Bold Predictions 2008

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Bold Predictions 2008

IMAGE(http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/images/nostradacertis1.jpg)

We had a pretty good run last year. Bold predictions were made and many came to pass as foretold. Sure, some of my predictions may seem to have been wrong, but if you read them again the deeper meanings will be revealed. This year will be special, I've brought friends and we've all imbibed a special tonic that spreads wide the legs of the mind "… to the future!

- As I predicted last year, Grand Theft Auto IV was indeed delayed. This year, the game will finally ship with a full online coop mode and some surprising multiplayer team play features.

- There were too many original games last year. I see many sequels, expansions and download content for all games on all platforms. We will count the good, original games on one hand this year for each platform.

- After Super Smash Brothers, Nintendo will redouble their efforts to crush the hopes of long time Nintendo fans, placing their best and brightest on games better suited for your great aunt Edna.

- No Metal Gear Solid 4 until Fall. Insult to injury, the Xbox 360 version will be announced within weeks of the PS3 release. This may seem like last year's prediction, but last year's WAS ACTUALLY THIS YEAR'S! WoooOOOooo.

- In a misguided effort to over-compensate, Microsoft will release a motion control device into the market, only to be greeted by crickets. The niche is filled, gentlemen.

- The will be yet another Nintendo DS model to hit the market. Lighter, brighter and missing the GBA port. It will come in pink.

- The PS3 will gain ground, but as the PS2 sales slow down, the system will see another price cut in the Fall.

- The Gamers With Jobs Conference Call podcast will reach number 1 on the Bosnian iTunes.

- Two prominent gaming magazines will perish.

- Alan Wake? Not this year. Sorry.

And now, a little help from my friends. Spread them wide, everyone!

Elysiumadamus

- While the Wii will still dominate the majority of the year, the Playstation 3 will outsell the 360 on the year, and outsell the Wii on at least 2 months.

- In an effort to regain their dominant position in the industry, EA will finally buy Ubisoft.

Robadamus

- In an effort to stay competitive and reinvigorate their Live Anywhere promises, Microsoft will stop charging for Gold Live accounts by the end of the year.

rabitadamus-lamalamadingdong

- Ken Levine emerges from his basement lair, after spending 9 months rubbing $100 bills on his nipples, to ooze excitement about "project X" in late summer. Gamers everywhere rejoice. Rumors that Levine is contrasting the ethics of Marx, Capitalism and National Socialism in his next effort are proven unfounded.

- The release of the iPhone SDK in February will pave the way for a half dozen open-source game projects which will put the professional handheld game design community to shame. The offerings will be simple, elegant, and addictive. One will bought by Popcap by years end.

The Flyadamus

- Nintendo will release an Animal Crossing title for the Wii in time for the holiday sales rush, and its online features will lead it to become one of the most celebrated and sought-after titles on the platform.

- Valve won't release Episode III until Fall, but it'll come packaged with a title that expands upon the themes and settings introduced in Portal. It'll include more storytelling and less puzzle-solving than its predecessor.

Nylesadamus

- XBox gamers will complain that Devil May Cry 4 is too hard, while PS3 owners will say it's too easy. Riots erupt, martial law declared, police state.

- Spore will be downright unplayable on launch, but EA will release a zero day patch, and then re-patch it over and over again. Three months later, Spore becomes self-aware and begins patching EA.

There you have it, my children. You have one week to enter your own predictions in this thread before I lock it down. No take backs! Also be sure to check out the Bold Predictions 2007 Score Card thread to rate your predictions from a year ago.

Comments

GFW will become Games for Wii.

Within 48 hours of its release, a player with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion will have a level 80 female Death Knight named Knokurzofdoom.

At the same time as this is achieved, his mother will bust into his room, ask him what the smell is, and tell him to take the trash out before he goes to work.

boogle seems to be retracing Demo's steps. Except with actual functioning girlfriends.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

boogle seems to be retracing Demo's steps. Except with actual functioning girlfriends.

