Bold Predictions 2016!

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It's that magical time of year once again! I figure if I keep predicting games I want will be announced eventually they'll be made manifest. So THIS is the year for Red Dead Redemption 2. Catch the fever! There's some interesting wrinkles in 2016 thanks to rumors of Nintendo's next console and the many questions surrounding the fate of VR. Will this finally be the year? It's time to make your predictions!

It's also time to eat some crow. Make sure you revisit 2015's thread and see how you did!

Shawn Andrich

Microsoft
- $50 price drop as they continue to chase marketshare
- Hololens will remain an R&D project with no consumer model in sight. 3K dev kit? Yeesh.

Sony
- No price drop this year
- Morpheous will launch this Fall for $499.

Nintendo NX
- Vague announcement in Spring. Full announcement at E3. Launch in Fall.
- NX will feature a controller that doubles as a mobile touch screen gaming device, blurring the lines between living room and on the go platform. Kind of a REALLY fancy Dreamcast controller. The logical evolution of the Wii-U gamepad.
- System will not be backward compatible and will focus on growing a new library of games suitable for touch screen gaming on the go and big ticket games. There will be regular controller support.

- New Zelda will launch for Wii U and the NX with a few extra features

VR Predictions
- Oculus Rift launches and will remain difficult to buy until the Fall due to stock shortages. It will not hurt VR’s case, people will be excited about VR in general but the door will be wide open for competition.

- The touch controllers will launch in the Fall but few games will support them. They will be bundled with the 2.0 version of the Rift in 2017.

- The HTC Vive VR headset kit will cost $699 with controller set. It will be easier to purchase than the Oculus and Valve will announce/launch a new game with it. It won’t be Half-Life 3.

Star Citizen

- Squadron 42 will launch in the Spring as Episodes and finally bring Star Citizen to a feeling of being an actual game. By the end of the year Star Citizen will be a thing that resembles the original pitch. There will be no real MMO style components.

General Predictions

- Red Dead Redemption 2 THIS IS THE YEAR
- An “indie” game will outsell Madden this year.
- Everquest Next will be cancelled
- Minecraft 2 will be announced. f*ck you, that’s why.
- Total War: Warhammer will suck. Not enough depth to really feel like a Total War Game.
- Mobile games will continue to pander to the easy money, cementing the player gap between “hard-core” gamers and phone gamers.

Chris "C" Cesarano

- The Nintendo NX, at least the home console variant, will not release in 2016 (a common one for the GWJ Nintendo fanbase)

- Final Fantasy XV will be a long game, but the world will actually be rather small. We'll be lucky if it spans an entire continent.

- The Occulus Rift will commercially go the way of the OUYA, with the Playstation VR perhaps being the best chance of the experience going mainstream (might be more of a 2017 prediction)

- Nintendo will announce a new Metroid game for NX, but it will somehow still be a disappointment to fans.

- Capcom continues to piss me off by not localizing Dragon's Dogma Online in the West.

Colleen "momgamer" Hannon

- The Steam console that just came out will be a hit with early adopters & Gabe Newell fanboys but be a quiet build with the rest of the audience. Outside that core, the concept of streaming to another device is still in it's early stages, and that's going to be a confusing sell.

- Someone at Square Enix realized that a numbering system that lets you play the games in order is a good thing, and we get Kingdom Hearts 2.8, to slide in between the already released 2.5 and the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 3. That doesn't mean their development isn't still a little messy, so I predict that both games will slip their dates around and may not actually release in that order.

- There will be even more Star Wars games released, because that's how the juggernaut rolls. But none of them will be a new Star Wars: X-wing or Star Wars: Tie Fighter, so the re-releases out on GoG will have to sustain us.

- Beyond Good and Evil 2 slipped out of last year, but hope springs eternal. After the way other properties have shipped Ubi should have the right manpower available, so I'm going to take a wishful stand and say that it will ship in 2016.

- My squad will wipe and I will lose the world to aliens many, many times playing X-Com 2.

Greg "doubtingthomas396" Decker

1) Warner Brothers will release another open world game with Arkham style combat. The license will be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it will actually be kind of awesome.

2) Oculus Rift’s system requirements and $600 price point will prove to cool the ardor of many enthusiasts, leading to a price drop in the later half of the year. It won't help.

3) Nintendo will announce that their next console is a handheld system that plugs into a dock that will allow you to play games on your television.

3a) Nintendo’s next console will be digital only, and will not support playing disc-based WiiU games.

3b) Nintendo will continue to link all digital game purchases to hardware serial numbers.

