Ben Bajarin, Creative Strategies:

Opportunities for other emerging niche genres: The opportunity is to develop fresh and innovative ways to play video games. Guitar Hero and Rock Band are examples of new types of game play experience.

Gaming for so long has been driven by the usual RPG, FPS, sports, etc. categories. When the development community starts to think about new ways gaming can appeal to all kinds of people in different walks of the life, the results will be positive.

What will be the next Guitar Hero-style phenomenon: I'm particularly looking at "social gaming." A number of hardware and software vendors have used this term with me, and I think it is very interesting. Since the Wii came out, I have called it the "board game for a new generation" -- using the metaphor of a board game that many families still [play] but did more often before TV.

This is where we are at today: playing games as a group is still desirable, but what a logical place for this to happen now on a game console. Another good example is Scene It? for the Xbox 360. I took Scene It? to our family Thanksgiving, and everyone loved it. In my opinion, Scene It? on the 360 was way more fun and immersive than the DVD [version of the] game.

I think expanding the category for people to get more out of their consoles and begin having fun together as a group is where some truly new innovations will come from.

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