New name for Edinburgh festival as Sony and Nintendo pledge support

The Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival - formerly known as the Edinburgh International Games Festival - is set to make a return this August, with a number of major firms already on board for the event.

Both Sony and Nintendo have confirmed their backing for the festival, now in its third year, and several more companies are expected to announce their involvement in the coming weeks.

Once again, the festival will have both consumer and industry elements - with the Edinburgh Interactive conference running on the 11th and 12th of August and featuring speakers from across the TV, film, music and telecoms industries, while a number of consumer events will run from the 10th to the 14th of August.

Among them will be a return of the Go Play Games exhibition, which this year relocates from the Royal Museum to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, and will spread exhibits on games and technology over a 1185 square metre space.

Also returning is last year's hugely successful Game Screenings programme, which will give consumers an exclusive first look at upcoming titles, presented by the creators of the games themselves.

This year's screenings programme has been expanded to cover a number of new topics as well, with a "Made in Scotland" platform for the local industry, a series of "Culture" screenings on cultural developments in the medium, and "Insider's Guides" to aspects of the videogames industry.

"Edinburgh is a unique event," commented returning festival chairman Greg Ingham. "It's the only international forum that celebrates the cultural impact of the games industry. It's vital for this industry's overall development to recognise our diversity, challenge preconceptions and debate the future of the interactive entertainment industry."

"Edinburgh is not an E3 or an EGN," he continued. "Nor is it a trade show or sales focussed talking shop. It is an opportunity for the industry to present innovative new developments, challenge preconceptions and look further than next year's slate. And it's the only place where representatives from the TV, film, games and interactive industries can come together and learn from each other and network. Our new name reflects the cross over appeal of the event and the fact that our industry is about much more than games."