2005 in video games
2005 saw the release of many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Mario Kart DS, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Need for Speed: Most Wanted, alongside several prominent new releases including F.E.A.R., Forza Motorsport, God of War, Guitar Hero, Shadow of the Colossus, and Sniper Elite.
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Events
| Month | Date(s) | Event |
|---|---|---|
| March | 6 | The television show 60 Minutes tackles issues within video game controversy. This segment of 60 Minutes has been criticized by video game players for encouraging video game censorship.[1] |
| 7–11 | Game Developers Conference
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| May | 11 | The global version of Maplestory is launched. |
| 12 | The Xbox 360 was officially announced on MTV in a special hosted by Elijah Wood. | |
| 16 | The PlayStation 3 was unveiled by Sony during a pre-E3 press conference, at 21:25 GMT. At the same time, the press release[2] was released through the Japanese PlayStation website. | |
| 18–20 | The 11th annual E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) takes place in Los Angeles, California. Four hundred exhibiting companies and 70,000 industry professionals representing 79 countries attended. Next-generation systems from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft were unveiled.[3] | |
| Unknown | In defense of video games being beneficial for cognitive development, Steven Berlin Johnson published his book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter. | |
| May | 1 | IBM held the first virtual video game on-demand conference in which game developers and manufacturers were able to come together to discuss issues with online games, including management and distribution. |
| July | 18–22 | IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) hosts 6th annual Executive Summit. |
| September | 16–18 | Tokyo Game Show takes place at Makuhari Messe. One hundred-thirty companies are expected to show with 1,429 booths.
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| November | 14 | Nintendo's first mainstream online service (Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection) is launched with Mario Kart DS and Tony Hawk's American Sk8land. |
| 22 | Microsoft releases the Xbox 360 as a successor to the original Xbox. | |
| December | 16 | The Family Entertainment Protection Act (FEPA) is introduced by Senators Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh. The bill calls for a federal mandate enforcement of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings system for video games in order to protect children from inappropriate content. |
Business
| Month | Date(s) | Event |
|---|---|---|
| January | 6 | French publisher Titus Software, is declared bankrupt after being in receivership since October 2004. All assets are sold to Interplay Entertainment |
| 12 | Video game companies and players worldwide donate money to the UNICEF South Asian Tsunami Relief Fund for rescue and reconstruction efforts upon the South Asian tsunami disaster. Electronic Arts pledges to donate $250,000 to the UNICEF South Asian Tsunami Relief Fund. CCP, the publisher of EVE Online, establishes a fund that video game players can contribute to. | |
| 17 | Electronic Arts and ESPN announced a 15-year partnership that would give EA access to ESPN's broadcast, print and online content. | |
| 20 | Activision announced that it acquired developer Vicarious Visions known best as a developer of Game Boy games as well as for their middleware program, Alchemy. | |
| 24 | Major League Baseball and Take-Two Interactive sign exclusive seven-year deal that gives Take-Two Interactive the rights among third-party publishers to develop games based on the MLB license. | |
| 25 | Take-Two Interactive announced that it acquired developer Visual Concepts and their wholly owned subsidiary Kush Games from Sega for $24 million. Additionally, Take-Two Interactive also announced the start of another publishing label named 2K Games. | |
| February | Unknown | Troika Games defunct after being unable to get contracts for development work. |
| March | 2 | The Entertainment Software Rating Board or ESRB added the rating of "E10+" to its ratings system. E10+ was created in order to divide E ratings for younger and older children. |
| 7 | Sammy Studios breaks away from Sega Sammy Holdings and renames itself High Moon Studios. | |
| 9 | Sega acquires Creative Assembly. | |
| 23 | Vivendi Universal Games buys developer Radical Entertainment. Radical is best known for developing The Simpsons: Hit & Run. | |
| April | 2 | Keiji Inafune, the creator of Mega Man series, was promoted from corporate officer to senior corporate officer. |
| May | Unknown | Buena Vista Games announces that it had bought the rights to the Turok video game franchise and will be publishing new games. The rights were originally held by bankrupt Acclaim Entertainment. |
| July | 20 | After coming under heavy fire from many politicians, most notably Hillary Clinton, the Entertainment Software Rating Board re-rated Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Adults Only 18+ (AO) due to the sexually explicit minigame mod "Hot Coffee". Additionally, Rockstar Games ceased production of the game and has announced plans to offer a new version of the game that can't be affected by the mod, and plans to patch the PC version. |
| 27 | Sony Computer Entertainment released the first major update in Japan for their video game handheld, the PlayStation Portable. Version 2.00 includes a web browser, A-B repeat mode, Wi-Fi picture sending, as well as additional audio & video support among other features. | |
| August | 8 | Abandon Mobile announces its formation through a partnership between Abandon Entertainment, Inc. and GF Capital Management and Advisors, LLC. |
| 22 | Square Enix acquires Taito Corporation. That leads to Square Enix entering the arcade sector of the electronic game industry. | |
| September | 29 | Namco merges with Bandai to form Bandai Namco Holdings, the third-largest video game entity in Japan. |
| November | 7 | Take-Two Interactive acquires Firaxis Games. |
| 30 | Sony Computer Entertainment announce that PlayStation 2 breaks a record: the fastest console to reach cumulative shipment of 100 million units, beating the previous record holder, the PlayStation, by three years and nine months. The PS platform has until the present year the biggest sales of all times of video games history, with 120 million consoles shipped. | |
| Unknown | Pandemic Studios and BioWare partner to create BioWare/Pandemic Studios. | |
| December | 12 | Working Designs closes down. |
Notable releases
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Trends
In 2005, the total U.S. sales of video game hardware, software and accessories rose 6% over 2004 to $10.5 billion USD ($9.9 billion, 2004) breaking 2002's $10.3 billion record for the industry.
