2012 Predictions/2011 point and laugh

MannishBoy wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

* There will be not a peep from either Bungie or Respawn. Dead-on. +1

Bungie released an iOS game. :p

That's not a peep, that's a fart. (-:

hbi2k wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

* There will be not a peep from either Bungie or Respawn. Dead-on. +1

Bungie released an iOS game. :p

That's not a peep, that's a fart. (-:

I'd call it a peep, which is a small bird sound. It's not a crow, which would be a full on game

Let's see, lemme see how wrong I was from last year first...

-THQ will return to profitability this year, just barely. - Epically wrong. I'll be addressing this in a 2012 prediction. They screwed this year up bad.
-The PS3 will continue to enjoy worldwide success and will remain profitable for Sony but will still lose ground to the 360. - Bang on. It's still selling very well (especially in Europe) but the 360 is still outpacing it.
-The PSP2 will be formally announced for release in 2012. It will be digital content delivery only and will have a touch screen. - Damn close except for the digital only delivery which is still a surprise for me.
-The 3DS will come out and will sell very well but not as well as the DS as more and more smartphone owners decide they don't need a dedicated portable gaming platform. - The 3DS has outsold the DS in the same time period but only because of the price cut. So this is kind of flat.
-Nintendo will drop teaser hints about their next home system. It will be in HD but few other details will be given and a ship date will not be announced. - WiiU announced at E3, it's in HD, no ship date.
-Kinect and Move will continue to be produced and marketed but will largely fizzle out this year. As a result, more rumours will surface about a new home system from Microsoft or Sony but neither will be announced this year. - Kinect is inexplicably selling well despite the crap ton of shovelware and the Move has fizzled. The rumours happened and no announcements were made.
-Industry acquisitions will continue to be tepid as most publishers still struggle to find or maintain profitability. Unfortunately, we will likely see more independent studios close this year since one flop is enough to close a place down. - I so wish I was wrong about this. Everyone except Activision is losing money and studios folded left and right this year. It bloody sucks.
-More beefs about studio working conditions will come out this year. The industry at large will still dismiss these people are whiners and nothing will change. - I don't think the dismissive part is true (especially about Team Bondi) but yeah, nothing changed.
-Disney will focus more on games for children and young people. Games like Split/Second and Tron will not be seen in their known forms again. Black Rock Studio and Junction Point Studios will either be closed or refocused on children's games and will lose much of their AAA talent, including Warren Spector. - Disney refocused on kids games, Black Rock closed, Junction Point did not and they did not lose Warren Spector. However, it is rumoured that JP is doing kids games now.
-Portal 2 will be delayed once more but will come out and be awesome. - I can't remember if it was delayed in 2011 or not but it did come out and was awesome.
-LA Noire will miss its targeted ship date but will come out this year. It will sell similarly to Heavy Rain, which is to say OK but not great. - It did not miss its date but it came out and sold OK but not great. Team Bondi failed but it probably would have regardless.
-Homefront will really surprise people and end up selling well. - It sold OK but below expectations and was not a good game in most people's opinions.
-Duke Nukem Forever will come out, no one will be excited (though I'm definitely playing it) and it will pretty much flop. Gearbox/Randy Pitchford will let slip in an interview that buying the IP was a bad idea and it will end up buried. - I bought it for $5 and haven't played it yet. It was derided but a ton of people bought it and I believe it made money. Gearbox has doubled down on the IP. So I was wrong.
-Diablo III? Not this year. - Yoink.
-Half Life 2: Episode 3? Will be discussed but also not coming this year. - Didn't come out, wasn't even talked about. I was sadly wrong on that.

I did pretty well last year on major points, though what I was wrong on some things I was right on and vice versa. Now for 2012...

