2008 Predictions

Games
21

Ooh, fun! Here we go:

Duke Nukem Forever will be unveiled, finally. No one will really care.

Rockstar will “pull a Bungie” and go indie. Nonetheless, Take 2 will be purchased.

MGS4 will release on the PS3 to “disappointing” sales numbers. A 360 port will be announced.

Microsoft will announce that the new Bungie project is being published by Microsoft Games Studios.

The first wave of sequels to the PS3’s launch lineup will be announced. Genji 3 will not be amongst them.

Killzone 2 will release, get good but not great reviews, and fail to be a true system seller.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl will sell like mad.

Ninja Gaiden II will be released in March.

There will be a breakout hit third-party Wii game.

The Halo movie will begin filming, and there will be a teaser trailer consisting largely of text and a few bars of Marty O’Donnell’s Halo score. It will be awesome.

22

My prediction is that Spore will be delayed again. And again.

When it’s released it will be underwhelming.

23

Spore will be delayed. Again.

Edit: Curse this metal body, I wasn’t fast enough! shakes fist at Kunikos

24

HAHA, I’m first! Suck it, Lee!

25

Only if you use oxygen-free video cables.

26

But then how can you breathe when you’re watching???

27

My predictions:

FAIL, FAIL, WIN! 360 came in under at 14.55M, Wii almost doubled my prediction at 16.16M, and PS3 utterly failed at only 7.13M mainly because Sony just fucking sucks.

And yes, this is according to vgchartz.com which probably just infected my fucking work computer with evil digital venereal diseases.

28

How have they made matters worse? They realized the problem was the PS3 was too fucking expensive so they made the system a lot cheaper. The mass market unit was $600 last year, now its $400. They took out BC yea but judging by the uptick in demand people don’t care too much about it. The firmware added much-needed features to the system this year and they are releasing a Dual Shock 3 in accordance with people’s wishes (rather than Kuturagi’s “the next generation is what we give you in this box” attitude). Their biggest problem right now is the big titles keep getting delayed but that will be resolved in 08.

29

dude, wtf, you’ve been watching movies in an oxygenated room all this time? it bends the light. the only REAL home theater option is a complete vacuum w/ a scuba tank.

30

I’ve actually had my eyes replaced with vacuum hardened spheres.

31

What idiot started that thread lkast year… oh.
Duke Nukem 4 still doesnt ship
-Win

Jon Johansen creates the killer app for the ‘Add on OS’ feature of the PS3, allowing the external x360 HD drive to be used with linux making the PS3 technically the first machine to play both Blue Ray and HD DVD.
-fail hes in hiding

The first console related fatality occurs when a toddler is struck in the head by a parent playing Wii bowling and fails to see them come in from the side.
-Fail, but there have been other stupid gaming fatalities

Phantom Lapboard still doesnt ship.
-Win, I think

John Carmack sells off his stake in id, hired by Scaled Composites.
-Fail

EA mandates 40 hour max work week for all employees. Rest of industry follows suit.
-Fail

HDCP is broken, allowing simplistic connectivity to all HDMI devices. Consumers rejoice, hackers shrug since it never affected them anyway.
-Fail, sadly

Tom Chick sells Q23 to IGN for undisclosed figures.
-Fail, that we know of

Sony sells all EQ1 assets to IGE entertainment group for undisclosed sum.
-Fail

Vanguard doesnt ship.
-Fail, but still nobody cared

Vista ships, few care.
-Win

Rumors and first specs for Xbox 3 surface.
-Fail

Zune team dissolved, Plays for Sure ressurected.
-Fail, but Plays for sure rebranded Vista capable

