CES 2006 Announces Game Showcase, Stringer Keynote

The organizers of the 2006 International CES trade show, held from January 5th-8th in Las Vegas, Nevada, have announced an overview of the conference sessions to be held alongside the show. Alongside a host of other consumer electronics conference sessions and partner programs, the CES has announced a Digital Hollywood partner program, which may deal in part with convergence between games and film, and in particular, the CES Game Power Showcase and Forum, in which "leading gaming experts present the advanced new technologies forever altering the gaming industry." Specific speakers are yet to be confirmed. In addition, CES confirmed earlier this month that Sir Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony Corp is slated to deliver the opening keynote address at CES on Thursday, January 5th, 2006, at 9 a.m. The subject of Stringer's speech is not confirmed, but with the PlayStation 3 being a particular focus of Sony's strategy, some kind of announcement on more specific launch dates and pricing for the console cannot be ruled out. In addition, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Intel's Paul Otellini and Yahoo's Terry Semel will keynote CES in 2006. Despite Stringer's appearance, and the fact that CES is one of the largest trade shows for consumer electronics, it has had relatively little importance in the video game world of recent. Most game developers and publishers split away to form their own trade show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, in 1995, and the only major videogame-related news to come out of the CES in the last several years was Microsoft's announcement of the first Xbox console platform.