While the best video games feature virtual battles for supremacy, gamers and observers alike bore witness in 2007 to a real battle for hegemony: that between three giants in the home console war?Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 – duking it out to sit atop the podium of market shares.

2007 produced innovative games that intertwined the traditional with music, social play and online interaction, relatively untapped territories for the gaming world. Speaking to this year’s success and approval among increasingly diverse audiences, according to NPD Group, an industry-tracking firm, through November 2007 Canadians spent over $1.1-billion on game software, hardware and accessories, with sales up 65% compared to 2006?and the December holiday rush yet to be tallied.

Though gaming hotspots Montreal and Vancouver have been making great games for quite some time, by adding more studios and projects this year, Canada firmly established itself in the top tier of game producers. From Mass Effect, a science fiction epic from Alberta’s BioWare Corp. to Ubisoft Montreal’s Assassin’s Creed, Canadian products are featured on many gamers’ 2007 top-10 lists. Hopefully such a year of growth can be built-upon to yield even more success in 2008.






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