CEA to Take Over Former E3 Duties?

The Consumer Electronics Association, which manages the megalithic annual Consumer Electronics Show trade event in Las Vegas, sent out an announcement yesterday that it is currently looking into the possibility of launching its own West Coast video game industry trade show now that the Entertainment Software Association has scaled down its own E3 event. CES itself, which is generally attended by a number of major video game publishers but is not heavily geared towards the game industry, dwarfs E3 in terms of attendance, even as its stewards seem to be more effective at restricting access to industry professionals and press. This year's CES event saw over 150,000 attendees, more than twice E3's 60,000; by contrast, the newly announced E3 Media Festival set to occur in July 2007 is planned to have an attendance of about 5,000. It is unknown what scale the CEA hopes to achieve with its potential new event. Though it is easy to see why another organization would want to have a stake in the tens of millions of dollars poured into large video game trade shows now that the biggest player in that scene has pulled out, it is important to note that the reason for E3's significant shrinkage is due to major exhibitors actively opposed to such an event. However, there are many questions as to whether smaller publishers will be provided adequate display opportunities at the E3 Media Festival, with plans for the event still unclear. To that end, one of the angles the CEA hopes to tackle with its proposed event is catering to these smaller companies. "Since ESA decided to eliminate the E3 event in its known format, we have been deluged with inquiries on whether we could fill the tradeshow needs of smaller video entertainment companies," said CEA CEO Gary Shapiro. Publishers such as Majesco and NCsoft, along with hardware manufacturer Auravision, have voiced their support for the forming of the advisory committee that will discuss the event. The committee is considering locations in CES hometown Las Vegas as well as Los Angeles, where E3 also resides.