While there was plenty of gadgets and technology at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the convention has been sadly light on gaming compared to last year's event.
When Sony doesn't even mention the PlayStation 3 once during its press conference and mega-publisher Activision has one of the smallest booths on the show floor, then it's time to face the facts: this CES had very little to offer from the major players in the gaming industry. Of course, there were a ton of peripherals, game controllers, gaming chairs, and other add-ons and accessories at this year's CES, which is par for the course. But when it came to seeing and previewing actual games and getting big announcements for what's to come in 2008, CES was sorely lacking.
CES 2007 saw a number of high profile games, including Crysis, on the show floor, and with Vista's release around the corner, Microsoft was talking up PC gaming. There were also plenty of Xbox 360 games to see. And for crying out loud, Sony even saw fit to discuss the PS3 briefly at its press conference last year.
But this year, no such luck. Yes, Microsoft had a series of titles on display for its Games for Windows booth. Among them were Space Siege, Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Frontlines: Fuel of War. But there wasn't much else besides that in the way of new PC gaming prospects.
Frontlines: Fuel of War was one of the few PC games on the show floor of CES 2008.
And while Microsoft was showing off forthcoming Xbox 360 titles like Devil May Cry 4 in its press tent, there wasn't an Xbox 360 to be seen on the show floor (which was a stark contrast to last year's CES). In addition, the only major gaming announcement to come out of Microsoft was that Xbox Live Marketplace Video Store was adding movies and television shows from MGM, Disney and ABC.
Sony did have a few PS3s on the show floor and, thankfully, gave gamers a demo version of the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Sony was also showing off its LittleBigPlanet title, which has been generating buzz ever since it was first unveiled at the 2007 Game Developer Conference. But overall, PS3 games were still hard to find, and it seemed like Sony spent more time talking about the PS3 as a Blu-ray player than a next-generation video game console.
As usual, Nintendo was a no-show. But there were plenty of third-party companies showing off accessories for the Wii, and more mice, keyboards, and gamepads on the show floor than booth babes (okay, maybe not, but you get the point). Plus, a few companies such as Genius even had new joysticks at CES this year.
However, there just wasn't all that much new at the show this year in terms of games. Better luck next year.
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