-THQ will manage to secure additional investment or credit but this will be their last gasp at survival before they run out of cash. If they stop taking stupid risks for a while, they can maybe turn it around but it's unlikely. Danny Bilson's strategy was a failure, as were Brian Farrell's insane uDraw HD plans. Both of these people will inexplicably stay employed there in spite of these.
-The 3DS will continue to sell well at the current price point and the Vita will not do the numbers Sony wants but will do enough to keep the platform afloat. As usual, the gaming press will continue to trumpet that the handheld market has "moved on" and will not admit they were wrong despite all the evidence to the contrary.
-The successor to the Xbox 360 will be announced and the PS4 will be teased. Neither will get a ship date or a heavy reveal of pricing or details until current console sales slow down which they won't for at least the first half of the year.
-The WiiU will get a price and a ship date in the holiday quarter and Nintendo will announce they've solved the problem of having multiple WiiU tablets paired to one console. It will once again have a weak launch lineup and will initially sell OK but not great.
-The wonderful trend of analysts either talking less or the gaming press finally realising they're not worth listening to will continue. Many will love seeing Pachter fade into obscurity where he belongs.
-This is the year where the realities of mobile development (i.e. that it's much like AAA in that most titles fail, the majority of the revenue goes to a small few and that costs are quickly spiralling out of indie-affordable range) start to become clear in the development community. Mobile development will not slow this year however.
-Facebook developers will continue to struggle or in the case of the big boys like Zynga, show themselves to be grossly overvalued and not as big a money press as once thought. Facebook development will continue but will be talked about less and less as the future.
-AAA publishers that are not Activision will keep losing money and AAA developers will continue to be hit-or-die. This is a trend that I suspect will get worse as costs continue to go up in the next generation. Larger scale industry rumblings on how to keep AAA viable will start to be heard.
-A lot fewer AAA titles will be released this year both due to the industry's money bleeding but also as they scale back development on the current generation to ramp up for the next one.
-Diablo III will come out some time this year, it will be a huge hit, not as big a one as Blizzard or Bobby Kotick wants. The cracks in Kotick's leadership style will continue to show themselves as everything they own that isn't Call of Duty continues to decline.
-Star Wars: The Old Republic will experience a sharp drop in subscribers, partially because of people getting bored and partially because of the dictatorial way EA is treating the player base. Enough will stick around to keep the game profitable month to month but the long-term numbers will be well below expectations.
-John Riccitiello's leadership at EA will be strongly challenged.
-Free-to-play will start to really shine this year in non-Asian RPG ways. Bigger scale, North American focused titles like Tribes: Ascend and FireFall will do well and show that higher budget titles can work with this business model.
-Half-Life 2: Episode 3? Not this year.
Oh, forgot one...
-GSC Game World's upcoming news will be that the company is indeed dead but a new studio is starting up and taking over the IP to hopefully release STALKER 2.

I like easy predictions:

Peter Molyneux will announce something which in no way, shape, or form will be released in 2012.

An original IP will be released, become a darling of the critics, and have abysmal sales, probably taking down the developer.

Budo wrote:

Duke Nukem will actually be pretty decent. SCIENTOLOGY WRONG

I laughed way too hard at this.

Mine from last year sucked...here's mine for 2012:

- SC2 HotS releases and continues to be a monster of egame scene. Single Player campaign will continue WoL trend and not be any good. Dialogue will suck more. Even more clichés added.

- Last Guardian is rush-released and is not the next coming of God. Consensus blames Sony, Ueda's departing, and all around negative rumors.

- Finally, FINALLY, meet the Pyro video!

- Assassin's Creed 3 info released, no more Ezio, but finally a new third assassin. No release dates.

- Mass Effect 3 will generally be considered subpar to Mass Effect 2. Also, Same-sex romance will be available this time around.

- Metal Gear Revengeance will suck. Badly. But will sell quite well.

- Kinect and Move slowly begin dying.

- Street Fighter x Tekken sucks, but enough 14yr olds buy the damn thing to exquisite numbers. No info on Tekken x Street Fighter.

- Tomb Raider reboot receives mixed reviews, but is generally well-accepted.

