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Show The Signpost FEATURES' > Features Editor*: Roy Pratt 11 American video gaming rages By Aaron Taylor correspondent | The Signpost On a typical evening, Alexis Archuleta finds her boyfriend, Jim Baiiey, in a familiar spot, planted on the couch, controller in hand, engrossed in a new game on his Microsoft X-Box. When they first began dating, Bailey's fascination with video games caused some relationship strain. Although he played while she was at work or doing homework and needed privacy, she found he rarely played to the point of neglecting his responsibilities. With time, Archuleta found the relationship actually grew because of video games, instead of being hindered by them. "I figured if you can't beat him, join him," Archuletta said. "So we started playing together, and now he likes me even more cause what guy is lucky enough to have a girlfriend who plays video games?" Archuletta's boyfriend is not unusualinhisgamingobsession. Video games have recently experienced a massive surge in popularity with an estimated 145 million Americans playing. As the core demographic matures, games have surpassed in terms of revenue. Controversy stili surrounds this relatively new form of media. Video games, perhaps more than any other media, continue to come under criticism, especially in terms of mature content. Despite this, the industry shows no signs of slowing down. In 2003, the sale of consoles and portable games came to an all-time high of 5.8 billion, according to the NPD group, a research company in Port Washington, N.Y, Sony's Playstation 2 dominates the home console market. Sony has shipped 29.3 million units in North America aJone. Vying for second place are Microsoft's XBox and Nintendo's Game Cube with respectively 8.6 and 7.5 million units sold. However, with each X-Box sold, Microsoft ioses money, and retailers make no gain on hardware sales alone. The money is found in software, and there is plenty of it to be found. "Madden NFL 2004 says a lot about the state of the video game industry," according to Kim Peterson, Seattle Times technology reporter. "Madden" was last year's best selling game. The football simulation has nearly identical versions on all three consoles, totaling sales of over 4 million copies. Utah businesses also play a role in software development. The most prominent local company is Headgate Studios, located in Bountiful. For several years, Headgate primarily developed golf games for ail major consoles as well as PCs. Their most recent effort is Tiger Woods PGA Golf 2004, released in conjunction with industry giant Electronic Arts. The game is widely considered Old school Nintendo ready for a replay harder to beat, and you need talent. With the new games all you need is a lot of time to beat them." Thon is not alone; retailers have noticed a steady increase in sales Nearly twenty years ago the of old school games within the Nintendo Entertainment System past year. Graywhale CD Exchange was released in the United States, sells used Nintendo games, the providing cutting edge graphics majority of which sell for a few and advanced games never seen dollars, but some harder to find before in home based gaming games go for as much as $30. Graywhale employee and consoles. The NES transformed gaming from existing primarily WSU student Ben Meszaros in arcades and bowling alleys to offered an answer for the recent nearly every household across spike in popularity of old games. "Gaming is getting bigger, so America. With more than 60 million there is this competition to be the systems sold worldwide, it is ultimate gamer. Part of it is the hard to find someone who didn't nostalgia of having what you did play classic games like Super when you were a kid. Everything Mario Brothers, Excitebike, and that was cool when you were The Legend of Zelda growing up. younger is cool again," Meszaros To some, the popularity of said. "It's like watching an old these games did not die when movie that was cool when you newer, more advanced systems were a kid or collecting old music, came about. Weber State just so you can say you have it." The fact the original Universtiy student Mandi Thon Nintendo games have been has been playing games like Zelda, technologically left in the dust Gunsmoke, and Contra on her by the graphics and options of Nintendo since she was a child. contemporary games only adds "I have always played to the appeal. Nintendo; it's not boring just because the graphics are bad," See N i n t e n d o page 8 Thon said. "The older games are By Matt Handy asst. features editor | The Signpost Carlos Robles plays Soul Calibur, a popular fighting game at the Cyberstation arcade located in Newgate Mall. to be the best golf simulation available, and was nominated for numerous awards by game magazines and Web sites. Vance Cook, president and owner of Headgate, attributes the recent gaming growth to product improvement. "Quality is going up as production values increase" Cook said. Along with this massive growth, the video game industry has encountered its share of controversy, most notably surrounding the violent game content. JosephTaylor works fora Game Crazy location in Ogden. Taylor says the trend toward more adult titles is a natural progression of the boom that games experienced in the early 1980s. "Recently, a lot of gamers who started off when they were younger on the original Nintendo are getting older now so there is a lot more emphasis on mature games," Taylor said. 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