Bold Predictions 2012

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I won't lie to you. After my dismal 2010 predictions campaign I played it safe with my 2011 picks. PSP 2 with a touch screen? Sure. Playstation Move will suck? Done. New Nintendo console announced? Boom. I hit some softballs, sure. Am I proud? Not really, but I'll take what I can get. This year things get a bit hazy as the whole industry seems to be on the cusp of either announcing new consoles or coasting through one more year.

My first prediction is so bold they're going to turn it into a Doritos flavor.

Sony will not announce a new console this year. Instead, they will re-launch the PSN as a more competitive online service with heavy Vita integration.

There you have it! Read on for predictions from the GWJ staff. As usual, I encourage everyone to make their own predictions in the comments. I'll be locking the thread up for posterity in a few weeks so no take-backs! Looks like some industrious forum members have already started talking about last year's picks in this thread.

Shawn's Predictions

Nintendo will announce a price and release date for the Wii-U at E3. Price will be $299 and it will ship in the fourth quarter. Lacking any major first party titles at launch, Nintendo will lean on 3rd parties like Ubisoft to fill out the library.

Microsoft will not announce a new console this year. Expect more of the same in terms of Kinect focus and integration.

There will not be a new MMORPG released this year without a free way to play.

Onlive will begin to beta an "Onlive HD" type service that will give premium, HD resolution streaming of new games for customers with the bandwidth to handle it.

Activision will avoid launching any major new franchises this year. Instead, they'll stick with what sells and wait for the new round of consoles before announcing what Bungie is working on.

J.P.'s Prognoses

Freemium Will Innovate or Die - With the freemium model's widespread success comes increased scrutiny, even from casual consumers. Players of all stripes are getting wise to its cruder hooks, like multiple in-game currencies that can be bought for real money. The games that will succeed will be those that meaningfully reward players for microtransactions — not those that restrict access to content until cash has changed hands.

Chrome Will Emerge as a Viable Gaming Platform - Sure, pickings are slim right now; the Chrome Web Store kinda looks like a flea market stall selling cheap knockoffs of iOS and Facebook games. But the recent release of Bastion on Chrome raised a lot of eyebrows, including mine. If a game that made nearly everyone's best-of list this year can succeed in this format, other developers will take notice.

iOS/Mobile Games Will No Longer Sit at the Kids' Table on Year-End Lists - Speaking of best-of lists, the gaming press's instinct to segregate those upstart young mobile games from their console/PC elders in their year-end roundups will continue to fade. More outlets will not feel the need to publish two different lists. Instead, we'll see mobile games interspersed with traditional titles — with fewer apologies.

Sony and Microsoft Will Announce Next-Gen Consoles - ...which will be in stores for holiday 2013 at the earliest.

Diablo III Will Finally Be Released - ...but as a First-Person Shooter. Trololololo!

Erik "wordsmythe" Hanson

Indies oversaturate: The glut of bundled indie sales and markdowns will take its toll. Maintaining interest in indie development will feel like trying to keep up with RSS feeds and social networks, and we'll all have to reprioritize, trim down to focus only on curated links/reviews, or give up and stick to bigger releases.

Newsgames: For smaller games to gain attention in 2012, they'll have to either latch onto or create controversy. Simply being "fun" or "cute" or even "compelling" won't gain enough buzz. As it's an election year in the US, it won't be easy to catch headlines independent of politics in the the US. Controversial games won't necessarily be any good, but you might end up playing them so that you'll be able to speak from knowledge when your relatives or coworkers start using one thin title to rag on games in general.

Gamification plateaus: Plenty of folks hated gamification as soon as it began, and many expected the trend to disappear as quickly as it appeared. But it's not going to blink out of existence. Rather, it's going to move like any other social trend, becoming more popular with less trendy groups — meaning gamification is going to catch on more with soccer moms and middle managers of boring companies. In some places, that could just mean modest improvements on goal-setting and feedback. In others, it could mean a return of a series of cliches from Glengarry Glen Ross.