- Square Enix continues to piss off and screw up a once-wonderful franchise. For some obscure reason involving the angering of Gods, FF13-2 does quite well. Type Zero gets a release date in NA, Versus continues in-hiatus. FF10 re-release in HD sells nicely. Awkward laugh scene not removed.

- A fellow goodjer will find him/herself in peril, and the community will rally up and come through with an amazing gaming rig/huge game pile.

Atlus will announce Innocent Sin Online, a Shin Megami Tensei MMO and social network, for the PS3. It will get slagged and praised alike for marrying traditional, WOW-style MMO tropes to cleverly self-aware Zynga-style social exploitation mechanics.

kexx wrote:

Mass Effect 3 will generally be considered subpar to Mass Effect 2. Also, Same-sex romance will be available this time around, but the only male option will be Garrus. Don't ingest.

...

- Kinect and Move slowly continue dying.

FTFY.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

There will be an AO-rated Kinect game that can only be ordered online.

If this doesn't happen for the current (Xbox) Kinect, I surely will after the PC version of Kinect is released. And of course, the "game" will be download only.

There will be an AO-rated Kinect game that can only be ordered online.

Stardock will announce a new game, and if it's not GalCiv 3, it will review and sell poorly, leading the company to get out of the games business.

A new Wizardry game will be announced.

Fighting games will continue to enjoy a return to popularity, but there will still be no official Killer Instinct 3 announcement.

Notch will be unable to follow up on the success of Minecraft in 2012.

Metro First Light will be awesome, but still not be a blockbuster.

Despite terrible sales, Capcom will give Ghost Trick another chance, similar to Okami.

EDIT: Forgot one.
Paul Christoforo takes advantage of his newfound fame and teams with Derek Smart to create and market a new Battlecruiser game. The internet promptly implodes.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Stardock will announce a new game, and if it's not GalCiv 3, it will review and sell poorly, leading the company to get out of the games business..

You do know they have a Sins standalone due out in the next quarter or two right? Pretty much ensures they will be in business for a while.

I got 1.5/7 right. Which isn't bad. I was off on my Lego game prediction. If only I had seen Lego LotR coming, I would have had a full 2.

And now for 2012:

-Besides Lego Lord of the Rings (which has already been announced) - which will cover all the movies - there will be a separate game to encompass The Hobbit for the franchise. They will also work on another game, Lego Toy Story to include all of the movies.

-The WiiU, will launch in Quarter 3, shortly after E3 and completely surprise everyone. It will have a great launch line-up, which is also a surprise. It will have stronger sales, but won't sell like the hotcake that the Wii did.

-Vita will have lackluster sales in the US because of a lack of launch software. Sony will have anticipated this, but will be able to do little else

Dominic Knight wrote:

-Vita will have lackluster sales in the US because of a lack of launch software.

If the Vita has lackluster sales, I doubt it will be due to a lack of games. According to Wikipedia, about 25 games will be available on launch day (in North America), with another 10 or so releasing soon after.

If anything, I think the price of the Vita and its proprietary memory cards are what could potentially cause lackluster sales.

Here's a couple of easy ones:

I will fail to see what everyone sees in 80% of the critical darlings of 2012.

I will play the hell out of at least one game that was critically panned, mocked, or otherwise written off as a "bad" game.

Developers will continue to think that I, as a consumer, value interacting with people and will push multiplayer experiences to the hilt. Pure single player experiences will become less relevant.

Microsoft will announce that new console that they've been hiring hardware engineers to design for.

Console game developers will continue down the path of incorporating all the bad things about PC games (bad QA testing, endless patching, microtransactions) and none of the good things (open development, variety of experiences)

And here's one to generate lots of hate mail/angry discussion:

Bioshock Infinite will fail to live up to everyone's expectations. (Seriously, we've been salivating over it for a year now, and it's another year until it gets released. No game could stand that kind of anticipation.)

Budo wrote:

Duke Nukem will actually be pretty decent. SCIENTOLOGY WRONG

I disagree, but since this isn't the thread for explaining why I disagree, I'll just leave it at that.