- BDTs will be in GWJ's future.

Demo? Perhaps a PM with the pertinent info would be in order.

* People will still call them "Next-Gen" games

* Nintendo keeps releasing CRAP Virtual Console Games and Channels, people pretend to be excited about them

* PS2 just won't f*cking die

* A bunch of GWJobbers will get married, have kids, divorce, make threads about it

Forgot to add one:

Earthbound will come to the Virtual Console. I will make a thread about it while frothing at the mouth saying everyone should buy it. Two people will, one of them being Luna or dhelor. Everyone else will smile and pat my head.

rabbit wrote:
KaterinLHC wrote:

Why is it that as soon as rabbit and I start writing for GFW, everyone starts predicting they'll go out of business? :(

Yeah. Phoey on you.

And on the iPhone: emulation that requires hacking my device and then installing ROMs of questionable legality is a long way from an easily accessible open-source project that meets with broad aclaim. And I hate to say this but at this point in my life, there are essentially no games from those platforms I'm dying to play on my phone. At this point I own every major console and a PC, and can play them all half a dozen different ways. What is intriguing is a unique, original iPhone game that makes use of all the cool stuff built in (accelerometers, cell triangulation, microphone, prox sensor, camera, storage capacity) - I can think of a half dozen fun ARG kinds of things that seem right up iPhone alley.

What Doom not to your liking?

Rubb Ed wrote:

At the same time as this is achieved, his mother will bust into his room, ask him what the smell is, and tell him to take the trash out before he goes to school.

Fixed. Silly man, people with jobs can't play that much.

- Nintendo will have themselves no more than 2 games in the year that sell over 2 million copies regardless of how many Wiis there are. They will all be first party games.

- Nintendo shares will continue to fall as the fad dies out.

- Wii Fit will be the next Virtual Boy, an embarassing mistake whose only excellence comes from college students + YouTube. It will be one of the 2 mentioned above.

- For the entire year PS3 monthly sales never reach 2x PS2 monthly sales.

- Fallout 3 does not launch in 2008. Neither does MGS4 or Spore.

- The 360s new SKU has a 200+ GB HD, works as a Tivo, and leads to an agressive marketing campaign that touts these features as well as television and movie downloads.

- XBox Gold accounts remain the same price, but include a 20 channel IP TV package from select partner networks like Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, NBC, etc.

Fallout 3 will cause the end of a two and a half year relationship, when me and my girlfriend take our respective copies to our respective apartments, never to see each other again.

Certis wrote:

- The Gamers With Jobs Conference Call podcast will reach number 1 on the Bosnian iTunes.

Isn't it already? Let me make some calls...

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-ei...

Will happen, or else humanity is doomed.

TheWanderer wrote:

- XBox Gold accounts remain the same price, but include a 20 channel IP TV package from select partner networks like Comedy Central, Cartoon Network, NBC, etc.

I would buy a Gold account just for this. Please MS, PLEASE.

They just announced a partnership with a British television company today!

Double post for all eternity, locked by our overlords.

* Nintendo Wii will have a backlash from consumers similar in nature to that of Bioshock, as the hype spell dissipates and people wake up to having no games on the system.

* Nintendo DS will start to die off.

* Sony PSP will continue to enjoy a largely mediocre, yet long, existence.

Thousands of people will die penniless and starved to death from playing World of War Craft.

  • L4D will be this year's Lost Planet.
  • New Half Life/(Color) Box/Portal slated in time for the holidays will be delayed, with the explanation that they want to cram more value into the box before shipping.
  • Vista adoption rates will bump some with SP1, but the corporate world will still not embrace the OS. Companies will make the switch as they are driven by hardware needs, instead of upgrading hardware to meet the needs of the new OS.
  • Macs will continue to gain popularity gradually, gently turning the vice on the PC games market.
  • PS3 sales will ebb and flow in part due to exclusive titles, but in larger part according to availability, popularity, and price of Blu-Ray players generally, and also of price and reliability of 360s and Wiis. Sony will learn to shut its mouth more, with the exception of convention season-timed announcements.
  • Google Apps will not gain widespread corporate use, but will start to eat at MS Office's home and personal use sales as the internet generation grabs hold of it for online collaboration and storage space they can access from anywhere.
  • If Fallout 3 is actually released on time, it will be met with reviews much like Oblivion's and take a couple eternities to beat. There will be plenty of PC mods and a grassroots movement to remake F3 with an older, isometric engine. Gamers will continue grinding at it for a solid year after release. I will not finish personally until at least 18 months after release. GWJ 3.0 will have a Fallout mod thread.
  • The Wii will continue to sell well, with a similar bubble of availability in the summer between Smash Bros./Kart and the holidays. A late release of Mario Kart over the summer could diminish the bubble, but if it's late it'll probably come out in early fall instead.

And I'll probably have to take a hard look at my future.

wordsmythe wrote:

L4D will be this year's Lost Planet.

That's so cryptic, it has to come true.

Nyles wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

L4D will be this year's Lost Planet.

That's so cryptic, it has to come true.

I think he means it will be a sad tale of unfulfilled promises.

shihonage wrote:
Nyles wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

L4D will be this year's Lost Planet.

That's so cryptic, it has to come true.

I think he means it will be a sad tale of unfulfilled promises.

Ohhhhhh. Last year was so big, I completely forgot that Lost Planet had been hyped at all.

Nyles wrote:
shihonage wrote:
Nyles wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

L4D will be this year's Lost Planet.

That's so cryptic, it has to come true.

I think he means it will be a sad tale of unfulfilled promises.

Ohhhhhh. Last year was so big, I completely forgot that Lost Planet had been hyped at all.

What a mediocre game completely destroyed by the juggling your character did whenever he was hit.

Lost Planet did make for a number of fun jokes here at GWJ, though.

I wanted to add a couple.

Games Industry Consolidation:
This will continue until the inevitable rise of smaller shops again take the stage. The pendulum will not swing back to smaller shops this year. When it does, though, the indy games will be distributed almost entirely digitally (as they are now). PC games are due to rise in popularity in about a year, but I see indy distribution on consoles becoming more popular as well. Perhaps this is helped by a slowly growing PS3 install base and an improved online experience for PS3. A wide range of offerings for IPTV and next-gen DVR devices will usher in a new wave of casual gaming on your TV... in 2009.

IPTV:
It's coming, and you can't stop it. It will be disappointing for early adopters when it's rolled out in a real way (as opposed to the limited offerings of things like XBLM). It will not begin to overtake current-gen DVRs or Tivos until well after 12/31/08, but the seed will have been planted.

-Skype will not become available for the new PSP in the US this year, maybe next year, but someone will figure out a way to make it work on Old homebrew PSPs soon.

-There will be new Official TF2 maps for the PC and 360, but not nearly enough.

-HD-DVD will officially lose the war to Blueray. Most people who sent in for the 5 free HD-DVD's will not ever receive them.

-A new movie featuring Superman will be announced.

Sorry, mine are nothing special, I'm new at this

Fake it 'til you make it, baby.

... the themes and settings introduced in Portal. It'll include more storytelling and less puzzle-solving than its predecessor.

Oh dear GOD let this be true. I wrote them a nice email begging for just such an occurrence.

Admittedly, I also told them off because I thought the ability to jump added nothing to the game and would be better left out next time.

Camping_Kindling wrote:

Admittedly, I also told them off because I thought the ability to jump added nothing to the game and would be better left out next time.

Nooooooo. Us hyperactive gamers go nuts if we can't jump in a game where it would make sense to be able to do it, even if it doesn't have any real impact on anything.

Jumping into a floor portal would give you just a little bit of extra momentum when coming out the other side. They'd be stupid to remove it.