Charlie "TheWanderer" Hall

Zynga Catches Fire From The Inside Out - There are several possible scenarios I can imagine this billion dollar giant imploding from. First, there's some kind of SEC trouble, some overstatement of this or understatement of that. If that happens, then someone goes to jail and the rats abandon the sinking ship. Second, there's the human relations nightmare that ends up in civil court. They've already overstepped once and got a bit burned. If this happens the company goes sour, but since their customers have little to no brand identification with "Zynga" the company, the IP, which they do know, sells well to other gaming concerns. Zynga ownership comes out smelling like a rose. My bias is large here, but I just don't trust them.

OnLive Gets Bought Out - AT&T, already an investor in the company, doubles down. They then take a hard left and lunge for Nintendo's jugular. Seeing weekness and before their next console can even get any attention in the media at large, AT&T waves their e-peen around ushering in the post-console era. Their color is white like Nintendo's, 50% child-focused, and heavy on the touch and waggle. Piggybacking on an unlimited data plan with a monstrous monthly fee, they promise and deliver AAA games anywhere. Their cloud-only strategy, iOS integration, and thousands of miles of bandwidth support it. Hard line, in home connections continue to work okay, but mobile reception is still sh*t. In 2013 the gambit fails taking OnLive with it.

Board Game Revolution - Something snaps with the old gaurd and a traditional board game springs forth on the dinner tables of America with integral, inviolate tablet integration. It is something engaging that captures the minds of old-school wargamers as well as children.

Games Meet Politics - In this hotly contested election year there is more advertising than ever in the game space. On Facebook, in MMOs, there is a heated race to capture the votes of gamers. It all goes sour when someone plants the wrong ad in the wrong game, and there is a slew of attack ads where gamers are villainized and caught in the middle. Eventually it blows over, and nothing comes of it but a Twitter-rage filled fury of "email your senator"-ish bluster. Obama wins in a squeaker. On page two there is a bit of a blowback towards the makers of Bioshock: Infinite. They get too close to the flame of American history as understood by those who misread it regularly. They become the topic of a few immigration debates on the floor and much lol'd at Fox commenters.

Christos "CY" Reid

Mojang's Cobalt and Scrolls do not perform well - Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that neither game is even going to touch the level of popularity Minecraft experienced, but from what we've seen, Cobalt is a decent platform-shooter hindered by overly complex and badly thought-out controls, and Scrolls is simply a CCG with the looks of a Dragon Age Flash title. I think their overconfidence in their IPs running against the confusion or cynicism of those waiting to experience them is going to hurt.

World of Warcraft will become unrecognisable - Having just come back after a break since mid-Burning Crusade, it's clear that with Pandaria heading towards our computers, the most popular MMO in the world is shifting rapidly towards becoming more accessible, more open to microtransactions, and less like the hardcore screaming-on-vent experience it started out as. What this will do to its client base seems simple - out go the old, in come the new/young.

Non-Rabbit Julian's Predictions

The Indie Crystal Ball: Fez and Monaco will actually get released this year. And it's not like I already predicted that last year. Most of the reviews of Dear Esther will, in some way or another, debate the question whether this experience constitutes a game or not. "This game is 'Minecraft meets [insert game/genre]'" is a description we'll be reading and hearing more often.

Poof: Social games are here to stay, but this year we're going to see some companies fold or at least shrink notably. Turns out that, surprisingly enough, the growth potential of the market is not endless.

Been there, done that #1: It's been more than 10 years since Nintendo introduced a new major IP with Pikmin. (I'm not really counting software like Wii Sports/Fit/Party here since they don't have a specific universe, narrative, and identity: It's about generic Miis being integrated into mini-games.) While they surely know how to innovate within existing franchises, I wouldn't mind exploring a completely new world for a change. The Wii U line-up to be shown before and at E3 2012 probably won't deliver on that though. Nintendo will also admit that they were never quite able to figure out what to do with the Wii Vitality sensor.