And for this year:
Apple buys Nintendo
Apple releases a gaming SDK for multitouch
DNF revealed as an MMORPG
EQ3 and SWG2 revealed
AVP MMORPG revealed
Lego MMORPG revealed
Dreamcast 2 revealed
MS gaming portable revealed
Fallout MMORPG official
PSP2 specs revealed, no UMD, open SDK
Full open source PS3 geometry hardware spported SDK released
Valve buys Gametap and Direct2Drive, consolidates offerings
Nintendo(apple) licenses Wii remote to MS, MS supports it in DirectX and media center
Warner goes BD exclusive, HD DVD loses
2x BD recorders $150 by Christmas 08
Zune 3 revealed, doesnt completely suck, people still dont care
MS buys EA
Uwe Bolle committed
Major Celebrity (Oprah?) launches a games for girls initiative, loses shirt
Rockstar stuns by having a low key launch of GTA4 that has fixed all stuttering and slowdown issues, multiplayer elements are its best feature.
Worms finally gets a 3D version right.
ESRB and MPAA ratings divisions disbanded in favor of an official government bureau.
Remnants of SCO and Phantom Entertainment team up to create the next great gaming revolution.
id’s next game rhymes with mommanger meen
Nintendo announces the next gameboy and nobody understands it, it sells 40 billion copies. The name? The nintendo Pii, the portable Wii.

32

I’ll do a combined gaming + hardware forum list:

PS3 Home will launch in Q108, and will exceed the userbase of Second Life in less than 24 hours. MS will announce its equivalent by Christmas 08.

Apple will announce a subnotebook in January (duh). What’s going to surprise some people is that it won’t use any known Flash-based drive vendors’ products. Instead it will incorporate 64 or 128 GB of Flash RAM directly on the motherboard (or daughtercard), iPod style, giving the unit unprecedented thinness. 13.3" screen (edge to edge), Macbook style (but lighted) keyboard, etc. ~2k price. $1799 for the starter version. No optical drive. Thinner than an EEEPC.

Resistance 2 will be the most technically impressive console game of 2008.

MS will finally release a 360 that doesn’t sound like a broken blender. Nobody who really cares enough not to buy one because of the lack of that will care; they’ll have already bought something else by then. Everyone else will start smothering their Falcons to get one via hardware replacement plans.

Wii will continue to sell at increasing rates, and at least 2 completely new game concepts will be delivered on the console exclusively.

KOTOR MMORPG will launch and will outperform Warhammer Online by more than 100%. If not, it will at least be in beta, and will be impressive enough that nobody doubts the above will happen on launch.

Apple will rent movies in iTunes, announcing in January. They’ll also cave on movie and TV pricing, and NBC/Universal will resume offering their full lineup by the end of Q1.

Apple shares: $220 by early summer.

33

[ul]
[li]There will not be a Microsoft equivalvent of Home.[/li][li]The PlayStation Network’s Trophy Room will not be implimented properly.[/li][li]A new “Lite” or modified verison of the Wii.[/li][li]One decent third-party game that properly uses the Wiimote. The rest will fail.[/li][li]GTA IV pushed to Holiday '08.[/li][li]Army of Two will be medicore/bad. (55% or below on Gamerankings.com)[/li][li]Silicon Knights will win their lawsuit against Epic.[/li][li]The Democratic Party will use the '08 President election if they nominate Hiliary Clinton or Barack Obama.[/li][li]Apple annouces a new laptop, either a revision of the MacBook (and or Pro), or, the rumored MacBook Slim.[/li][li]The Stevenote at this year’s MacWorld will feature no product annoucements.[/li][li]PissedOffVideoGamer will replace Garry Whitta has PC Gamer’s Backspace columnist.[/li]

Edit:
[*]Spore will be a disappointment with the masses and hardcore gamers, but will be popular with RTS/SimCity fans, and will tie SMAC as the ‘greatest game that’s in an ignored genre’.[/ul]

34

Spore will be a disappointment with hardcore gamers, but will sell like hotcakes to the masses===success.

Fallout 3 will be the GOTY in 2008, the NMA people will do a mass suicide when downloading the first patch thinking it will transport them back to 1997.

Starcraft MMO will be announced.