3c) If 3a and 3b are both true, later in the year Nintendo will announce an optical disc drive add-on to allow people to play WiiU games on the new console. It will plug into the dock and the handheld system will become the controller. The WiiU controller will not pair with the NX.

4) Paid mods will return to the news when Bethesda releases the mod kit for Fallout 4. It will only be implemented on consoles, because Bethesda hates console owners and resents having to port their games onto them, as evidenced by how their console ports always work (or, rather, fail to).

5) Everyone will realize that TellTale games has jumped the shark when they announce a Happy Days game in the style of all of their other dialogue-tree adventure games.

Comments

Prediction: Hollow Knight will be super awesome. I will post about it in our Metroidvania thread.

Prediction: Star Fox Zero will be great, reviewers will not say they were wrong about their early impressions of the controls even though they will be very very wrong. They will be right to ding it for being nearly the same as Starfox 64; though they will be wrong about their criticism for lack of depth to the story. Seriously, why would you look for that there? People will look for innuendo in Zero in order to make funny videos, but they won't be that successful.

Prediction: Angels Fall First moves out of Early Access.
Line of Defense won't.

Prediction: April O'Neil will not be rendered in her yellow jumpsuited glory. Come on Platinum and whoever makes that Arkham-style TMNT game, which will absolutely happen-I feel it in my heart, it doesn't have to be yellow.

Crazy Idea that'll never happen: Disney will allow someone to kickstart a Goofy adventure game that takes places in the Goof Troop continuity in Spoonerville, playing as multiple characters-quality will be determined by voice acting. Peg Pete will usher in a whole new generation of furries. Also, did you know https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_%... is a cat? Never knew.

This will spark a Disney-verse like the MCU, that will crash and burn with the first movie, a CG cross-over 'Avengers' type, featuring Darkwing Duck and Gargoyles that will ignore the comic books. Gossling will be TheScrappy.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

VR needs to sound tempting first, and I simply don't think the market for it is that big or that populist. But even then, I maintain that console gamers are too cost-conscious to drive sales of a $400 peripheral, no matter how sexy the technology is.

I broadly agree with this. However, I think the key issue for most PS4 owners will be the fact that the peripheral cost more than the system itself. PS4 bundles cost between £280-£330 currently. A £400 peripheral is a major inversion of the traditional pricing model for hardware. I can see this putting off a lot of people... particularly given the industry's habit of abandoning expensive new tech.

I'm 45, and - had I made different choices - I might now be having to decide whether to move my dusty Kinect into the loft in order to make room for the Morpheus (that is, provided I can move the Sega 32X, Mega CD and Saturn deeper into the loft in order to free up space for Microsoft's long-forgotten 'must have').

I'm assuming that I don't need to mention 3D gaming...

But I anticipate the biggest issue being games. What games are going to be available for Morpheus when it launches? I can't see a raft of glorified tech demoes encouraging even the most ardent VR fans to shell out for it. Personally, I'd need to see some major AAA franchises committing to it before I reach for my wallet.

A driving game of the calibre of a Gran Turismo or a Need for Speed: Shift is a must. As is a credible First Person Shooter experience (probably only a Battlefield or COD campaign, as I suspect that the processing demands of multiplayer will prove too much for many years to come).

I'd be interested to know whether GJWers will need similar encouragement.

Chimalli wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
stingray wrote:
dewalist wrote:

Does anyone want this?

I do not want it. Just getting out the craziest prediction I can.
However, I bet some mobile gamers would go for it. Especially if it means they can play a four player game without buying three other controllers.

I also do not want more violence in games.

More importantly, I bet someone at a major publisher would be downright excited about the idea.

That doesn't sound like how they get more money from you. The cheap plastic peripherals was that money pit and I think that era is long past. Unless it's an app you can buy to enhance your game, now that's an idea.

But there are so many buzzwords available for the pitch! Cross-platform! Multi-screen! OmniChannel!

And, undoubtedly, IAPs!

My first ever bold and likely completely wrong, but one can hope, prediction!:
Sony will announce a new Vita iteration that will be cheap ($100-$150), that focuses exclusively on indie games, and that simplifies the unit (more PC/PS4-like architecture, standard memory cards, remove back touch and camera, downgraded display(?).

disobedientlib wrote:

My first ever bold and likely completely wrong, but one can hope, prediction!:
Sony will announce a new Vita iteration that will be cheap ($100-$150), that focuses exclusively on indie games, and that simplifies the unit (more PC/PS4-like architecture, standard memory cards, remove back touch and camera, downgraded display(?).

So, like a portable Playstation TV with a screen?