The increase is largely due to the portable game market which counterbalanced sluggish console game sales. Delays, hardware shortages, and anticipation of next-generation video game consoles have been cited as reasoning for slow sales for both console games and console hardware. Console games and hardware dropped by 12% and 3% respectively.
The portable market of the video game industry rose to $1.4 billion, the second time sales broke the $1 billion mark in the industry's history. Mostly due to the release of the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable in North America, sales for portable hardware rose 96% over 2004. Although the release of the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP aided in spurring growth in the portable market, the Game Boy Advance still represented 62% total portable software units sold and 52% of total portable software dollar sales.[4]
Computer games continued its trend and declined by 14%, dropping from $1.1 billion in 2004 to $953 million. Although sales did decrease, NPD claims that playing games on the PC is actually increasing through a variety of different mediums including online websites and MMO subscriptions.[5]
Video game systems
- PlayStation 2
- Xbox
- Nintendo GameCube
- Xbox 360
Additionally, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii were officially unveiled during or just prior to E3; however, only the Xbox 360 was released in 2005. The Xbox 360 was released in North America on November 22, Europe on December 2, and Japan on December 10.
Handheld game systems
Additionally, the Game Boy Micro was unveiled and was released in the fall of 2005.
Xbox 360 system and controller
The Game Boy Micro
Video game sales
| Rank | Title | Platform | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mario Kart DS | Nintendo DS | Nintendo |
| 2 | Pokémon Emerald | GBA | Nintendo |
| 3 | Super Mario Strikers | GameCube | Nintendo |
| 4 | Madden NFL 06 | Xbox | EA Sports |
| 5 | NCAA Football 06 | PS2 | EA Sports |
| 6 | Star Wars: Battlefront II | PS2 | LucasArts |
| 7 | MVP Baseball 2005 | PS2 | EA Sports |
| 8 | Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith | PS2 | LucasArts |
| 9 | NBA Live 06 | PS2 | EA Sports |
| 10 | Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time | DS | Nintendo |
Computer game sales
| Rank | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | World of Warcraft | Blizzard Entertainment |
| 2 | The Sims 2: University | Electronic Arts |
| 3 | The Sims 2 | Electronic Arts |
| 4 | Guild Wars | NCsoft |
| 5 | RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 | Atari |
| 6 | Battlefield 2 | Electronic Arts |
| 7 | The Sims 2: Nightlife | Electronic Arts |
| 8 | Age of Empires III | Microsoft |
| 9 | The Sims Deluxe | Electronic Arts |
| 10 | Call of Duty 2 | Activision |
Critically acclaimed titles
Metacritic (MC) and GameRankings (GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews.
References
- Gainor, Dan (March 9, 2005). "'60 Minutes' Describes Video Game as a Killer Application". businessandmedia.org. Archived from the original on July 10, 2010. Retrieved November 23, 2009.
- "Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. to launch its Next Generation Computer Entertainment System in Spring 2006" (PDF) (Press release). Sony. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 25, 2005. Retrieved May 20, 2005.
- "Attendance and Stats". IGN. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
- "NPD Group's Annual 2005 U.S. Video Game Industry Retail Sales". Archived from the original on February 4, 2006. Retrieved January 17, 2006.
- "NPD Group's Annual 2005 U.S. PC Game Retail Sales". Archived from the original on February 4, 2006. Retrieved January 17, 2006.
- "Best Video Games for 2005". Metacritic. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
- "Highest-Ranking Games of 2005 (with at least 5 reviews)". GameRankings. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
- "Best Video Games for 2005". Metacritic. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
- "Highest-Ranking Games of 2006 (with at least 10 reviews)". GameRankings. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
- "World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
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