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2003 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Tony Hawk's Underground, Madden NFL 2004, NBA Live 2004, ESPN NBA Basketball, Saya no Uta: The Song of Saya, Final Fantasy X-2, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Sonic Heroes, Postal 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, and WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain. New intellectual properties included Beyond Good & Evil, Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand, Call of Duty, Disgaea, Drakengard, Manhunt, PlanetSide, TrackMania, True Crime: Streets of LA, and Viewtiful Joe. The year's best-selling video game worldwide was Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, the fifth time a Pokémon games was the annual worldwide top-seller (since 1998).

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).
• April 1 – Enix Corporation and Square Co., Ltd. officially merge, forming Square Enix Co., Ltd.
• 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 – IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association) hosts 4th annual Executive Summit.
• July 16 – Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) renamed as Entertainment Software Association (ESA).
• September 12 – Valve releases their game distribution software Steam out of beta.
• 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 III), file a US$246 million lawsuit against developer Rockstar Games, publisher Take-Two Interactive Software, retailer Walmart, and console-maker Sony Computer Entertainment America.
• October 31 – British Academy of Film and Television Arts announces that nominations for the 6th annual BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards will instead be split between the 1st annual BAFTA Games Awards for video game publications and (on November 24) the BAFTA Interactive Awards for multimedia technologies; ceremonies to be held in February 2004.
• November – Kazushige Nojima resigns from Square Enix.
• First PlayStation Portable prototype shown by Sony.
• Nintendo states that its next generation console would be fully compatible with the GameCube.

Business

• Early 2003 – Compile goes defunct.
• February 19 – Microsoft announces a deal to buy Connectix Corporation.
• Take-Two Interactive buys TDK Mediactive, Inc.
• May 7 – Infogrames Entertainment, SA rebrands all its subsidiaries under the Atari brand.
• Enix Corporation officially absorbs Square Co., Ltd., forming Square Enix Co., Ltd.
• CNN Money reports that video games are a US$10 billion industry
• April – Pan European Game Information (PEGI), a European video game content rating system, comes into use.
• May – The 3DO Company announces bankruptcy and closes down its New World Computing subsidiary.
• June 12 – Obsidian Entertainment founded.
• August 1 – Virgin Interactive is renamed to Avalon Interactive by its owner Titus Software.
• August – Microsoft announced ATI as the developer of the GPU for their next generation console, Project Xenon. Their previous contract with Nvidia was finished but the GPU of the Xbox continued in production.
• September – Silicon Dreams Studio goes defunct.
• 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 – Data East goes defunct.

Hardware

Discontinued

• March 23 – Nintendo stops production of the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color worldwide.
• September 23 – Nintendo stops production of the Family Computer and Super Famicom in Japan.

Trends

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

Video game consoles

The dominant video game consoles in 2003 were:

• Sony's PlayStation 2
• Nintendo's GameCube
• Microsoft's Xbox
• Sony's PlayStation

Handheld game systems

The dominant handheld systems in 2003 were:

• Nintendo's Game Boy Advance

Additionally, two new handheld consoles were introduced in 2003, the Game Boy Advance SP (an enhanced GBA) and Nokia's N-Gage.

Best-selling video games

Japan

United States

PAL regions

Games with notable critical reception

Metacritic (MC) and GameRankings (GR) are aggregators of video game journalism reviews.

Critically acclaimed games

Famitsu

The following video game releases in 2002 entered Famitsu magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" and received Famitsu scores of at least 36 out of 40.

