Dan Pearson Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Share this article Share

A new survey commissioned by IHS in partnership with GamesIndustry.biz parent company Gamer Network has shown that E3 gave a huge boost to the number of people interested in buying a Wii U, with purchasing intent growing by 50 per cent over the course of the event.

Around one thousand core gamers were surveyed on various purchase intentions before and after the LA show, revealing that, whilst Nintendo's platform started out with the lowest number of people looking at buying it, it saw the biggest benefit from the show's exposure. 20 per cent of respondents now intend to buy the machine, equal to those who are looking at an Xbox One, which saw a seven per cent increase in popularity.

Sony's PS4, a clear leader going in to E3, lost ground to its competitors, sinking below 30 per cent of respondents.

In terms of anticipated games, consumers are champing at the bit for 2015's third-party releases, with Warner's Arkham Knight leading the charge with an incredible 60 per cent of those surveyed intending to buy the game for at least one platform. Gamers are slightly less excited for 2014's titles, but Activision's Destiny is the narrow leader for this year, edging out AC: Unity and GTA V with just under 50 per cent. Both Battlefield Hardline and CoD: Advanced Warfare are lagging behind slightly.

As might be expected, purchasing intent is higher amongst first-party exclusives for current platform owners. On PS4, Uncharted 4 was the most popular game both before and after E3 with 76 per cent of PS4 owners expected to buy it. On Xbox One, it's Halo which pays the piper, garnering support from 77 per cent of One owners. Over on the Wii U and amazing 89 per cent of owners expect to buy the new Zelda game when it's released. None of these platform-exclusive heavy hitters will land until 2015 at the earliest, which IHS predicts will increase pre-Christmas reliance on multi-platform games for Microsoft, Sony and, to a lesser extent, Nintendo.

"Although there are other exclusive titles coming in 2014 or already available," the report reads, "none hold the influence that these leading titles have in terms of selling console hardware, with the exception of Mario Kart 8 for Wii U. As a result, the success of console sales this holiday shopping season will depend more heavily on the total value and content proposition including exclusive content offered by multi-platform games rather than a single, very influential system-selling exclusive. This factor will impact the marketing strategies of the platform holders as we move into 2014's main shopping season."