Been there, done that #2: Activision will announce the return of Guitar Hero.

Captain Ob(li)vious: 99 percent of the people who threw temper tantrums about Diablo III featuring an RMT auction house and requiring the user to be online all the time will get in line on launch day. Quite the daring prediction, I know. Also, I'm guessing the game will ship in March.

Allen "Pyroman" Cook

Apple with open the AirVideo spec to device manufacturers, with an eye on turning the iPad into a viable home gaming system.

The big three of the next gen of consoles will be Microsoft, Nintendo and Apple. Sony won't show up until it's way too late to matter.

Microsoft's next console will focus on digital distribution, and more importantly they will fix XBL Indie Games so it can more directly compete with the various App Stores that are popping up all over the place.

Games that require specialized peripherals will continue to succeed, despite the music genre implosion.

OnLive will announce their integration with a major digital distribution service.

Cory "Demiurge" Banks

Apple Targets Consoles With New TVs - Not at launch, but by the end of the year the House That Steve Built will actually, honest-to-God take on the big 3 with an app store. We already know there are Apple TVs coming with iTunes integration, so it's not a stretch. The controller? Your existing iOS devices. Get ready for Tiny Wings 2 on your TV.

More Kinect in 2012 - It's selling gangbusters, even without significant 3rd party support. That will change, however, when Activision announces a major Kinect title at E3 from one of its big development house. Outside of optional support in AAA titles, Sony's Move will sit still.

Diablo 3 Becomes Top-Selling Title of 2012 - Just because I was wrong last year doesn't mean I'll be wrong this year. Diablo 3 will sell more than any other title, including console titans. Why not?

The Old Republic Starts Feeling Old - First, EA will announce that its shipped record numbers of SWTOR and generated huge subscription numbers (whatever number it takes to justify $150 million in development costs from BioWare to shareholders). Then, as the months creep in, subscription levels will drop. You'll see excitement when BioWare announces its first expansion at E3, but even with a full dev team working on it, it won't ship until next year. It'll be a shame, since SWTOR is the best MMO to come out in years.

WoW Will Not Go F2P - Ever. But Mists of Pandara will be the lowest-selling expansion yet.

Wii U Will Not Cost U Much - After the 3DS pricing error, Nintendo will cut features to bring the new Wii down to $199, if not cheaper. Should be easy to do, since they've hardly announced any features anyway. There still won't be much software support for launch, however, and Nintendo will scramble to get big third party publishers to release early.

That's all I've got for now. Kind of hardware heavy, but oh well.

Sean "Elysium Sands

XTV -- Xbox will announce plans to incorporate Xbox and Kinect technology integrated into a television as part of their next gen plans.

SWTOR clears 3 Million -- By end of 2012 Star Wars: The Old Republic will clear 3 million users.

The Three Box -- Valve will announce and release a pack akin to the Orange Box that will include Left4Dead 3, Portal 3 & HL2 Ep3

Digital Distribution -- 2 major publishers will announce proprietary digital distribution services built off the EA Origin model.

F2P -- No plans are announced in 2012 to move World of WarCraft or SWTOR to a free to play model.

Julian "rabbit" Murdoch

1: Wii U launches with the ability for two controllers. We don't care very much.

2: The new Xbox is officially announced, and Microsoft aggressively
pursues the inclusion of basic Xbox functionality in other devices
(ala Airplay), like TVs.

3: Diablo 3, while selling very well, fails to get the kind of "still
playing it 3 months later" legs that gamers expect.

4: A major successful release comes out exclusively for Native Client.

5: We'll see a major successful iOS game get the boardgame treatment,
not the other way around.

Colleen "momgamer" Hannon

Mobile Gaming and AAA Gaming Will Continue to Blend: With the release of classics like Final Fantasy III (and the rumored rest of the series) on the iOS devices, the line between tablets/phones and big disk games will continue to blur.

