We're reporting live from the 4th Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival 2006 where Chairman of EIEF, Chris Deering has just finished the introductory speeches. There were a lot of figures banded about. Indeed Mr.Deering told us that 'there were 40 million game machines including handhelds sold in 1997 and they estimate that 70 million units will be sold in 2007.'

Next up EA's David Gardner took the stage for his keynote speech. Gardner began with making a a few predictions and expressed fears that we're only reaching a small part of the population, with the main issue being 'getting girls into games'.He feels that women don't want 'pink' games but games such as the Sims do capture their imagination. Indeed, The Sims is the world's most popular games for women. Unfortunately, EA failed with the Sims Online with under 50,000 subscribers at its peak. David believes that getting more women into the companies that actually make the games.

[advert] In-game advertising

There has been plenty of debate over the issue of in-game advertising with many people feeling it may become far too obtrusive. David believes it adds credibility to the product and showed us a number of clips from last year's games that already have in-game advertising.He didn't however touch on where advertising will be going, but we can be sure that EA will be at the forefront of the new wave of dynamic advertising that's coming.

Multi-tasking

David touched on the fact that casual gamers are moving around the net and using other enterrtainment media such as You Tube rather than playing games. EA hope to solve this problem by introducing shorter levels in games, more music choices, allowing players to transfer game to mobiles, such as how the auction house in World Of Warcraf can be used on your mobile.

Intergration with Real sports

EA will be using NBA Live 07 to integrate games with real sports via live tickers, radios sports centre updates, ESPN news, radio podcasts which you'll be able to listen to whilst playing, and ESPN television broadcasting showing interviews and action. This will also be happening for the FIFA games!

Legislation attacking games

Gardner believes that there should be more legislation attacking games which he believes is essentially a violation of freedom of speech. He does believe that they do have a responsibility to think more repsonsibility with what type of content appears in their games.

And that was about it, nothing new really apart from the fact that FIFA will see an integration with the real football world which will see live scores etc. appearing whilst you play. There will be more about this in Liepzig!