2003 saw many sequels and prequels in video games, such as ''

Tony Hawk's Underground ''Tony Hawk's Underground'' is a 2003 skateboarding video game and the fifth entry in the ''Tony Hawk's'' series, following ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4''. It was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 ...

'', '' 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 ''Call of Duty'' is a first-person shooter military video game series and media franchise published by Activision, starting in 2003. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. Several spin-of ...

'', ''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 is a Japanese media franchise consisting of List of Pokémon video games, video games, Pokémon (TV series), animated series and List of Pokémon films, films, Pokémon Trading Card Game, a trading card game, and other related media. The fran ...

'' 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 is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

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 Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of 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 Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

out of beta. *October 1 – DreamWorks SKG and

Tecmo was a Japanese video game company founded in 1967. It had its headquarters in the Kudankita district of Tokyo. Its subsidiary, Tecmo Inc, was located in Torrance, California. Prior to 1986, Tecmo was formerly known as Tehkan. Tecmo is known for ...

announce a movie adaptation of the video game '' Fatal Frame'' has been fast-tracked with John Rogers and

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...

's involvement. *October 12–18 – The 2003 World Cyber Games are held. *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 Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

Take-Two Interactive Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993. The company owns three major Imprint (trade name), publishing labels, Rockstar Games, Zynga and 2K ...

Software, retailer

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

, and console-maker Sony Computer Entertainment America. *October 31 –

British Academy of Film and Television Arts The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

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 The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA Interactive Awards and British Academy Video Games Awards, BAFTA Games Awards were created in 2003 by splitting the original BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards into two separate ceremonie ...

for multimedia technologies; ceremonies to be held in February 2004. *November – Kazushige Nojima resigns from

Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, video game publisher and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing video game, role-playing game franchises, such as ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', and '' ...

. *December 2 – The inaugural Spike Video Game Awards are held. *First PlayStation Portable prototype shown by

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

. *

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

states that its next generation console would be fully compatible with the

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

Business

*Early 2003 – Compile goes defunct. *February 19 –

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

announces a deal to buy Connectix Corporation. *

buys TDK Mediactive, Inc. *May 7 – Infogrames Entertainment, SA rebrands all its subsidiaries under the

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...

brand. * Enix Corporation officially absorbs Square Co., Ltd., forming Square Enix Co., Ltd. *

CNN Money CNN Business (formerly CNN Money) is a financial news and information website, operated by CNN. The website was originally formed as a joint venture between CNN.com and Time Warner's '' Fortune'' and '' Money'' magazines. Since the spin-off of ...

reports that video games are a US$10 billion industry *April – Pan European Game Information (PEGI), a

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an video game content rating system, comes into use. *May –

The 3DO Company The 3DO Company was an American video game company based in Redwood City, California. It was founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins in a partnership with seven other companies to develop the 3DO standard of video gaming hardware ...

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 –

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 Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

continued in production. *September – Silicon Dreams Studio goes defunct. *December – Interplay closes its

Black Isle Studios Black Isle Studios is a division of the video game developer, developer and video game publisher, publisher Interplay Entertainment formed in 1996 that develops role-playing video games. It has published several games from other developers. Blac ...

division. *Late 2003 –

buys shares from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese toy and animation conglomerate Bandai making Nintendo one of Bandai's top 10 shareholders. *Late 2003 –

Data East , also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game, pinball and electronic engineering company. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, and released 150 video game titles. At one time, the company had annual sales of 20 billion yen in ...

goes defunct.

Hardware

Discontinued

*March 23 – Nintendo stops production of the original Game Boy and

Game Boy Color The (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console developed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. Compared to the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT scre ...

worldwide. *September 23 – Nintendo stops production of the

Family Computer The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on 15 July 1983 as the and was later released as the redesigned NES in several test markets in the U ...

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 console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

s in 2003 were: *

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

Handheld game systems

The dominant handheld systems in 2003 were: *

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

Additionally, two new handheld consoles were introduced in 2003, the

Game Boy Advance SP The Game Boy Advance SP (SP stands for "Special") is a 32-bit handheld game console made by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on February 14, 2003, and to international markets in March. This model is an upgraded version of the Game Boy Advance ...

(an enhanced GBA) and

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

's N-Gage.

Best-selling video games

Japan

United States

PAL regions

Games with notable critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

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

Critically acclaimed games

''Famitsu''

The following video game releases in 2002 entered ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' magazine's "Platinum Hall of Fame" and received Famitsu scores of at least 36 out of 40.

Critically panned games

Notable releases

References

{{History of video games Video games by year