WiiU is going to show great potential, but choke on content: Once they get gamers past the rumored painfully high list price, they're going to have to get game developers to deal with a whole new control model. It will be a painful, spotty mess for at least the whole first year as companies scrabble like mice in a Mason jar to figure out how to work old-school keyboard and controller control schemes intelligently with the tablet interface.

Comments

LarryC wrote:

Let's turn that into another prediction?

In the coming and forseeable future, there will be a strong shift to digital distribution of media content, owing to strong advantages in penetration and lower production costing, plus an insurmountable advantage in eliminating fixed costs.

Physical distribution will not disappear but will be shifted to representing collector items, memorabilia, and promotional items (free disks containing the basic experience or install software). In addition, some small businesses in isolated locales may find it profitable to reproduce content for physical sale at the local level, as demand arises, by paying a set, well, "copyright," (like a broadcast right, but for producing copies) to the distributor.

I can't argue with that prediction, and that makes me a sad panda.

Some of the best games I've ever played I found by browsing in a brick and mortar store and stumbling over some obscure title I never heard of and didn't review well. I haven't figured out how to browse at an online store to achieve the same effect. They just give me recommendations of stuff I already own.

I'm going to miss stumbling over random stuff. And I'm really going to miss not having to be online for every dang thing.

Going off all that, seeing as pretty much everyone is predicting new consoles get at least an announcement this year, I'll put down a prediction based on something I said before: At least one new console, probably Microsoft's, will have all the games for that console available for both digital and physical purchase with equal release dates. (And if backwards compatibility is there, all the previous generation)

If that prediction happens, I wonder if at least one major retailer will tell them to go fornicate with themselves and drops all their products, similar to Stardock not selling COD:MW2 because of the steamworks link.

I did a post on my blog which breaks out my predictions from the other thread and adds several more, mostly tech related.

Scratched wrote:

Going off all that, seeing as pretty much everyone is predicting new consoles get at least an announcement this year, I'll put down a prediction based on something I said before: At least one new console, probably Microsoft's, will have all the games for that console available for both digital and physical purchase with equal release dates. (And if backwards compatibility is there, all the previous generation)

If that prediction happens, I wonder if at least one major retailer will tell them to go fornicate with themselves and drops all their products, similar to Stardock not selling COD:MW2 because of the steamworks link.

If that happens, I offer the counter-prediction: Whatever company pledges to release all of their old titles as digital downloads will fail to do so.

Is that a prediction, or a surmise based on precedent?

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

If that happens, I offer the counter-prediction: Whatever company pledges to release all of their old titles as digital downloads will fail to do so.

Is that a prediction, or a surmise based on precedent?

Yes, I was getting ahead of myself, there's probably too much business in the way of what could be a good thing.

The iOS App Store mind and market share will constrict as everyone realizes it was really just an Angry Birds bubble.

Scratched wrote:
doubtingthomas396 wrote:

If that happens, I offer the counter-prediction: Whatever company pledges to release all of their old titles as digital downloads will fail to do so.

Is that a prediction, or a surmise based on precedent?

Yes, I was getting ahead of myself, there's probably too much business in the way of what could be a good thing.

I bought a Wii largely on the promise of "Nintendo's Entire backlog" being available on the Wii store. That worked out well. < /sarcasm>

Final Fantasy 13-2 will be a moderate success, but will still not make the impact on North American audiences Square is hoping for. This will not stop them, however, from thinking that Lightning is still a character to carry a game, and another game featuring her will be announced.

Atlus will continue announce RPGs for the DS, despite many companies moving to the 3DS and abandoning non-puzzle related games for handhelds.

Call of Duty and its fans will get their own show on Spike TV.

Fox News will finally play a Persona game and call for a ban on all games that come from Japan because of their anti-Christian influence on America's youth.

I suck at predictions. So, if I'm gonna fail, I'm gonna fail big.

...

Microsoft will buy Steam and rebrand it as Games For Windows Live Gold. Membership will cost $20 a year.

Rockstar will release a game with an actual sex & nudity minigame and there will be no big MSM story because they didn't try to hide it.

