Taking aim at game consoles

On their annual pilgrimage to the video game mecca, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the 45,000 or so attendees likely will tap a smartphone or tablet along the way to play Angry Birds or other mobile games. But when the doors open for E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Tuesday, all eyes will be on the new big-screen, high-definition — and body-engaging — games for console video game systems such as Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. This industry showcase comes as the dominance of games played with a console system and TV is under assault by new mobile and social gaming. A third of Americans have a smartphone capable of playing addictive games such as Angry Birds, according to Nielsen. Nearly 20% play social-network games such as CityVille and FarmVille, NPD Group says. The rapid adoption rate of casual games now outpaces traditional console games, and U.S. spending is expected to exceed $3 billion this year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. With all these people playing Tiny Wings or the mobile app of the day, will stay-at-home console games be left in the dust? STORY: Kinect brings new games to Xbox BLOG: E3 preview: Seven key questions BLOG: A look at Sony's Next Generation Portable Not likely. For starters, console games still dominate, while mobile and social online games are a fringe of the $25 billion game industry. And this year, spending on console games is expected to grow an estimated 5% or more. Spending on all games — console, PC, mobile and social — already rivals the total spent on movies at the box office, on home video and online. At E3, the top hardware makers — Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony — as well as such publishers as Activision and Electronic Arts are expected to announce strategies to make their systems and games more versatile and blur the lines between traditional and new forms. "All those leading companies are very immersed in and excited by the growth we are seeing in the industry on other platforms," says Michael Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, which owns the E3 show.