I thought the Vita already focused exclusively on indie games.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I thought the Vita already focused exclusively on indie games.

Nah - that was the eventual outcome, certainly, but not the intention. Hence the still relatively high price of admission for hardware that is vastly overpowered for what it is mostly used for these days. So why not just put out a poor man's version of it and call it something new?

VR Gaming will go the way of 3D HDTV.

People have trying to make VR gaming happen since Virtual Boy in 1995, and it was a fad years before that.

Not gonna happen.

BadKen wrote:

People have trying to make VR gaming happen since Virtual Boy in 1995, and it was a fad years before that.

Not gonna happen.

Yeah but this time around we won't get migraines! ...hopefully.

My not so bold prediction is that VR will not be worth it until Summer 2017 due to price, lack of games, and people not knowing what the hell they are doing.

@Vrikk,

If VR hasn't caught on immediately after the release of the Occulus and/or Morpheus, then I doubt it will catch on at all. Expensive new technologies seem to get one bite at the cherry every generation.

I'm sure we all remember that, in 2010/11, 3D gaming was going to be one of the killer applications; one of the key drivers of the adoption of 3D television. Killzone 3 was playable in 3D in 2011. But by the time Killzone Shadowfall was released - in 2013 - the bubble had burst and there was no 3D functionality in sequel.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any current PS4 games with 3D functionality, even though the system is surely capable of outputting in 3D.

To digress slightly, I think one of the biggest challenges will be technical; I still don't understand how developers will bring together all of the sensory inputs and controls. Specifically, how will Turn, Aim, and Look come together? And how will all of three work with sound? Presumably VR will require at least 5.1 sound? Without it won't there be a mismatch between the visual and the aural inputs...

(For what it's worth: my other predictions are that no one will be buying curved TVs by the end of Summer and that no one will be talking about 4K television by the end of the year.)

Not to derail this into a VR discussion, but I think it has more potential than just the niche designed-for-VR games. I'm looking forward to using it in racing games, flying games, space games, etc. Maybe FPS's, but maybe not. Maybe even Madden? They could bring back the helmet-cam view so we can get a QB perspective - even though it would be hard as hell. I also just want to try it instead of my existing tv because of the immersion - both for games and watching Netflix.

@dewalist

Agreed! So let's redirect the thread a bit.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. I can't imagine that VR will applied to many of the genres of games that currently enjoy the largest sales. FPSes raise controls issues and - for multiplayer - controls and processing power issues. Sports simulators, I think, raise the same issues as FPSes. 2D and 3rd Person games are a non-starter for obvious reasons.

So what are you left with? As you say, driving games (combat or racing) and flight simulators (though one could argue that the two genres are effectively the same for VR purposes). I can imagine that it would also work for creation games/virtual worlds like Minecraft. And perhaps for the odd 3D puzzler (VR Rubik's Cubes, perhaps?) But beyond that, I struggle...

I'm glad that Certis is renewing his prediction of Red Dead 2. Last year I convinced myself that it would be announced at E3, and its absence kind of bummered the whole show for me. Red Dead 2, people!

detroit20 wrote:

...
..
So what are you left with? As you say, driving games (combat or racing) and flight simulators (though one could argue that the two genres are effectively the same for VR purposes). I can imagine that it would also work for creation games/virtual worlds like Minecraft. And perhaps for the odd 3D puzzler (VR Rubik's Cubes, perhaps?) But beyond that, I struggle...

Just brainstorming here, but:

  • 4X or Real Time Strategy games - being able to look down on the map from the same kind of camera angle would be pretty awesome. Integrate motion controls for dragging units and actually touching where you want to interact with.
  • Point and Click Adventure games - These are effectively detailed images with a limited amount of interact-ability (is that a word?). Put yourself in the actual room to try and solve these puzzles could be very immersive.
  • I'm not sure on third person, but isn't Lucky's Tale a platforming game with a camera separate from the character?
  • Plus the ones you mentioned (Simulator games, driving games, puzzle games)

Personally I think the application of VR is limited only by the creativity of the game developers. Once games started to move into the 3d space there were new genres and game types which wouldn't have been possible in 2d. The same thing will happen with VR, a few years down the road there will be experiences that only really work in Virtual Reality.

pythagean wrote:

interact-ability (is that a word?)

No, but interaction is.

MeatMan wrote:
pythagean wrote:

interact-ability (is that a word?)