Critically panned games

Notable releases

See also

• 2003 in games

References

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9. ^ Chad Phelps, January 14, 2004 Nintendo Shows Strong Sales Growth in 2003 Itprotoday.com
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13. ^ "Annual 2003 Video Game Best-Selling Titles and Console Accessories". NPD World. The NPD Group. Archived from the original on April 11, 2004. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
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15. "2003 Top 300". Game Data Library. Famitsu. Retrieved November 5, 2021.
16. ^ Andrew, Burnes (June 3, 2003), "Enter The Matrix Sells 1 Million In US, Becomes Biggest Selling Atari Game Ever", IGN, retrieved November 5, 2021
17. ^ Hebblethwaite, Luke (April 9, 2020). "UK Top Selling Games 2003". Ukie. The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
18. ^ Yeung, Karlie (January 8, 2004). "2003 UK Game Sales Highest Ever". Nintendo World Report. Retrieved November 7, 2021.
19. ^ "Arts and Media (Top-Selling Video Games, 2003)". The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005. New York: World Almanac Books, St. Martin's Press. 2005. pp. 300–301 (300). ISBN 978-0-88687-939-6 – via Internet Archive.
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21. "Big year for computer game sales". BBC News. January 11, 2004. Retrieved November 9, 2021.
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24. "Best Video Games for 2003". Metacritic. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
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26. ^ "Best Video Games for 2004". Metacritic. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
27. ^ "Highest-Ranking Games of 2004 (with at least 5 reviews)". GameRankings. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
28. "Worst Video Games for 2003". Metacritic. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
29. "Lowest-Ranking Games of 2003 (with at least 5 reviews)". GameRankings. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
30. "Gods and Generals for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
31. "Ultimate Demolition Derby for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
32. "Interstellar Trader 2 for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
33. "RoboCop for Xbox". GameRankings. Retrieved August 12, 2019.
34. Yin-Poole, Wesley (November 29, 2017). "The curse of Space Station 13". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved August 30, 2024.
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History of video games

v t e Chronology of video games Early history 1947–1972 1970s 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980s 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990s 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000s 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010s 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020s 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Near future v t e Video game history by platform By platform Early mainframe games History of arcade video games Golden age Timeline History of video game consoles Crash of 1983 Console war History of mobile games By console generation First (1972–1980) Second (1976–1992) Third (1983–2003) Fourth (1987–2003) Fifth (1993–2005) Sixth (1998–2013) Seventh (2005–2017) Eighth (2012–) Ninth (2020–) v t e Video game genres List of video game genres Action Platformer Endless runner Platform fighter Shooter Arena First-person Hero Light gun Shoot 'em up Bullet hell Rail Twin-stick Tactical Third-person Survival Battle royale Survival horror Other Beat 'em up Hack and slash Fighting Platform fighter Maze Pac-Man clone Snake Stealth Action-adventure Grand Theft Auto clone Metroidvania Adventure Escape room Graphic adventure Interactive fiction Interactive film Visual novel Walking sim Digital tabletop Deck-building Roguelike deck-building Digital collectible card Puzzle Hidden object Sokoban Tile-matching Role-playing Action role-playing Looter shooter Soulslike Dungeon crawl MMORPG Monster-taming Roguelike Roguelike deck-building Tactical role-playing Simulation Life Dating Farming God Social Virtual pet CMS Business City-building Government Sports Fishing Racing Kart racing Sim racing Vehicle Flight simulation Combat Lunar Lander Space Submarine simulator Train simulator Vehicular combat Other Falling-sand Immersive sim Strategy 4X Auto battler MOBA Real-time strategy Time management Real-time tactics Tactical role-playing Tower defense Turn-based strategy Turn-based tactics Artillery Wargame Grand strategy Other genres Cozy Fitness Horror Survival horror Incremental Music Rhythm Non-game Party Photography Programming Typing Related concepts Themes Advergame Bishōjo Christian Comedy Educational Girls Licensed Otome Sexual Eroge Nonviolent Personalized Sci-fi Serious Art Climate change News Player modes Multiplayer Co-op MMO PVP Single-player Production AAA Indie Doujin soft Fan game Design Casual Hypercasual Emergent gameplay FMV Gacha Kaizo Masocore Nonlinear gameplay Open world Sandbox Side-scrolling Twitch gameplay Vertically scrolling Other Minigame Toys-to-life Video game clone Video game modding Video game remake v t e Video games by country Africa Ghana Kenya Nigeria South Africa Americas Latin America Brazil Colombia Canada United States Asia Bangladesh China India Indonesia Iran Japan South Korea Malaysia Philippines Russia Thailand Turkey Europe Belgium Czech Republic Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Lithuania Netherlands Norway Poland Russia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Oceania Australia New Zealand

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