Industry Heads Discuss Growth and the Future of Games

Yesterday at the MI6 Conference held in downtown San Francisco, an annual panel was formed to discuss the future and direction of the videogame industry.

It's called the Gaming 20/20 Panel and this year included Michael Pachter, Managing Director of Research at Wedbush Morgan Securities as moderator; John Pleasants, COO of Electronic Arts; Christoph Hartmann, President of 2K; Kai Huang, Co-Founder of Red Octane; Darrell Rodriguez, President of LucasArts; and JJ Richards, GM Massive.

While nothing truly newsworthy came out of the discussion, I jotted down some of the more interesting exchanges and quips that I heard during the hour and a half talk.

-The software attach rate on Wii was the highest last year of the three major consoles.

-2K's success with Carnival Games: Almost 3 million copies sold. The PC budget market consumer is very similar to Wii consumer according to Christoph Hartmann.

-Guitar Hero sells better on Wii than any other platform.

-No panel member knows how to perfectly market and build a game to attract the Wii user.

-John Pleasants said he wasn't sure there was going to be another console cycle. Michael Pachter responded by saying, "When I told my friends at Microsoft that I didn't think there was going to be another console cycle they asked me, 'What are you smoking?'"

-JJ Richards says that the PS3 has been slightly de-emphasized when speaking about Massive's overall strategy.

-Christoph Hartmann thinks that PS3 sales will start to pick up in Europe, similarly to the trend that was set with the PS2. Says 2K is very committed to PS3.

-Kai Huang echoed the notion that the PS3 is still a viable and strong console with a bright future.

-Christoph Hartmann asked John Pleasants of EA, "Who has the best basketball game? Who has the best basketball game?" Alluding to the fact that NBA 2K9 was far superior to NBA Live 09.

-Michael Pacter thinks that the music genre is not a fad saying, "People think gamers are going to get tired of playing music games, but that's like saying they're going to get tired of putting songs on their iPod."

-John Pleasants says people are working on "next-generation music experiences." Also saying that the music game space will be around for at least the next ten years.

-Darrell Rodriguez says, "We need to be careful about over-accessorization" when talking about music game peripherals.

-The conversation was completely derailed at one point when Michael Pachter went off on a tangent that included him talking about the penises that were created in Spore's Creature Creator.

-When asked about onLive JJ Richards said, "Can't wait to actually see it work in my house." Darrell Rodriguez says that it is the future of gaming but just about every panelist agreed that it is a distant future.

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