Interplay will release Fallout Online, having gotten the rights as part of its settlement with Bethesda, and it'll briefly become more popular than SWTOR until there's a fatal database corruption and the game crashes and burns. Interplay CEO Herve Caen blames Scandinavian hackers.

Minecraft introduces a new monster called the brain slug which attaches to your character and takes control. The only way to remove it is by purchasing a one-use anti-brain slug pill from the online Minecraft store. An angry petition to remove it is created on whitehouse.gov.

SOPA is passed and a few people exploit it to block the DNS entries for Fox news, CNN, and Yahoo. Stupid legislators insist it works as intended until their political websites also get blocked.

Diablo 3 is released and its colorful rainbows turn many players into bronies.

L4D3 is announced. It takes place in Iowa and most of the new Special Infected are corn-related.

Gamers With Jobs get bought by Best Buy. There's lots of grumbling and threats of boycott but no one leaves. Except for Certis, who flies to Tahiti while holding his suitcase full of money out the window of the jet plane.
IMAGE(http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2497/3949711606_58ee447d4f_o.png)

Last serious WiiU prediction from me:

  • Nintendo will implement system-wide achievements. They will either be themed as a book of stamps (rubber stamps, not postage stamps) or a coin bank with coin values assigned to each achievement. If it's the latter, there will be no requirement for how many coins each game can or must have, but expect multiplatform games to have a quick-and-dirty conversion of 360 GS to WiiU coins.
  • In the above system, at least for first-party titles, stamps/coins will be tied to unlockables like concept art, Mii accessories, and that kind of thing. Sort of the way that Microsoft's avatar unlockables work, but formalized to tie the achievements to the awards.

A few wacky ideas of my own;

Sony will release a mid-tier PSN account that costs nothing but will help boost full PSN accounts.

Sony will combine PS3 and Vita functionality through PSN accounts. This will neither boost Vita sales nor increase PSN accounts.

PlayStation and Valve will get a tighter integration of services, sharing game licenses and more cross platform content.

Valve will try their next business model with it's two next titles: Counter-Strike: GO and Dota 2. Somewhere along the lines of free-to-play and premium services. A while ago, I read that some community-driven content were thinking of the added value a positive element brings to the community vs. the value a troll takes away. I'm guessing free to play for all, plus free stuff for players above a certain behavior-related ranking; ie. nice guys that post recommendations, build guides, tutor newbies, etc. get access for free to paid content.

For those who still remember it, PlayStation's Android initiative (handset makers that had the option to license Sony's PlayStation suite compatibility) will be deemed an official failure around Q3.

ME3 will be a commercial success. ME3 will have many traits and mechanics that further indicate a Mass Effect MMO. EA will be open about it, explaining weeks after release that characters, weapons, levels, etc. will be imported to the MMO that will be released in 2013.

Nintendo will show a revised version of the WiiU. With any luck, they'll come up with a better name. I haven't researched much on Nintendo's strategy, but I feel confident about backward compatibility.

Not that my predictions were particularly bold, but here's a couple in the safe territory:

- Apple will release a smartTV with integrated Apple TV functionality. Apple will with internet-enabled TV sets what it did with smartphone market: show everyone how things were supposed to be designed from the start. Content selection, online integration for subscription and delivery, etc.

- iPad 3 will not be shown in 2012, but towards the end of the years, licensed accessory partners will leak prototypes about their products which give away tech spec improvements.

- Last but not least; Kinnect 2 will be announced and not released. Venturing into 2013, Kinnect 2 will be released before an actual good game for the first Kinnect is released.

Always my Favorite episode and discussion of the year!

Braeholes Bold Bold Predictions:

The PS Vita will start out selling better then oneone thinks, and in six months when sales slow down Ziper will surpise everyone with the announcement of a holiday release for Socom 1 HD to be the first 3G handheld multplayer game! Or add multiplayer to their new game Unit 13

No one will buy the Wii U, not even us!

