The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) held in Los Angeles is one the biggest show for the video gaming industry. It’s generally the place of big announcements. This year was very exciting, all three majors announced the next-generation of consoles. Microsoft with its Xbox 360, Sony with the Playstation 3 and Nintento with its Revolution. Demos are quite impressive and the power of these systems are amazing.

When I was a game developer, I’ve been involved in a 3D game for the Dreamcast system. The Dreamcast was very good but nothing compared to these future beasts. That just makes me wonders how much money and people will be required to make the next blockbuster games and what companies could afford it? Producing a game for the PS2 already requires 150 people and 40 million dollars. With next-gen, these figures will just double.

Everybody agrees about the non-pleasant fact that only big companies will be able to make games in the future — Electronic Arts, UBI Soft or Capcom, just to name a few. That could be the death of small game studios and creativity. Even with current technology, small studios have difficulties to make games for PS2 or Xbox; they just can’t feed them. Gamers ask for the best, whatever the size of the team and the amount of money involved.

My point is, in order to survive, small game studios will have to turn their development to mobile devices. The market of the mobile industry has changed and has now a huge potential for gamers and game developers. Phones are powerful, can do 3D and are connected. It’s a very good platform to make online 3D games with an acceptable cost.

I expect a lot of competition to come in the next couple of years. Howver most game developers I know don’t yet believe in mobile gaming. That’s inevitable and that will be the only exit for those who can’t afford making games on next-gen consoles.