As the world's largest trade show gets underway, marketers, publishers, and game developers gathered to share their insights and predictions for the future.  Today's Game Power panel was one of the first sessions in a series of workshops at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

As a marketer for Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Advertising Business Group, the team that creates advertising opportunities in Xbox LIVE, MSN Games, and Windows LIVE Messenger Games, I found the session quite gratifying.  Many panel members shared a message we've been touting for years - that gaming is no longer emerging and should be considered main stream media. 

The other message they shared was that everybody games.  According to Interpret there are 120 million gamers in the U.S., one in three are parents.  According to Nielsen (see attachment below), over half, 54%, of US households have a gaming device and when it comes to consoles, the one used most often is the Xbox 360.   Nielsen is a CES sponsor and will be sharing some of this data at the conference.

All of this of course is good news to marketers who are looking to connect with consumers at their passion points. 

So what's ahead? What's coming?  According to the panel:

• "Social games present a huge and growing opportunity"
• "The audience is broadening and will continue to broaden"
• "Digital experiences will become more game-like"
• "Gaming will be less bound by hardware"
• "The natural user interface (controller-free gaming) will be game changing."

At Microsoft, we talk a lot about connected entertainment and experiences that travel with the consumer from the PC to the TV to the mobile device.  Now that gaming has emerged as mainstream entertainment, I can't wait to see what's next.   Any ideas? 

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