Concoles enjoy one more year of current gen before announcing the next big thing

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Interplay will release Fallout Online, having gotten the rights as part of its settlement with Bethesda, and it'll briefly become more popular than SWTOR until there's a fatal database corruption and the game crashes and burns. Interplay CEO Herve Caen blames Scandinavian hackers.

You can scratch that one off your list.

Annouced on the same day you posted that prediction, no less.

MeatMan wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Interplay will release Fallout Online, having gotten the rights as part of its settlement with Bethesda, and it'll briefly become more popular than SWTOR until there's a fatal database corruption and the game crashes and burns. Interplay CEO Herve Caen blames Scandinavian hackers.

You can scratch that one off your list.

Annouced on the same day you posted that prediction, no less. :)

I'm calling insider trading.

Aristophan wrote:

Knights of the Old Republic becomes so popular that EA releases a Mac client. Mac sales are so impressive, that other publishers start treating the platform as viable and all future Steam releases are for both PC and Mac.

I think a Mac client is already on the way.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Rockstar will release a game with an actual sex & nudity minigame and there will be no big MSM story because they didn't try to hide it.

I think this is completely contrary to Rockstar's advertising model.

MeatMan wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Interplay will release Fallout Online, having gotten the rights as part of its settlement with Bethesda, and it'll briefly become more popular than SWTOR until there's a fatal database corruption and the game crashes and burns. Interplay CEO Herve Caen blames Scandinavian hackers.

You can scratch that one off your list.

Annouced on the same day you posted that prediction, no less. :)

I know, right!? Fortunately, my first prediction was that all my predictions would be wrong.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Rockstar will release a game with an actual sex & nudity minigame and there will be no big MSM story because they didn't try to hide it.

I think this is completely contrary to Rockstar's advertising model.

Sometimes they slip up and stuff like that gets through.

Prediction: The ratio of number of weeks in 2012 in which Xbox Live Arcade is running some kind of multi-week promotion (a la Summer of Arcade, Block Party, Game Feast, Game Block, Smorgasgamingbord, Stick This Game In Your Pipe and Smoke It, etc.) to number of weeks in which it is not will approach 1:1.

ok here goes:

Bold prediction for 2012:
Wow drops bellow 50% of its peak subscribers (so 6million or less).
although i disagree with tanglebones when he predicts SWTOR will surpass this.

The introduction of a raid finder has removed one of the main things which helped bond guilds together and its reduced difficult has removed a large part of the uniqueness in beating the boss for the 1st time as a guild.
There is increasingly no place for a middle of the road guild anymore in wow, you are either a ultra dedicated hardcore guild or you are a big social guild who primarily use the raid finder and who sheer numbers hold together.

There was a poll on one of the major WoW site(i darn't post a link in case the spam filter leaps upon my post fangs drawn) recently which suggested that about 20% of wow players do so primarily for the social experience, and that almost 18% do so because of 'lack of any better game to play' i think the slow death of a good proportion of wows guilds will lead to a tipping point where more and more people leave.

IMPACT ULTRA BOLD PREDICTION:
As a result of Wow's decline and huge losses in its television and music business's in Europe due to a double dip recession, Vivendi goes bust.
Blizzard & Activision studios and associated brands are sold to the highest bidder as the group is broken up.

codicier wrote:

ok here goes:

IMPACT ULTRA BOLD PREDICTION:
As a result of Wow's decline and huge losses in its television and music business's in Europe due to a double dip recession, Vivendi goes bust.
Blizzard & Activision studios and associated brands are sold to the highest bidder as the group is broken up.

I don't like some of their practices now, can't imagine what would happen then.

Super Bold Prediction Climax Neo: The Activision name is then sold to BET, which relaunches it as their video game arm: Blacktivision.

Their first release?

IMAGE(http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/user_photos/1154836/FJLYw_fullsize.jpeg?91c651f8)

trueheart78 wrote:

Microsoft will raise the friend limit.

That's just crazy talk.

Thany wrote:

PS4 will not be shown at this years E3.

