2003 In Video Gaming

Events

Hardware

Business

  • February 19 - Microsoft announces a deal to buy Connectix Corp.
  • Take Two Interactive buys TDK Mediactive, Inc.
  • Infogrames, Inc., a subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment SA renames itself Atari
  • Square Co. and Enix Corporation merge, forming Square Enix Co., Ltd.
  • CNN/Money reports that video games are a USD$10 billion dollar industry
  • May - The 3DO Company announces bankruptcy
  • December - Interplay closes its Black Isle Studios division
  • Late 2003 - Nintendo buys shares from Japanese toy and animation conglomerate Bandai making Nintendo one of Bandai's top 10 shareholders
  • Late 2003 - GameSpot reports a rebuttal regarding two statements from Nintendo and Bandai execs denying a potential Nintendo takeover of Bandai; according to the story, Nintendo is working with a Japanese banking firm that has Bandai and Nintendo as their corporate clients to try to take over Bandai
  • Late 2003 - Data East goes defunct.

Trends

Computer games continue to lose ground to console video games with a US sales drop of 14% in 2003. (NPD) Total 2003 entertainment software sales in the United States grew slightly to $7 billion USD; console sales increased to $5.8 billion and computer games accounted for the remaining $1.2 billion. (ESA)

Video game consoles

Two new handheld consoles were introduced in 2003: The Game Boy Advance SP (an enhanced GBA) and Nokia's N-Gage. The dominant consoles in 2003 were:

Top-selling games

The top 10 selling console video games in 2003 in the United States ranked by units sold, according to NPD, were: Top Grossing Video Games of 2003>
ank width="225"|Title Platform width="150"|Publisher
Madden NFL 2004 PS2 Electronic Arts
Pokmon Ruby GBA Nintendo
Pokmon Sapphire GBA Nintendo
PS2 Electronic Arts
GameCube Nintendo
PS2 Rockstar Games
GameCube Nintendo
Tony Hawk's Underground PS2 Activision
Enter the Matrix PS2 Atari
0 PS2 Electronic Arts
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