EDIT:

Let me clarify: I like Duke Nukem, not scientology. I realized after posting that this wasn't clear from my original post.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

Here's a couple of easy ones:

I will fail to see what everyone sees in 80% of the critical darlings of 2012.

I will play the hell out of at least one game that was critically panned, mocked, or otherwise written off as a "bad" game.
...

And here's one to generate lots of hate mail/angry discussion:

Bioshock Infinite will fail to live up to everyone's expectations. (Seriously, we've been salivating over it for a year now, and it's another year until it gets released. No game could stand that kind of anticipation.)

It always seems to come down to expectations. Places involved with gaming like GWJ are awful for overhyping everything. I passed the point a while back where I'm always asking myself "what's the catch" or trying to drill down to the facts.

To be fair, it's not just the communities that do hype, it's the combination of community the marketing blitz that most publishers put out and unfortunately gaming journalism/criticism that seems to get in a reinforcement loop around release. It just drowns outs anything objective for a few weeks either side of release.

Overhyped releases in 2012? Sure.

The trick is finding the right level of hype for you, the person shelling out for your own copy.

This one brought to you by a flock of flying pigs (but a boy can dream can't he).

MS start there E3 conference with WiiU on the main stage.

They then roll out the 'new Xbox 720', running windows 8. As an encore, they pull out an iPad, point it at the 720, the indicator light flashes, and then the iPad becomes the controller. They then invite the audience to fire up their iPads, input a specific redeem code, and their XBL avatars then start to pop up on the main screen. Everyone there forgets there is a WiiU sitting in the corner.

SONY and Nintendo pack up and go home for the remainder of the conference.
/tongue removed from cheek.

All joking aside, I would love to see iPad/Xbox connectivity.

Stele wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Stardock will announce a new game, and if it's not GalCiv 3, it will review and sell poorly, leading the company to get out of the games business..

You do know they have a Sins standalone due out in the next quarter or two right? Pretty much ensures they will be in business for a while.

Sins is developed by Ironclad. Stardock is just publishing it.

Well, I have none from last year but I'll play for 2012. Let's see how far out on this limb I can crawl before it breaks.

-- Microsoft will announce their new console but it will not release until 2013. The new console will be called the Xbox 8 (calling it) and will run Windows 8 as its operating system (as Microsoft consolidates all of their products (PC/Console/Phone/Tablet) onto a single OS).

-- Sony will not announce a new console but will instead announce a new version of the PS3 (PS3.5?) that will include more media center functions (such as DVR capability). They will also release an "updated" version of the Move that no longer requires a controller but instead uses dual Playstation Eyes to provide a Kinnect-like experience. No one will care.

-- Apple will release a game console/media center device running on iOS.

-- At least one major gaming "network" (Live, Steam or one of the MMOs like WoW) will suffer a multi-day (or multi-week) outage similar to what PSN suffered this year. There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and may be the end of the world prophesied for this year ;)).

-- At least one major gaming franchise (say, Call of Duty or Battlefield) will announce that they are dropping single-player completely; future games will be multi-player only. This will become more common in 2013 and beyond.

-- Valve will announce a new game that is part of a new IP and release it to great fanfare. There will continue to be no mention of Half-Life 3.

-- Mass Effect 3 will release to great reviews. Three months later it will be generally considered the worst of the series and dismissed. EA will later announce that future Mass Effect games will be done by a new studio (not BioWare).

-- BioWare will announce (but not release) Dragon Age 3

-- Bethesda will announce (but not release) Fallout 4. It will be set in the southern/southeastern US.

-- Bioshock Infinite will live up to its expectations. X-Com and Syndicate will live down to theirs.

-- Some game that most everyone is barely aware of at the moment will show up and become most people's game of the year choice.

Oops. I think I just dropped my crystal ball and broke it.

Personally I'm looking forward to Lego Godfather Trilogy.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

This one brought to you by a flock of flying pigs (but a boy can dream can't he).

MS start there E3 conference with WiiU on the main stage.

