2003 has seen many sequels and prequels in video games and several new titles such as Beyond Good & Evil, Call of Duty, PlanetSide, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and True Crime: Streets of LA.
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 the first stable version of Steam, which would replace the WON system that has been used for Counter-Strike and other Valve games a year later.
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.
February 14 — Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance SP, an enhanced version of its popular Game Boy Advance handheld game console.
September — Nintendo's Famicom (NES) and Super Famicom (SNES) are officially axed from production worldwide.
Nokia releases the hybrid N-Gage handheld console / mobile phone.
First PlayStation Portable prototype shown by Sony.
Nintendo states that its next generation console will be fully compatible with the GameCube.
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 — 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 — GameSpot reports a rebuttal regarding two statements from Nintendo and Bandai execs denying a potential Nintendo takeover of Bandai; according to the story, Nintendo is working with a Japanese banking firm that has Bandai and Nintendo as their corporate clients to try to take over Bandai.
Late 2003 — Data East goes defunct.
Computer games continue to lose ground to console video games with a US sales drop of 14% in 2003. (NPD) Total 2003 entertainment software sales in the United States grew slightly to $7 billion USD; console sales increased to $5.8 billion and computer games accounted for the remaining $1.2 billion. ESA (pdf)
The dominant video game consoles in 2003 were:
Sony's PlayStation 2
Nintendo's GameCube
Microsoft's Xbox
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.
The top 10 selling console video games in 2003 in the United States ranked by units sold, according to NPD, were:
