Bold Predictions 2020

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Some bold predictions come true, some fail spectacularly. What we don’t always realize is how often a failed prediction later finds its way back from the abyss. Welcome to a special, decade edition of Bold Predictions, 2020! Before we race onward with wild claims about the next 12 months of gaming, let’s look back at some of the past predictions of the decade.

Looking Back

2010-2013

Pyroman, 2010 wrote:

The hacker community will find tons of uses for Project Natal hardware and it will live on as an underground sensation well after Microsoft cancels production on the hardware.

Staygold: I had to comb the internet archive to find out what Project Natal even was—it’s the Kinect. Discontinued in 2017, it still has lots of unique and interesting uses in niche applications. For instance, it has a large following in the 3D-modeling world as a cheap/accurate scanner. Pyroman was spot on.

Demiurge, 2011 wrote:

One of the digital distro houses will fall in 2011, due to the simple fact that there's a lot of competition and not enough consumers to go around. Could be Impulse—the PR disaster of Elemental will haunt Brad Wardell for years—or it could be GamersGate. Doubtful that it's Direct2Drive, since it's sitting on that fat IGN cash. Spoiler Alert: It won't be Steam.

Staygold: Direct2Drive still appears to be up and running, but I'd bet it doesn't rank in the top-20 when someone asks "Hey! Where online can I go to purchase game X?" Impulse folded in April 2014 after being acquired by GameStop in 2011. And Brad Wardell is still a disaster.

Certis, 2013 wrote:

Gritty, survivalist games will be the next genre to explode this year, followed by the same crash we saw with World War 2 games and zombies. We won't be sick of it this year though.

Amoebic: Years later, we’re finally starting to feel a little fatigue, but nothing close to a crash. People really seem to love this stuff.

Felix Threepaper, 2014 wrote:

Nintendo will buy CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 3 will become a trading card game… but not *that* trading card game

Felix Threepaper: Well, erm, Witcher 3 came out on Switch… close enough?

2014-2016

Doubtingthomas396, 2016 wrote:

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.

Amoebic: Nailed it!

Certis, 2016 wrote:

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

Staygold: Just have to point out how prescient Shawn was in 2016! The man flat out predicted the Switch a year too early.

2017-2019

Amoebic, 2017 wrote:

Nintendo Switch will do well despite everyone's dour predictions! They will get their act together this time.

Amoebic: Even though my prediction wasn’t very bold, I’m calling this one a win!

Doubtingthomas396, 2019 wrote:

In spite of their assertions to the contrary, Nintendo will announce or release a LABO-based, VR platform which consists of cardboard helmet that holds the switch three inches from the player’s face. It will cause nausea.

Doubtingthomas396: Yep.

Doubtingthomas396, 2019 wrote:

The Monster Hunter Movie will actually be pretty good.

Doubtingthomas396: Too soon to tell, but I stand by it.

2020 Predictions

TheHarpoMarxist

  • Everything will become the Netflix of games over the next ten years. Even Netflix.
  • Project Alyx not only releases on time, but it also contains a hidden Half-Life 3 teaser that is uncovered almost instantly. And, to be as bold as humanly possible, Half-Life 3 is announced shortly after and suffers no further delays.
  • Though Microsoft seems poised to "win" the next generation, their new device stumbles out of the gate by being prohibitively expensive. Despite its technical inferiority, the PS5 wins in early sales, until another data breach at Sony sends the company spiraling into a PR disaster that sets up 2021 as Microsoft's year.
  • They put the Goose in Smash. Then, in a surprise twist, they add a new level to Untitled Goose Game where the village is inhabited by every character already in Smash. This is the start of the Singularity.
  • Waluigi is revealed to be a real person who exists in the real world.
  • A fifth character is added to Slay the Spire. The class is called "American Dad" and is just an American dad who went to sleep one night and then woke up in the Spire. This new class can not look at the map and refuses to ask for directions. All of the cards are based on bad puns.

Amoebic

  • It will be revealed that the delay of Cyberpunk 2077 is a direct result of scrambling to pull staff for Witcher 4. After the smashing success of the TV show, CDPR will announce it at some big trade event in 2020.
  • 2020 will be the rise and revival of video game movies and television; love to see it. Unfortunately, vocally active, fringe "gamers" scathingly review enough of them that public opinion begins to cool relatively quickly, and showrunners move on to far less picky demographics (see: Sonic). 2020 is also the fall of the revival of video game movies.
  • A tweet thread happens between Norman Reedus and Keanu Reeves about making the game that almost was. The fandom catches wind and loses its collective mind with wild speculation. And then Norman and Keanu kiss.
  • Nintendo, having established itself as a pillar in handheld ingenuity, will announce another peripheral hoping for the same success as Labo or RingFit. Third time isn't a charm; it is notably lackluster.

Staygold

  • One of the digital distribution platforms announces they will no longer have “sales.” Instead, games will just decrease in price by $10 every 4 months. If you subscribe to their game-subscription service, it will be a $12 reduction every 3 months for you. People are confused. I’m confused. There’s a poor graph with bad axes and a non-descriptive title to try and alleviate confusion. It’s probably EA.
  • Microsoft announces a new major Halo, Minecraft, and Fable games as launch titles.
  • Blizzard will not release any new games this year. Instead, they will double down on milking the last dollars from their existing franchises. They will launch their own version of Stadia/GeForce Now. World of Warcraft and all the expansions will be included as Free-to-Play. The service is called BNet, and it instantly becomes the dominant player in the game-streaming marketplace.
  • Ubisoft announces a “multi-verse” game at E3. Combining all their open world titles into one massive game. It’s part Street Fighter X Tekken, part Marvel, part Mario + Rabbids Kindgom Battle. It's actually good.
  • Beyond Good and Evil 2 releases in October and is #4 on the GWJ GOTY.
  • Ubisoft becomes the first major game publisher to allow their developers to unionize.
  • Seeing the critical success of the Witcher, Netflix signs a deal to make a TV series based on Control (one can dream, right?).

Doubtingthomas396

  • Cyberpunk will sell well but get middling-to-bad reviews, as the genre will become played out before release.
  • Sony and Microsoft’s new consoles will swap places in the console wars, with Microsoft pulling ahead of Sony with its cheaper base model and a proven track record in backward compatibility. This all but guarantees another console generation by 2026.
  • In spite of early year denials, Nintendo will announce a new Switch SKU that upgrades the processor. It will have worse battery life than a launch switch, but will run Doom Eternal in a way that humans would actually want to play it.
  • Doom Eternal will not be released this year, because games with synonyms for ‘forever’ tend to be in development for at least that long.
  • Google will shut down Stadia. They will not offer refunds to the people who have bought content on the system, and the resulting class action suit will get each claimant three dollars or a four-pack of gamer fuel.

Felix Threepaper

  • The Xbox Series X will launch in 2020 as scheduled and usher in the Netflixification of games. Everyone will think this is great, until a high-profile title has a poor opening two weeks and Microsoft abruptly pulls it, explaining that the user data showed that most players didn't make it past the tutorial.
  • Sony will announce that the PS5 will be backwards compatible, for users who buy an additional accessory: a PS4 that you plug into your PS5 with a proprietary $150 cable.
  • Nintendo will release a model of the Switch that you construct yourself entirely out of cardboard and paper clips. It will be the best-selling console ever, as countless YouTube videos pop up of people unboxing, building, then destroying the cardboard Switch.
  • Bethesda will drop a trailer that surprise-announces the release of The Elder Scrolls 6 in late 2020. It will be set in Valenwood, home of the Wood Elves, and feature extensive town-building, like in Fallout 4. However, the thing that wows fans the most is the bombshell revelation that Bethesda has hired one additional voice actor to help voice the 700 NPCs in the game.
  • Wasteland 3 will contain a single line of dialogue that refers to an orange man, who was a bad leader in the past. This will unleash a torrent of angry words from Capital-G Gamers about how it’s necessary to keep politics out of games set in worlds that have suffered societal and ecological collapse due to nuclear war.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 will not release in 2020.
  • U2’s next album will be released as a Beat Saber level, pushed out as a compulsory patch. No one will notice.

Now it’s your turn! Announce your predictions to the world in the comments, or peruse bold predictions of yore and share the gems we missed. As always, we’ll lock the thread in a few weeks to prevent ninja edits. Enjoy!

Comments

Half-Life 3

Ah, yes, the hill oh so many have died on. Harpo is shooting for the moon on his very first entry!

Google will shut down Stadia. They will not offer refunds to the people who have bought content on the system, and the resulting class action suit will get each claimant three dollars or a four-pack of gamer fuel.

I thought this post was for bold predictions.

garion333 wrote:
Half-Life 3

Ah, yes, the hill oh so many have died on. Harpo is shooting for the moon on his very first entry!

Best to get it out of the way early, so when I hit people with the truth about Waluigi it sounds more plausible.

Time to see how I did!

I am genuinely surprised that s been pushed back so long and that MWO is still generating enough cash to do so. Now I'm less sure that it will be half baked. Maybe three-quarters baked.

Now that I’ve played it, I think I should have stuck with half-baked.

Neither I nor anyone whose home I visit will own VR hardware (excepting Google Cardboard of course).

Easy peasy. But I feel less confident about that in 2019... :O

That was almost a promise to buy something VR in 2019. And I did (PSVR) but it’s surprising that No Man’s Sky was the tipping point. Also surprising: my brother beat me to VR (Oculus Quest).