They then roll out the 'new Xbox 720', running windows 8. As an encore, they pull out an iPad, point it at the 720, the indicator light flashes, and then the iPad becomes the controller. They then invite the audience to fire up their iPads, input a specific redeem code, and their XBL avatars then start to pop up on the main screen. Everyone there forgets there is a WiiU sitting in the corner.

SONY and Nintendo pack up and go home for the remainder of the conference.
/tongue removed from cheek.

All joking aside, I would love to see iPad/Xbox connectivity.

Why only Xbox? Would you not like to see it integrated with any other new home console??

tanstaafl wrote:

-- BioWare will announce (but not release) Dragon Age 3

One of the Doctors already talked about DA3 taking influences from Skyrim. As recently as a week or two ago.

MannishBoy wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

-- BioWare will announce (but not release) Dragon Age 3

One of the Doctors already talked about DA3 taking influences from Skyrim. As recently as a week or two ago.

That really made me uneasy when I read that article. Not because "it would be ruined if it's like Skyrim" or anything else, but because they feel the need to name-check the current flavour of the month (it was just as Skyrim was getting GOTY and topping the xmas sales charts) and that it said nothing about their own game.

Last year:

* Diablo 3 will launch. It will be a monster success and the same people who complain about Starcraft 2 being an updated Starcraft will say that Diablo 3 is just an updated Diablo 2. (personal side note: I don't care about Diablo 3, so this is what I think, not what I hope)

-1

* 3DS will launch to great acclaim, but moderately good sales. The platform will be a slow burn but will probably never reach the heights of the DS.

Not entirely off, so I'll claim it +1

* Rumours will surface of the next Nintendo console, but nothing official.

Official announcement without rumours. Totally backwards -1

* We will hear something about Half life 2:Episode 3. Gabe's just sick of the nagging so they are going to get it done.

Sigh. I will disappoint myself every year until I'm right. See below. -1

* The Old Republic will have a solid launch, then settle to a Warhammer Online like level of activity.

Too early to call. 0

* LA Noire will disappoint thanks to being over hyped and too much attention to the tech.

I'll claim it. +1

* Indie game successes will become more regular in the wake of Minecraft.

And this +1

* Guild Wars 2 will come out, it will change things, it will be great. People will complain that it isn't enough like WoW.

Sigh. I am disappoint. -1

For 2012:

Carry overs:

* Diablo 3 will launch. It will be a monster success and the same people who complain about Starcraft 2 being an updated Starcraft will say that Diablo 3 is just an updated Diablo 2. (personal side note: I don't care about Diablo 3, so this is what I think, not what I hope)

* We will hear something about Half life 2:Episode 3. Gabe's just sick of the nagging so they are going to get it done.

* Guild Wars 2 will come out, it will change things, it will be great. People will complain that it isn't enough like WoW.

New:

* New Xbox generation announced at E3.

* Bioshock Infinite will be very good. People will get overhyped, there will be hype backlash. I don't care, I'm going dark as of now.

Scratched wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

-- BioWare will announce (but not release) Dragon Age 3

One of the Doctors already talked about DA3 taking influences from Skyrim. As recently as a week or two ago.

That really made me uneasy when I read that article. Not because "it would be ruined if it's like Skyrim" or anything else, but because they feel the need to name-check the current flavour of the month (it was just as Skyrim was getting GOTY and topping the xmas sales charts) and that it said nothing about their own game.

Not having played Skyrim or DA2 yet, I think from what I understand, the biggest knock against DA2 was in an area where Skyrim seems to shine. That is in environment. DA2 is limited and reuses areas over and over, where Skyrim is a rich open world. So if their lesson from their critiques and seeing the success of Skyrim is to open things up even slightly from Bioware's typical linear path environments, that's good.

It's whether they understand what fits in their games that is the question to me. They don't necessarily need to be that open, just not have you in a bunch of corridors for specific story beat encounters ALL the time.