No, but interaction is. :)

Haha, goddamit

Hi All! First GWJ comment here, but have been listening for a long time now. Just signed up to thrown in a VR prediction or two

VR
Oculus Rift and HTC Vive - both remain extremely niche products for all 2006 (and all 2007! Double points if I get that right?). It will not get a "killer app" in the first two years. By "killer app", I mean something on the level of Wii Sports, that causes sales to skyrocket. If I could get triple points for predicting further into the future, I'd predict that the Rift and the Vive remain niche until at LEAST 2010.
Playstation VR - Will have a reasonably strong launch late in the year, and the hardcore crowd will buy it and love it. There will be a spanner in the works though, as you have to buy a new hardware peripheral/controller to use with it (the Move or a variation thereof) and it will be very expensive, bringing it up to the price of a Rift. Another double-point 2007 prediction is that Sony will have stopped pushing it by the end of 2007 and will pretty much abandon it in 2008 like they did with 3D gaming, the Move and Vita.
VR Games - There will be a handful of AAA games that support VR within the first year of launch, and after that it will reduce to a trickle, with most of the VR games coming from indie developers for the rest of its life.

Gonna lock this up at the end of the month. Get them in while you can!

Yup.

Platinum sure is busy these days.

Say what you will about Activision, they're probably keeping the lights on at Platinum with all this licensed contract work.

Armaggon is not a villain I anticipated them bringing into the game. That's going into the Archie Comics lore (which, truth told, I kind of want to get back issues of because some of those comics were really good).

I still dislike the whole nose thing, but I'm gonna be honest, I'm pretty psyched.

Microsoft announces the new Xbox One S(lim) a smaller and cooler looking version of the Xbox One at E3 with availability for holiday 2016. This new S version of the Xbox One will have a small microphone/IR/RF Blaster type thingie that can clip on the top of any HDTV with a long cable suitable for routing behind walls and to cabinets/closets for people who want to hide their cable boxes/set top boxes. It will come bundled with a new Media Remote that can control other AV devices with RF. The internet melts again as Microsoft is once again perceived as abandoning games.

Sony announces the price and availability of their VR system at E3 as well as an exclusive VR title from Fromsoftware and is instantly proclaimed the winner of E3 and the console war but the reality is that the high price and lack of compelling games all but dooms it as a niche product that dies a slow and ridiculous death.

Bloodborne 2 teaser is the REAL star of E3 and everyone goes bonkers when a true co-op mode is announced with an extra hard mode that changes the boss fights for co-op ala WoW Mythic. Casuals still ask if there is a pause button this go around.

Nintendo teases an impressive NX platform but is coy about release date and details. What we see puts Nintendo on par graphically with the PS4 and Xbox One on consoles.. Handheld is still a mystery. Release date is sometime when they feel like it.

Blizzard reveals a World of Warcraft ARPG using the Titan engine that is an Xbox One/PC exclusive featuring cross platform play under Windows 10. Release date is 2018. Microsoft is co-funding the project with a Destiny like budget being rumored.

Those are some mighty specific and interesting predictions, Guru. My wallet desperately hopes you're wrong about a FROM VR game, although as long as it isn't Souls-ish I have a chance at a saving throw.

Do I need to remind people about From's other games? I mean, Steel Battalion for Kinect was great and all...

I would be very, very surprised by a sequel to Bloodborne. I doubt Sony has an interest in financing one (remember that they didn't want to make a sequel to Demon's Souls, either), and it sounds like the designers at From are interested in moving on to other types of games.

The OP title is Bold Predictions afterall

Trying to think of bold predictions. But I think this is a year where gaming will just kinda happens and moves on to 2016 for anything special to happen....

UNLESS ! ! ! :

* Steam controllers are a real thing this year! Go buy it.

* Steam OS and Linux moving forward, eating up Windows share. Gamers have had enough of MS 'really being into gaming'-broken-record-promise.

* HALF LIFE 3 is everyone's GOTY of 2015 !

* Subscription MMOs getting more expensive because of online taxes.

* Kinect-Gate happened! OMG, it was listening and recording after all, especially when you didn't want it to! Footage posted all over the internet. Class action suit hits MS hard.

Made some none serious predictions last year. But one actually did happen
Steam Controllers did happen.

For this year?
* Steam OS / Steam boxes turn out to be a bigger competitor to MS and Sony than thought before
* Half Life 3 Steam Box editions (if HL3 is going to be released, that would be the way)
* VR doesn't really take of all that much yet. HTC touted best of the bunch

Prediction: Their will be no game in all of 2016 that really wow people with its graphics. Any graphical improvements on games over 2015 will be very minor and something most people won't be able to detect.

Certis wrote:

Gonna lock this up at the end of the month.

*looks at calendar*

O RLY

Final prediction: MeanMan goes on THE LIST.