Anthem will be pretty successful and will rank on the GWJ Community Top 10.

Swing and a miss. I was trying too hard to be contrarian.

The Final Digestion of Bioware will be delayed a couple of years.

Well, they seem serious about Dragon Age 4, and there’s an Anthem reboot coming, so they haven’t given up yet. The studio has some soul-searching to do.

The oldest retail Switch is celebrating its second birthday soon, which is still too young for a spec bump. But an alternative form factor might be possible in 2019.

“Might be possible” is a wishy-washy non-prediction unworthy of this thread, but phrasing aside, my logic was right.

HBS Battletech will remain Clan-free through its third expansion.

I’m still not sure why everyone else was expecting that to be so soon. But I was surprised last week when HBS announced that there will be no more expansions or sequels any time soon, as they pursue other projects.

The fruits of Microsoft's acquisition spree won't really show up at retail in 2019, but there will be announcements of exciting 2020 exclusives we didn't see coming.

Obsidian’s Grounded looks interesting. Hellblade 2 is a big surprise. I loved Hellblade but I’m not sure how that short, intense experience will translate to a AAA tentpole release. Other than those, it’s pretty quiet? I'm sure we'll get more announcements this year, all tied to the Xbox Se. X.

Desperados 3 will be good, and Mimimi will get the recognition they didn't really see for Shadow Tactics. Red Dead fatigue will help.

Delayed into 2020. I’m still hyped for it.

Sony will promote some kind of smartphone-based solution as the Vita successor.

You can stream PS4 games on Android phones now, but they don’t promote it much. I still feel like they should do more here. Meanwhile Microsoft has taken the opposite tack, putting some of their games on the Switch.

2020 Predictions

CD Project Red will hold a press conference to announce Cyberpunk 2077 will not release until I personally have finished Witcher 3. I will be kidnapped and forced to play it a la the brainwashing scene in A Clockwork Orange.

Anthem Next, or whatever they end up calling it, will deliver the goods with the gameplay and story Anthem should have had all along. But there will be controversy about how EA charges for it. Either a paid expansion or a lot of F2P-style semi-mandatory store purchases, frustrating those who paid full price to suffer through the 2019 launch.

Microsoft and Sony will cut whatever they have to (Disc drives? Controllers?) to create a $499 SKU for both the PS5 and the Xbox Se. X, with the “real” versions costing more. I won’t be able to find either until 2021.

Horizon Zero Dawn 2 will be announced for PS5, releasing in 2021.

Nintendo will have a quiet year, with Animal Crossing being their only flagship franchise release.

No release date will be announced for the second chapter of the Final Fantasy VII remake.

Special bonus long-term prediction: by January 1, 2030, the conclusion of the Final Fantasy VII remake will still not have been released.

Nintendo predictions:

Super Mario 3D World Deluxe releases for the Switch this summer.

Nintendo also begins releasing N64 and Game Cube games for the Switch. They won't appear on their subscription service, but you will be able to buy them in bundles.

Mario Kart 9 releases in November/December. Nintendo sells a "Driver Pass" with the promise to release five new drivers and themed courses over the next year. The Goose is the first one. (Please, please someone combine the Goose with Luigi stare!)

Due to my tendency to ramble, I'll once again cherry pick some of last year's predictions that stick out before we move on to the next edition of fail:

* As mentioned in the Conference Call episode, I think Microsoft will throw everything they can into this year to both try to catch the XBox One up with the PS4 and set the table for the next console. That console will probably be announced as early as E3. Backwards compatibility, early forays into the VR arena, cross play with the PC, and the like.

If only I had said it'll be called XBox Sex, it'd make up for being way too early on the announcement.

* Sony will take a victory lap with the PS4 for the rest of the year, however at the Video Game Awards they'll have a promotional video that ends with merely flashing the number 5.

I was this close on it.

* The system seller game for VR will come out this year. What it is, I have no clue, though I think the tech's been around long enough that someone will finally figure out how to make the must play game for it.

I was wrong. The ]i]system that sells VR[/i] came out in 2019 in the form of Occulus Quest.

* Mechwarrior V will be a lot better than people seem to think it will be, though socks will remain on people's feet.

That feels like a win.

* Anthem's delay actually will help, though only in so far as ensuring it won't have a dismal release like Fallout 76.

I was wrong... kind of?

* Star Wars: Whatever will release because as mentioned in the Conference Call because Lucasfilm and Disney want something Star Wars related in concert with the new movie. This will likely be the last Star Wars game EA releases as the license holders adopt the model Marvel's using for Spider-Man and Avengers to farm out new versions of classic Star Wars games to AAA publishers.

The latter part remains to be seen, but given what a surprise success Jedi: Fallen Order was it's entirely likely Disney opts to stick with EA the next time the license is up. Whether or not EA wants to stick with Disney, though...

