Events

• February 27 - Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Yu Suzuki of SEGA to the AIAS Hall of Fame
• March 6-9 - Game Developers Conference hosts 3rd annual Game Developers Choice Awards and Gama Network 's 5th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF)
• May 14-16 - 9th annual E³ (Electronic Entertainment Expo) held at Los Angeles Convention Center; 6th annual Game Critics Awards for the Best of E³
• July 16 - Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) renamed as Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
• October 1 - DreamWorks SKG and Tecmo announce a movie adaptation of the video game Fatal Frame has been fast-tracked with John Rogers and Steven Spielberg involvement
• October 20 - Families of Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede, two young adults shot by teens William and Josh Buckner (who in statements to investigators claimed their actions were inspired by Grand Theft Auto 3), file a USD$246 million lawsuit against developer Rockstar Games, publisher Take Two Interactive Software, retailer Wal-Mart, and console-maker Sony Computer Entertainment America.
• October 31 - BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) announces nominations for the 1st annual BAFTA Games Awards for video game publication and (on November 24) the 6th annual BAFTA Interactive Awards for multimedia technologies; ceremony to be held in February 2004
• November - Kazushige Nojima resigns from Square Enix

Hardware

• Early 2003 - Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance SP, an enhanced version of its popular Game Boy Advance handheld game console
• Nokia releases the hybrid N-Gage handheld console / mobile phone
• Nintendo's Famicom (NES) and Super Famicom (SNES) are officially axed from production worldwide.

Business

• February 19 - Microsoft announces a deal to buy Connectix Corp.
• Take Two Interactive buys TDK Mediactive, Inc.
• Infogrames, Inc., a subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment SA renames itself Atari
• Square Co. and Enix Corporation merge, forming Square Enix Co., Ltd.
• CNN/Money reports that video games are a USD$10 billion dollar industry
• May - The 3DO Company announces bankruptcy
• December - Interplay closes its Black Isle Studios division
• Late 2003 - Nintendo buys shares from Japanese toy and animation conglomerate Bandai making Nintendo one of Bandai's top 10 shareholders
• Late 2003 - GameSpot reports a rebuttal regarding two statements from Nintendo and Bandai execs denying a potential Nintendo takeover of Bandai; according to the story, Nintendo is working with a Japanese banking firm that has Bandai and Nintendo as their corporate clients to try to take over Bandai
• Late 2003 - Data East goes defunct.

Trends

Computer games continue to lose ground to console video games with a US sales drop of 14% in 2003. (NPD) Total 2003 entertainment software sales in the United States grew slightly to $7 billion USD; console sales increased to $5.8 billion and computer games accounted for the remaining $1.2 billion. (ESA)

Video game consoles

Two new handheld consoles were introduced in 2003: The Game Boy Advance SP (an enhanced GBA) and Nokia's N-Gage.

The dominant consoles in 2003 were:

• Sony's PlayStation 2
• Nintendo's GameCube
• Microsoft's Xbox
• Nintendo's Game Boy Advance

Top-selling games

The top 10 selling console video games in 2003 in the United States ranked by units sold, according to NPD, were: