VR and mobile will be bigger than ever at E3 2017 next week

It’s E3 next week, in case you hadn’t heard.

Organiser ESA has thrown around some numbers ahead of the big event, claiming that the week will generate over $40m for LA.

The ESA is also keen to highlight the new blood attending the show. There will be 79 new companies on the E3 show floor in LA, for instance, including the likes of Cartoon Network and Lenovo.

The number of mobile and social exhibitors is also due to pass 100 for the first time, while VR (and AR/MR) will be represented by 126 exhibitors – that’s a 138 per cent year-on-year increase.

In total over 2,300 products will be on show, over 75 of which will be new announcements.

The ESA has also talked up the changes in the market, which in the US alone generated over $30.4bn in 2016. The growth of VR and AR is expected to be a big contributor, with that sector expected to pass $150bn by 2020, the primary driver of which will be games.

It also adds that over 960m people now play mobile games worldwide, while 66m US households are expected to be accessing on-demand online content by the end of the year – by which time the total number of global gamers is predicted to reach 2.1bn.

The types of people playing has changed, too. Over 41m Americans aged 50 or over are now gamers, three quarters of which play weekly. 43 per cent of the over 60s game, too. The average age of a gamer, meanwhile, is 35, with adult women representing a larger proportion of the market than teenage boys (31 per cent versus 18 per cent).