* The Outer Worlds will be a solid game of the year contender and may end up hitting the top of some people's lists, though sight mostly unseen I can't say for sure.

It certainly ended up being my GOTY!

* Elite: Dangerous. I only say this because I'm trying really hard to look over the giant hump to overcome that's been building up since I put the game down a few years ago and I really have the urge to try to overcome it but I need some big new addition to push me over.

Update: no I did not go back. I didn't even remember I said this until I started pondering this year's Bold Predictions.

* Starfield. Bethesda broke with tradition by announcing both it and Elder Scrolls VI this far in advance and I think that the earliest it'll come out is Q1 of 2020. It may even go further back if Bethesda is hellbent on trying to make Fallout 76 work.

* Elder Scrolls VI. Same.

It may be that both won't come out until we're all having XBox Sex and the PS5.

* Dragon Age 4. Nope. Bioware will be doing everything it can to make Anthem successful to the point where I don't think we even get a teaser or a trailer this year. But, having said that, my bolder prediction is that Hawke will return as the player character.

We did get a slight hint in 2019, but more on that further down the post.

* And at the end of whatever thing Valve does at whatever thing they're attending, the number 3 will briefly flash at the end of their video.

A Half-Life did get announced!

All right, on to what probably won't happen in 2020:

Hardware and Services:

* PS5 and XBox Sex will be had by year's end, however launch sales will be below predictions particularly for Microsoft's console. Cited reasons will include a decline in the economy, issues overseas related to the coronavirus, and Gamepass eliminating the need for XBox Sex among PC players.

* Steam will no longer be the top online game store as Epic continues to eat away its market share. Furthermore, online stores run by publishers will become a big thing as online video game sales/subscription services do to gaming what studio-specific streaming services have done for TV and film. Stadia will still take a while to catch on, though by the time it does, a whole bunch of other people will have adapted the idea for themselves.

* Nintendo Switch continues to be the Nintendo Switch. Maybe a new version comes out alongside the other two new consoles.

* VR will continue to grow as more and more wireless models become available and less expensive. Be prepared to watch relatives walking into walls during the next holiday season.

Games:

* Assassin's Creed: Something. I hope it's somewhere in Asia, but I wouldn't be surprised at this point if it's not.

* The Last of Us 2. It'll come out this year, it'll be a PS5 launch title, and it'll be GOTY for a lot of people.

* Watch Dogs Legion. Like its predecessor, it'll be well reviewed, well liked, forgotten almost completely after its launch window, and be almost completely useless as a navigation aid for the city it's set in.

* The Romeros' Empire of Sin will be regarded as the best XCOM since XCOM 2 and is my sleeper pick for GOTY.

* Cyberpunk 2077 will be a critical failure and may be regarded as one of the worst AAA titles of the year.

* So too will The Avengers and despite the Marvel name and delay to September it'll be a sales failure, as well. Expect a sequel to Insomniac's Spider-Man to be announced not long after the Avengers flop.

* Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 will, on the other hand, be a critical success though still will have only a cult following.

* Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be fine.

* Ghostrunner will be this year's Control.

* Diablo 4 will launch, will be regarded as an improvement upon Diablo 3 and a return to the form of 1 and 2, but will barely be a drop in the bucket as Path of Exile stole the crown right off of Blizzard's head and isn't giving it back any time soon.

* Crusader Kings 3 will at launch be leaps and bounds better than vanilla CK2... and then the long, pricey drip of DLC will begin.

* Not long after CK3 launches, Paradox will announced that Europa Universalis V is in development and that Sean Sands has been hired to be the sole beta tester.

* The actual Game of 2020 will spring forth from the same, unpredictable aether that gave birth to the likes of Baba Is You and Disco Elysium, because that always seems to be what happens.

* Anthem's revamp will... do something.

* Star Wars Battlefront II will add The Mandalorian content, including a Baby Yoda hero unit.

* Overwatch 2 won't release in 2020. I don't see Blizzard releasing two games in the same year and of the two I think there's a bigger need for a Diablo sequel right now.

* Neither will Dragon Age 4. Bioware seems to be betting the farm on Anthem considering the lengths they're going to in order to save it. This may end up taking Bioware down with it if EA's run out of faith.

* Firaxis announces XCOM 3 and it might launch early next year. What it's about, who knows. I don't think they can make a sequel out of losing the previous game again.

VR will continue to grow as more and more wireless models become available and less expensive.

Last I saw, VR headset unit sales across all manufacturers were on a downward trend and had been for awhile. Granted, numbers are hard to come by because every manufacturer insists everything is super hunky dory no matter what. But it looks like interest in VR may have peaked and is back into decline.

