Events

• January 20 - Wired's Vaporware Awards gives its first "Lifetime Achievement Award" to recurring winner Duke Nukem Forever.
• March 4 - Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosts 7th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; inducts Peter Molyneux into the AIAS Hall of Fame
• March 22-26 - Game Developers Conference hosts 4th annual Game Developers Choice Awards and Gama Network's 6th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF)
• November 5 - Nobuo Uematsu resigns from Square Enix and becomes a freelancer, starting his own business, called Smile Please.

Notable releases

• March 23 - FarCry (Crytek)
• August 3 - id Software releases Doom 3 after four years of development
• September 9 - Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen are released in the US with a free wireless adapter (the release in many US locations was 3 days later)
• September 14 - Fable is released amid much hype
• September 21 - Star Wars Battlefront (Pandemic Studios/LucasArts)
• October 29 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar North)
• November 9 - Microsoft releases Halo 2 and takes in $125 million USD in one of the biggest commercial entertainment opening days ever
• November 15 - Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (Retro Studios)
• November 16 - Valve Software releases Half-Life 2 after five years of development
• November 21 - Nintendo launches its DS handheld in the US
• November 23 - Blizzard Entertainment releases World of Warcraft in North America, Australia and New Zealand. The game sells over 240,000 copies in its first day, the highest ever total for a PC game.

Business

• January 12 - Ubisoft acquires Tiwak
• February - EA consolidates, rolls most of Maxis and all of Origin Systems into its Redwood Shores, California HQ
• April 6 - Midway Games acquires Surreal Software
• May - Sammy Corporation buys a controlling share in Sega Corporation at a cost of $1.1 billion creating the new company, "Sega Sammy Holdings Inc", one of the biggest gaming companies in the world.
• July - Square Enix restructures executive branches around the world.
• August 30 - Acclaim declares bankruptcy and closes its doors
• October 11 - Midway Games acquires Inevitable Entertainment and renames it Midway Studios Austin.
• November 30 - Midway Games acquires developer Paradox Development .
• December 13 - Electronic Arts purchases a 5-year exclusive agreement for the rights to the NFL, which includes NFL teams, stadiums and players for use in EA's football videogames.
• December 20 - Electronic Arts purchases 20% stake in Ubisoft. The purchase at the time was considered "hostile", by Ubisoft.

Trends

In 2004, the total U.S. sales of video game hardware, software and accessories was $9.9 billion compared with $10 billion in 2003. Total software sales rose 8 percent over the previous year to $6.2 billion. Additionally, sales of portable software titles exceeded $1 billion for the first time. Hardware sales were down 27 percent for the year due in part to shortages during the holiday season and price reductions from all systems.

Video game consoles

The dominant consoles in 2004 were:

• Microsoft Xbox
• Nintendo GameCube
• Sony PlayStation 2
  • Sony released a internal hard drive for the PlayStation 2 on March 23
  • The third major hardware revision of the PlayStation 2 (model number SCPH-70000) was released in Japan on November 1

Handheld game consoles

The dominant handheld consoles in 2004 were:

• N-Gage - In early 2005 the N-Gage falls off the console charts
• Nintendo DS - Released first in the United States on November 21
• Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP
• PlayStation Portable - Released in Japan on December 12

Video game sales

References