install a small application on virtually any PC because all the processing will be done on the company's server farms. The subscription-based service, which is currently in closed beta, will also be available via a Roku-like box that can be hooked up into any HDTV--a box that would only cost a fraction of any console's price.
Both the PSP Go and OnLive have been greeted with more than a little skepticism. The fact that Sony has no plans to let owners of UMD games get digital copies for their PSP Gos effectively alienates the platform's most ardent supporters. As for OnLive, its potential is being endorsed by such major third-party publishers as Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Atari, THQ, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. However, many industry watchers question how the service will compensate for the lag, while others wonder if gamers will buy games that would disappear if the startup's funding runs out.
Table of Contents
Winner Reveal Schedule
- Dec 21Special Achievement
- Dec 22Dubious Honors
- Dec 23Genre Awards
- Dec 24Platform Awards
- Dec 25Game of the Year
Readers' Choice winners are announced Jan. 27, 2010
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