Edit: To expand on that a little bit: Sony has been the market leader in VR headsets the last few years with their Playstation VR headset. They had been reporting individual sales numbers for it to their investors, but they're now lumping together VR headset sales with all hardware peripherals for the PS4, a category that's normally dominated by mundane things like replacement or additional controllers. Generally that kind of sales figure obfuscation is a sign that Sony doesn't see a product as continuing to be a strong, viable entry in their lineup.

This is one manufacturer, obviously, but even more recent hardware like Oculus Quest doesn't seem to be making blockbuster sales. Facebook is mum on solid figures and offers a variety of explanations, but estimates put Quest sales somewhere between 500k and 1 million units. Which isn't bad, necessarily, but it's not much to build a platform on, and it's down from previous hardware iterations.

I just don't think there's much gas left in the VR tank unless Half-Life Alyx really sets the world on fire. I'm expecting tepid support for the PS VR on PS5 that mostly comes down to backward compatibility. People expecting a PS VR 2 are going to be disappointed.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
VR will continue to grow as more and more wireless models become available and less expensive.

Last I saw, VR headset unit sales across all manufacturers were on a downward trend and had been for awhile. Granted, numbers are hard to come by because every manufacturer insists everything is super hunky dory no matter what. But it looks like interest in VR may have peaked and is back into decline.

I think that's a mis-read. What you were seeing was the first-gen market beginning to asymptotically approach saturation - the early adopters had already gotten their headsets, and second gen hasn't come along to drive upgrades yet.

Then the Quest launched, which opened up an entirely new section of the market. Quest has basically been on permanent back-order for months, such is the demand for it. It sold gangbusters this holiday season. Valve's Index headset is also soldout worldwide - demand for that exploded with news of Half-Life: Alyx

VR software sales are also radically up in 2019, largely due to the low end of the market, that is, Quest and PSVR. Graphs from RoadtoVR.com...

IMAGE(https://roadtovrlive-5ea0.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Oculus-Software-Sales.png)

IMAGE(https://roadtovrlive-5ea0.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/VR-Software-Sales-Trends.png)

The end of that graph that represents the radical upswing of sales seems to be predicted sales for 2020, or else someone is really bad at labeling graphs.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The end of that graph that represents the radical upswing of sales seems to be predicted sales for 2020, or else someone is really bad at labeling graphs.

Based on the article I pulled them from, which is talking about 2019 VR sales, it's the latter. Right hand quadrant of the X-axis that's labelled from 2019 to 2020 represents the year of 2019. Because the Quest launched in 2019, right, hence sales on that went up from zero.

seems to be predicted sales for 2020

Well, this is the predictions thread.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The end of that graph that represents the radical upswing of sales seems to be predicted sales for 2020, or else someone is really bad at labeling graphs.

Screw stacked line graphs. So misleading. I’m also pretty sure these horrendously labelled graphs represent yearly sales IN SOFTWARE, not hardware, so 2019-2020 is the year of 2019 from what I could infer from the article. Those graphs still show Rift software sales ($75M) leading Quest software sales ($55M) by a decent margin. But more than all of that, PSVR is crushing the VR market.

Edit: I also question the authorial independence of a site promoting VR, but that’s beside the point

Agathos wrote:
seems to be predicted sales for 2020

Well, this is the predictions thread.

I didn't see that coming. How embarrassing.

My VR (un)bold predictions are:

: The VR industry will continue to grow modestly through 2020. High-end headsets sales will be sluggish, but software sales will continue to be strong, mostly driven by growth in the cheaper headsets.

: Nothing industry-shaking will launch on the hardware side, but we'll see a lot of incremental gains and minor iterations.

: However, there will be news of industry-shaking hardware coming 1-3 years hence. Both something to compete with Quest (i.e. low fidelity, inside-out tracking, standalone, low price-point), and a wireless (though still requiring a beefy PC) high-fidelity headset which will offer improved FOV , resolution and optics over the current bleeding edge.

: Half-Life:Alyx will be a solid 9/10, will stand head and shoulders over much of it's competitors, and remain as a benchmark in VR, but will be largely forgotten by player by year's end.

: I give it a better than 50/50 chance that the best VR game by 2021 will still be Beat Saber.

My BONUS PREDICTION is that LAARRPGs (Live Action Augmented Reality Role Playing Games) become a huge genre in the back half of the decade.

... what's everyone looking at me for?

Rat Boy wrote:

* Firaxis announces XCOM 3 and it might launch early next year. What it's about, who knows. I don't think they can make a sequel out of losing the previous game again.

Firaxis likes to announce things and release 6 months later, so if they announce it this year, it'll be out this year. I'm thinking announce around E3 time and release in the fall.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Google will shut down Stadia. They will not offer refunds to the people who have bought content on the system, and the resulting class action suit will get each claimant three dollars or a four-pack of gamer fuel.

I thought this post was for bold predictions.

