CES 2008 Preview

A lot has changed since the first solid-state television was introduced at the inaugural Consumer Electronics Show held in New York City in 1967.

17,500 people attended the first CES - for an admission price of USD 10 - at a time when only 16 per cent of US households owned a colour television.

In 2007, CES attracted more than 140,000 attendees and featured some 2700 exhibitors.

History:

From 1978 until 1994, the show was held twice a year - in January (Las Vegas) and June (Chicago) - but more recently has been held once a year in Las Vegas. Quite coincidentally, the adult entertainment industry's annual trade show overlaps with the closing days of CES.

Notable consumer electronics products which have made their debut at CES include the VCR, laserdisc player, camcorder, CD player, DVD player, HDTV, and DVR.

Game systems such as home Pong, the Nintendo Entertainment System, CD-i, Virtual Boy, and the original Xbox were also first shown at CES, even though the US videogames industry established its own trade show - E3 - starting in 1995.

Gaming Track:

Far from the days when the gaming industry was the red-headed stepchild of CES, this year's show has a track specifically dedicated to gaming featuring sessions with unwieldy titles such as:

"Casual Gaming: The Next Great Platform in Gaming - Console, Broadband and Mobile," featuring Sierra Online president Ed Zobrist, RealNetworks vp Matt Turetzky, Wild Tangent CEO Alex St. John and Glu Mobile vp Justin Kubiak joining IBM, Intel and Qualcomm execs.

"Virtual Worlds and the Massively Multiplayer Gaming Explosion: the PC, the Console and Mobile," with Trion World Network CEO Dr. Lars Butler, Akamai product line director Kristofer Alexander, Stormfront's Don Daglow and Sony Online Entertainment vp David Christensen among others.

Exhibitors:

More than forty years ago, Sony, Toshiba, and Philips were exhibitors at the first CES - before the games industry even arose.

This year, the official CES web site lists Apex Digital, Commodore Gaming, Dell, IBM, Logitech, Microsoft, Nvidia, Red Lion Interactive and Sony as some of the major exhibitors related to the gaming industry.

A quick perusal through the list of 2680 exhibitors also finds companies with varying interests in the gaming industry such as Akamai, Creative Labs, Disney, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba.

Both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the HD DVD Promotion Group will also be exhibitors at CES, so expect to see some heated exchanges as the HD format "war" remains as yet unresolved.

Rumours:

As with most events of this kind, speculation in the build-up on what would be announced was rife.

Bill Gates, who has presented a pre-show keynote address for the past nine years, indicated that 2008 will be his last.

Rumours prior to the event have been swirling around this keynote, suggesting that Gates will make a big announcement related to the Xbox 360 - either a new SKU with an integrated HD DVD drive or licensing the Xbox 360 technology to allow other companies to create hybrid game/movie machines.

Another possibility is a Microsoft partnership with Netflix, allowing consumers to stream rented movies directly to their televisions. How this will be integrated with Microsoft's Xbox Live video download service is unknown.

Announcements:

Unlike the Microsoft rumours, Sony's plans have been made clear in advance. A leaked video and a press release posted on Sony's own site let the cat out of the bag regarding a planned announcement of Skype for the PSP. Sony has since confirmed the news ahead of the show.

Also ahead of the show, Microsoft announced that Disney-ABC Television Group and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios will be offering entertainment content to US Xbox 360 owners via the Xbox Live Marketplace Video Store.