(Sorry, this probably isn't the thread for this, I'll stop)

OK here's an actual prediction

HL2:ep3 will launch with HL3. But ep3 will just be rolled in as the 1-2 hour prologue to HL3. Neither will come out this year.

MannishBoy wrote:
tanstaafl wrote:

-- BioWare will announce (but not release) Dragon Age 3

One of the Doctors already talked about DA3 taking influences from Skyrim. As recently as a week or two ago.

It's no secret that there will be a DA3. All I'm saying is that we'll see the teaser trailers/hype machine startup in 2012 but it won't actually be released until 2013 (like ME3 was in 2011). It's a soft-pitch prediction; we'll hear about it but won't get it.

Space Indaver wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

This one brought to you by a flock of flying pigs (but a boy can dream can't he).

MS start there E3 conference with WiiU on the main stage.

They then roll out the 'new Xbox 720', running windows 8. As an encore, they pull out an iPad, point it at the 720, the indicator light flashes, and then the iPad becomes the controller. They then invite the audience to fire up their iPads, input a specific redeem code, and their XBL avatars then start to pop up on the main screen. Everyone there forgets there is a WiiU sitting in the corner.

SONY and Nintendo pack up and go home for the remainder of the conference.
/tongue removed from cheek.

All joking aside, I would love to see iPad/Xbox connectivity.

Why only Xbox? Would you not like to see it integrated with any other new home console??

I think it would be the ultimate symbiotic partnership. iPad nullifies the new factor of the WiiU controller and strengthens it's user base as the go to tablet, and Microsoft can stop worrying about the WiiU controller nibbling into it's market. Tie in things like iTunes and Apple TV as part of the OS on the console and it also covers the competition from SONY as a media centre (the only reason a lot of my friends have a PS3). I think we've seen a glimpse of this with the release of the "My Xbox LIVE" App which runs beautifully on the iPad and I've also been impressed with the streaming TV that's been delivered on the platform (new to the Australian market, as of the last dashboard update).

If there is still a 'home console war' to be won it seems to me to be the smartest partnering for both companies (and at the end of the day, it is all about the money).

m0nk3yboy wrote:
Space Indaver wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:

This one brought to you by a flock of flying pigs (but a boy can dream can't he).

MS start there E3 conference with WiiU on the main stage.

They then roll out the 'new Xbox 720', running windows 8. As an encore, they pull out an iPad, point it at the 720, the indicator light flashes, and then the iPad becomes the controller. They then invite the audience to fire up their iPads, input a specific redeem code, and their XBL avatars then start to pop up on the main screen. Everyone there forgets there is a WiiU sitting in the corner.

SONY and Nintendo pack up and go home for the remainder of the conference.
/tongue removed from cheek.

All joking aside, I would love to see iPad/Xbox connectivity.

Why only Xbox? Would you not like to see it integrated with any other new home console??

I think it would be the ultimate symbiotic partnership. iPad nullifies the new factor of the WiiU controller and strengthens it's user base as the go to tablet, and Microsoft can stop worrying about the WiiU controller nibbling into it's market. Tie in things like iTunes and Apple TV as part of the OS on the console and it also covers the competition from SONY as a media centre (the only reason a lot of my friends have a PS3). I think we've seen a glimpse of this with the release of the "My Xbox LIVE" App which runs beautifully on the iPad and I've also been impressed with the streaming TV that's been delivered on the platform (new to the Australian market, as of the last dashboard update).

If there is still a 'home console war' to be won it seems to me to be the smartest partnering for both companies (and at the end of the day, it is all about the money).

I think you guys are forgetting that MS is using Windows 8 to push again into the tablet space. While they may continue to offer some iOS interoperability similar to the app just released, if there's any tablet link to Xbox, it's going to be Windows 8.

I think it would be interesting if Windows 8 tablets mimicked the wii u stuff. I think that is much more likely than anything with the iPad.

The idea that Apple would cosy up to MS to that degree is just plain insane. But a win8 tablet that seamlessly integrates with the new MS console would be so awesome.