The bold part was predicting google’s lawyers would lose the class action suit.

the thing that wows fans the most is the bombshell revelation that Bethesda has hired one additional voice actor to help voice the 700 NPCs in the game

Steve Buscemi?

One thing I can boldly predict is that despite how similar the Xbox Series X and the PS5 end up being (They are both using identical AMD APU platforms) the internet will fight bitterly to declare one the winner before they even launch.

Both will launch with 1TB SSD's at $499 for a single SKU. I do not think we will see the rumored lesser Xbox model at launch but perhaps a redesigned Xbox One X at some point in 2021 for $249ish.

Sony will continue to be the core gamers #1 choice due to the never ending series of exclusives that all feature gruff post apocalyptic white dudes.. but to change it up a bit some will feature gruff white women.

Microsoft will continue to push Game Pass over exclusives which will continually allow core gamers to dismiss it because I have a $1500 gaming PC like "everyone"

Microsoft and Sony will both push eSports hard on their new Platforms in an attempt to jockey in position as the "official" platform for Sports eSports.

Someone finally realizes that eSports has sh*tty spectator modes and fixes it.

Google doesn't kill Stadia (yet)

Microsoft doesn't launch xCloud (yet)

Nintendo doesn't refresh the Switch base hardware platform in 2020.. but we do see more colors and a nifty joycon attachments that comes with a molded grip.

Someone mods the Nintendo Switch into a Fire TV Stick.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:
the thing that wows fans the most is the bombshell revelation that Bethesda has hired one additional voice actor to help voice the 700 NPCs in the game

Steve Buscemi?

IMAGE(http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/105000/Steve-Buscemi-Gollum--105305.jpg)

A Harpo Marxist wrote:

A fifth character is added to Slay the Spire. The class is called "American Dad" and is just an American dad who went to sleep one night and then woke up in the Spire. This new class can not look at the map and refuses to ask for directions. All of the cards are based on bad puns.

I have never wished a more unlikely prediction to come true.

Well, apart from Half-Life 3 of course.

Felix Threepaper wrote:
Danjo Olivaw wrote:
the thing that wows fans the most is the bombshell revelation that Bethesda has hired one additional voice actor to help voice the 700 NPCs in the game

Steve Buscemi?

IMAGE(http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/105000/Steve-Buscemi-Gollum--105305.jpg)

I was about to ask Why Elf Steve Buscemi looks like Gollum’s absentee father, but then I saw the image title.

1. New Xbox takes the lead out of the gate as PS 5 is deemed too expensive.
2. One of the streaming services like Netflix expands into game streaming.
3. DOTA Underworld becomes wildly popular and launches a new genre.
4. Fortnite fatigue sets in and the game suffers an exodus of players.
5. Blaming video games for mass gun violence becomes a key 2020 election issue.
6. Cyberpunk 2077 is delayed till 2021.
7. The Game King wracks up 1000 hours in Crusader Kings 3 in just a week, proving he has a time machine.

Alright, let's see how well I did last year.

Spoiler:
Either Bayonetta 3 or Metroid Prime 4 are announced to release in 2020.

Nope.

Nintendo focuses their E3 presentation on the new Pokemon game. It will be using the same engine as Let's Go, but one or two Quality-of-Life improvements (such as no random encounters) will be missing and disappoint fans.

They actually released most of the information regarding Sword/Shield pre-E3. It is not using the same engine as Let's Go, and while you could argue it was missing some Quality of Life improvements, it was a joy and disappointment for fans for mixed, complicated reasons that I'm not sure is worth getting into.

Shin Megami Tensei V gets its first major trailer, but a release window of 2020.

We haven't received anything substantial from this game since the Nov. 2017 trailer. What the Heck, man?

One of the following characters will be announced as DLC for Smash Bros. Ultimate: Travis Touchdown, Zero from Mega Man X, Leon from Resident Evil 4, a protagonist from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Considering that the only qualifier was "one of", I'm gonna call this a win.

Animal Crossing on Switch doesn't make it on a lot of forum member GotY lists, but it is in the top 3 of those lists in which it does appear.

Game got delayed, but I'm going to go ahead and say it would have been wrong anyway. I think there's going to be a good percentage of Switch owners that would have had this on their list.

Square Enix announces a port of Final Fantasy VIII to Steam, with no console release planned. The port will be a reverse engineering of the Eidos PC port due to early-Hollywood-levels of record-keeping, and thus will have its issues that are well-documented by purists.

I was only correct by a percentage. Game got ported to pretty much everything, and I've seen nothing about whose code it is based on.

Nintendo will begin releasing SNES games on their online service, but no sign or acknowledgment of GameCube or N64 emulation.

Whoo! I was right!

There will be no new physical model of the Switch.

D'oh! I was wrong!

