Paris (AFP)

Paris Games Week, the largest French video game show, returns Wednesday for a tenth edition featuring the biggest titles of the end of the year, pending the arrival in 2020 of the future generation of consoles.

Far from the E3 of Los Angeles or the Tokyo Game Show, where many games are revealed, the Paris event focuses mainly on allowing players to try productions already commercialized, a few weeks before Christmas.

This year is no exception to the rule and visitors will be able to find "The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening" of Nintendo, "Fifa 20" of Electronic Arts or "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" of Activision, among other novelties .

For publishers, the stakes are high, on the verge of the lucrative end-of-year holiday season, during which a large part of the annual turnover is generated.

Especially since the sector remains on an exceptional 2018 vintage. Sales reached 4.9 billion euros in France last year, according to the Union of software publishers of leisure (Sell), which organizes the show.

This 15% increase, against the declines generally observed at the end of each generation, was driven by all segments, be they consoles, computers or mobile games on phones and tablets.

This Paris Games Week, which lasts five days, takes place while Microsoft and Sony have their eyes fixed on next year, during which they intend to launch new machines to replace the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, marketed in 2013.

- Hideo Kojima featured -

The Japanese group thus announced at the beginning of October that the Playstation 5 would be released towards the end of 2020, at the same time as the "Scarlett" project of its American rival but the public will have to wait a few more months before seeing them work for the first time.

Some headliners expected next year on the current consoles will still be there, in playable form as "Final Fantasy VII Remake" Square-Enix or presentation like "Cyberpunk 2077" of Namco Bandai,.

All will be visible on booths where the screens and the decibels multiply. But exhibitors try to play the card of differentiation. Thus, the French company Blade, specialized in the game in streaming (or "cloud gaming") with its Shadow box, will focus on augmented reality with an installation to discover once scanned a QR code with a smartphone.

Beyond the only games presentations, the Paris Games Week has again reserved a space for e-sports, the competitions of gamers who have the wind in their sails, a stand for games developed in Africa and a zone with formations for people wishing to work for this industry.

For example, the Isart Digital School will discover several works by its students as well as its courses.

Among other highlights announced, the Japanese designer Hideo Kojima, behind the famous saga "Metal Gear", confirmed his arrival Wednesday afternoon.

He will kick off a world tour, organized to market his next title, "Death Stranding", on November 8th. It will then pass through London, New York or Tokyo.

© 2019 AFP