A new version of the DS (DS-Max) will be released for about $185

Indie PC game companies will continue to steadily grow and flourish in the after math of several big company mergers resulting in many disappointing AAA titles.

Atari will fold.

Windows Vista will make good on its promise as a real gaming platform.

Bruce will beat Tom in Sins of a Solar Empire in GFW.

The wii will still be hard to find on store shelves.

The PS3 won’t.

Someone will acquire the SMAC IP and begin work on a squeal.

35

[CENTER]

OH MY GOHHHHHHHHHHHHH[/CENTER]

36

that is the most awesomest image in the history of the internets.

37

While I’m tempted to make predictions I know will happen (“There will be a big scandal involving a reviewer leading to mass debate of the future of game media”), let’s go for a random long shot:

Blizzard’s new MMO will have more details leaked out. The most notable thing will it being console only.

KG

38

Team ICO will fail to live up to their previous reputation+ with their latest game, which will see a year-end release. However, it will provoke serious discussion of games among the lower end of the critical ladder.

Microsoft will attempt to replicate the WipeOut [Wii Sports] effect with their marketing and releases and fail. Nintendo will succeed with games other than Wii Fit in the same way as they did with the Dr. Kawashima games (among others). Sony may or may not strike oil in this manner again- my money is on them failing.

No More Heroes will be just as confusing as Killer7 (and have a narrative just as complex). People will become even more alienated by Grasshopper than they were, despite the high quality of the game. Conversely, Kurami will be shown and be better than anyone could have possibly expected.

Hideo Kojima will announce that he is co-directing or writing the screenplay for and MGS film, if it has not already happened.

A major video game designer will move to films, permanently. A massive cross-over project will actually be successful. There will finally be a decent temporary move resulting in a good film that gamers complain is ‘completely divorced from [the] gaming [game]’, proving that they will never ‘get the point’.

The recent call for video gamers to become green (by asking manufacturers to use more environmentally friendly production methods) will be picked up and heralded by one of the console manufacturers. I think Microsoft are most likely to; Sony have a good chance, and I have no idea about Nintendo. I don’t believe they actually care.

+By not producing something that shows where games can go and how they can do it, and it not being one of the best games this century.

39

/tangent

I’m just finishing work on a plastics movie and the director went to Sony and NEC to talk about bioplastics. I was amazed to learn that the Walkman is made from corn based bioplastic, and the Playstation packaging is made from an expanded polystyrene that can be recycled using limonene oil.

NEC has made a bioplastic cell phone out of a plant called kenaf, and it can be composted along with your other green waste.

Both companies said they’re trying to get off petroleum based plastics, not because they’re environmental good guys, but because fossil fuels are expensive and will run out.

/tangent off

I don’t have any predictions, except perhaps this: we will continue to be swamped with single-cell paramecium posters, and most of them will not be banned.

40

Tom Chick gives up game writing and accepts position as adjunct professor at UCLA where he teaches courses in “Motel Art.”

Brooski begins neurosurgery residency and designs mouse-driven surgical device that lets him perform brain surgery and play Europa Universalis at the same time; first patient dies, but Brooski conquers Europe.

After several MMO-related deaths reported in the media, Lum the Mad appears on The Larry King shows but stalks off after Larry King repeatedly asks him what he is mad about.

Richard Garriott launches into space as a civilian astronaut and attempts to play Tabula Rasa from space shuttle, but tragedy ensues when hacker named Rainz attempts to assassinate General British and Garriott hurriedly presses Eject button instead of Invulnerability button and is launched from shuttle towards Pluto. NCSoft stock rises.

The inaugural MMO-Con is announced and MMO 1.25 million MMO gamers from around the world attend. The resulting mass from heavy concentration of overweight gamers causes tilt in earth’s axis, plunging world into new ice age. Elderly die in droves and MMO gamers respond with “Lrn 2pl ur class, noobs.”

Future prediction threads on Qt3 are “gently touched.”