Activision will have a quiet year, propped up primarily by Call of Duty and Blizzard as they internally scramble to find new IP's to revive or create, but with the goal of each of them remaining "as service".

I feel like this is half-correct. I feel like Activision themselves have had a relatively quiet year, with all the bad news being Blizzard-focused. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare wasn't an abysmal failure and they've yet to have a major DLC screw-up like BLOPS4's red dot laser sight, and Sekiro was a large success for them as a publisher. Blizzard are the ones making all the negative headlines, and most of those decisions have little to do with Activision themselves.

Bungie will continue to release expansions for Destiny 2, but will be working on Destiny 3 to release in 2020 as an evergreen title that can "fix" what broke in 2 and live on similarly to Warframe.

Might be wrong on this one. Bungie has basically said they're sticking with 2 thus far.

Hideki Kamiya drops hints to his new project, but no significant details as to what it will be.

Buzz that Yoko Taro is working on something, but no official announcements in 2019.

The closest to "hints" or "buzz" was Platinum's desire to get into publishing, which began with a surprising Kickstarter campaign to release remasters of The Wonderful 101. Otherwise, no news here.

Capcom revives another older property onto modern systems, be it as a remaster or a surprise sequel. It will not be Breath of Fire related.

I feel like this was a response to the Onimusha Warlords announcement, though it might have been in response to Mega Man 11. They announced the Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection last year, which I guess counts?

Respawn's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will see a delay into 2020. There will be no sign of Titanfall 3.
EA will lose exclusivity to the Star Wars license.

Only 1/3rd correct.

The Outer Worlds will get a Metacritic around 70-79 and will be a disappointment to many at first, but will have its small but loyal following that marks it as a cult favorite in the years to come.

Average of 85% on PS4 and Xbox and 82% on PC so off about that. I feel like, reading the comments here, many were disappointed but there's still love for the game. I'll call it a partial win.

Sony is not "at" E3, but holds an event of their own nearby, physically and/or in terms of timeframe.

Nope. They didn't hold much in the way of events at all.

Microsoft will show off their new Xbox, but it won't be ready for release until 2020. Halo: infinity will be a launch title, but aside from 4K capabilities, there will be nothing much to get excited about. It will not have HoloLens, but will be VR capable. The primary emphasis will be a larger hard-drive and digital downloads.

Hrm. I have mixed feelings about this one. It's partially correct, but I didn't foresee a SSD being announced for either console. "To be excited about" also depends on the person.

Sony waits until their PlayStation Experience in December to reveal their PS5. It will also have an Ultra Blu-Ray drive, 4K ready, and will have PlayStation VR packed in.

Aside from the obvious such as 4K and all, this was pretty off. Sony has been a lot more quiet than I anticipated.

RockSteady is NOT working on a Superman game. Crowds will react in disappointment at whatever is announced, but when the title releases (possibly not until 2020) it will be lauded by press and players alike.

Retro Studios finally reveals what they've been working on. It is related to neither Donkey Kong nor Metroid, and in fact results in a lot of disappointment from current fans. Just like Rocksteady, however, when the game does release, it will be lauded by critic and player alike.

Still no word from RockSteady, and not long after these predictions were made came the announcement that Metroid Prime 4 was being handed off to Retro rebooted.

So yeah, not a lot of accuracy in last year's predictions, sadly.

I don't even know if I want to make predictions for this year. I'm feeling like the industry has been surprising me more and more and proving to be unpredictable while at the same time completely predictable. I mean, we can talk about VR above all we want, but I don't even hear people discussing it inside of gaming circles all that much. I'm pretty sure VR is a niche product, and while a lot of people swear by it as the future, I think there's more than just costs preventing people from getting into it. I think VR itself is a "hobby scale" activity, requiring more time and set up than nearly any other leisure activity and providing a spectacle. Yeah, sure, you can pretend to play frisbee in VR, or you can go outside and actually throw a frisbee.

It's a completely isolationist activity, and it is competing with the simplicity of Netflix and Chill or reading a book... or just powering on a system and playing a game without having to go through the hassle of a headset, having the physical space for it, etc. I mean, at least with the Wii you knew if you were about to smack someone else in the face swinging your controller around, and VR is basically "Wii 2.0" as little as people want to admit it. Look how quickly the Wii wore out. It's still basically "bowling for retirement homes" at this point.

I don't think VR is "going away", I do think it's the Wii concept brought to a point where people can enjoy it more enthusiastically, but I only see it being a niche hobby of what is already a niche, skill-based hobby. For most people, Match-3 on their phone is going to be just fine.


Anywho, predictions.

  • Due to similar marketing confusion as the WiiU, the Xbox Series X will struggle this holiday season to sell to all but the knowledgeable gaming audience and those with tech savvy. It's already difficult enough differentiating Xbox One X with Xbox Series X, and will drive more casual consumers bonkers compared to the obviously clear and concise PlayStation 5. That many Series X titles will be playable on One, such as Halo Infinity, will also give many consumers reason to wait until the system's first price-drop or new form factor, assuming there is one. With a name like Series X, it's possible that there will be multiple models, which will only add to the confusion. Regardless, Microsoft's approach in naming and other factors will cause the Series X to sell well enough to a limited audience, but overall the PlayStation 5 will be the holiday winner in 2020.
  • That said, Microsoft has proven that there's value in their services to most consumers. Project xCloud in particular will likely come ahead as Google Stadia continues to struggle, and just as PSVR is the "mainstream" friendly variant of Virtual Reality, xCloud will become the mainstream friendly game streaming service by 2020's conclusion.
  • Don't know if you could call it a prediction for 2020, but GDC's State of the Industry indicates that there aren't a lot of developers keen on streaming or subscription services. Keep in mind it also says very few are interested in next-gen, but I believe the numbers are thrown off for a simple reason: there are far more indie developers and indie representatives at an event like GDC than representatives of larger AA and AAA game studios or publishers. Indies are unlikely to even be able to obtain dev kits for PS5 or Xbox Series X. However, while I believe it will mischaracterize what we're likely to see the next couple years in terms of major AAA and AA games on next-gen, I think it gives us an indication of what to expect from indies. And if indies are worried about streaming and subscription services, it means it'll make it harder for new, break out titles to even have a chance, let alone be noticed. So my prediction is that the only indie games you'll see on these services are already proven games or ones that are from more notable studios, with implications that the day of games like Minecraft or Five Nights at Freddy's springing out of nowhere are in their twilight... except on phones, maybe, or some areas of Steam. Regardless, even on GWJ you can see people eager to move to subscription services and away from ownership, and while that has opened up an avenue of smaller-to-middle scale film on Netflix, I feel with games it wouldn't work so well.
  • So I guess that's not so much a prediction, huh? Not one that we would be able to witness in just a year, at least. Still, something I found interesting.
  • I'm always wrong about video game predictions, but what the heck. Might as well shoot for the stars.
  • No official tease for Half-Life 3, but the fan-base will still comb through everything they can in Alyx to use as a potential "teaser" for an official third entry.
  • Finally more news on Bayonetta 3
  • Finally more news on Shin Megami Tensei V
  • First trailer of Persona team's fantasy-RPG project
  • The Metroid Fusion remake is real and releases on Switch this year.

Yeah that's about the most I feel "confident" in predicting, and even then it's like "Well we've heard nothing the past few years why would I expect something new now!"

ccesarano wrote:

Finally more news on Bayonetta 3
The Metroid Fusion remake is real and releases on Switch this year.

You're toying with my heart with this right here.

Ok, I’ll play this year. If these aren’t bold enough I can go back and change the font

  • Nintendo releases a patch to the Switch that includes StreetPass.
  • The Switch finally gets additional streaming service apps, and Netflix stops supporting the WiiU (ideally at the same time, so I don’t have to buy a roku or move the PS4).
  • Epic Games is involved in a data breach/privacy scandal.
  • Asmodee continues its tabletop market takeover by acquiring Paizo.
  • Game Stop declares bankruptcy and closes all but a handful of stores.
  • Untitled Goose Game 2

LAST CALL!

Get your predictions in now. We'll be closing the comments this weekend.

Switch 2 rumblings begin this fall season in earnest due to release of new PS and Xbox consoles (assuming not delayed due to production issues). Nintendo denies everything, but more and more dev kits are sent out.

Super Mario 3D World and Pikmin 3 released this year to go with a 2D Metroid game.

BotW2 delayed to 2021 to coincide with Switch 2 launch. Will release on both OG Switch and Switch 2.

Xbox Series X will be $499+, but offset by the cheaper model that comes bundled with a year of Game Pass to suck people into their ecosystem.

PS5 is $399 and not as powerful as the Series X. Folks won't care because the price point means it represents a better value.

Half-Life: Alyx changes nothing in the VR landscape because people hate seeing their hands in VR. Many folks will still drool all over it because it's Valve and Half-Life.

Cyberpunk is unable to overcome it's first person view and poor combat encounters to be as beloved as The Witcher series, but still delivers on the role playing front.

Dying Light 2 is GotY 2020.

None of these feel bold so much as cynical, so let's give some boldness a try:

Konami will release their own handheld console.

Sega will open Sega Arcades all across the world. The cabinets will consist solely of Yakuza games in which you can play in the Sega Arcade in-game.

Microsoft acquires Nintendo, but only their software development teams. Nintendo will still make their own hardware while Microsoft runs their software side.

EA becomes the Good Guy.

Great predictions, garion333! They made me laugh... in a good way .