FYI, not really a prediction anymore:

article[/url]]
"Andy [House - PlayStation boss] is absolutely right in that we are not making any announcements at E3," Hirai told the Wall Street Journal.

"I've always said a 10-year life cycle for PS3, and there is no reason to go away from that."

Evidently the Wall Street Journal even had that story, so I'd say it's set in stone, unless you think Sony's bluffing.

OK Im usually a listener not a poster but here goes:

Platform announcements/releases

1)The Wii U will be released globally in the autumn, with some significant changes from last E3 including supporting multiple tablets. Launch sales will be disappointing outside Japan, and spookily also echo the 3DS launch in the lack of a killer first party launch title and frustrations over the hardware and battery life.

2)There will be a 3DS redesign announced at E3 which will go on sale earlier than the WiiU, and it will be bundled with something that takes advantage of its second circle pad. Battery Life will be improved, but the screen will not be larger.

3)There will be no official mention of the PS4 the entire year

4)The 720 will also not be mentioned at E3, but amid a storm of leaks from developers, MS will hold a dedicated fall event to announce the 720 to be released in 2013. A Japanese release date will not be announced.

5)The Vita will continue to flounder, not quite as bad on its American launch though. Its Japanese sales will only pick up significantly following the announcement of a Monster Hunter title at E3

6)The iPad3 will launch. A big Apple TV announcement toward the end of the year will make provision for games via the iPad, but this wont show fruit until next year.

Other predictions

1)Towards the end of the year MS will announce a deal with one major publisher to make its games available Day and Date for download.

2)A major publisher will get absorbed by another, and a major developer will shock by closing its doors.

3)Cloud gaming will not gain a foothold, but either OnLive or GaiKai will be acquired by an unexpected media company

4)2012 will be the year core gamers start to connect PCs to their TVs en mass. In the fall, PC vendors will have a big push on PCs packaged for this purpose.

5)A third party wireless controller to be used with iOS devices will start to gain some support from major ios publishers like EA.

Game Announcements

1)Shadow Complex 2 will be announced, but it will become a launch XBLA title for the 720.

2)A teaser trailer for Half Life 3 will be released (not Episode 3) giving a launch date in spring 2013. This will also not release on the 360, but the 720. It will release on PCs sooner.

3)A sizzle reel at the 720 announcement event confirms a new Gears title, but it wont be made by Epic.

4)Turn 10 announce a new Project Gotham title for the 720 launch.

5)Sony will not show Last Guardian at E3, nor will it be released this year.

6)The biggest console title announcement at E3 will be Resident Evil 6.

7)The next Splinter Cell game will be announced alongside a formal announcement of a movie of the franchise.

8)Dishonoured is a breakthrough title that will spawn a franchise.

9)Prey 2 will be the great game noone plays.

10)The Assassins Creed game we play at the end of 2012 is not the one we are expecting, thats moved to next Gen consoles.

Nice post, Wobag! Just a heads up folks, I'll be locking prediction threads early next week.

Wobag wrote:

4)2012 will be the year core gamers start to connect PCs to their TVs en mass. In the fall, PC vendors will have a big push on PCs packaged for this purpose.

Accompanied by Steam's long-awaited 10-foot-interface UI vaporware thingie, one hopes.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Thany wrote:

PS4 will not be shown at this years E3.

FYI, not really a prediction anymore:

article[/url]]
"Andy [House - PlayStation boss] is absolutely right in that we are not making any announcements at E3," Hirai told the Wall Street Journal.

"I've always said a 10-year life cycle for PS3, and there is no reason to go away from that."

Evidently the Wall Street Journal even had that story, so I'd say it's set in stone, unless you think Sony's bluffing.

If this remains true, and the Xbox720 comes out in 2013, then Sony is done as a game console. A ten year life cycle means the PS4 will be out in 2016, which will put it three years behind everyone else on the next generation.

They lost this generation of console wars to a console that couldn't be bought for two years, and another system that broke down every five minutes, and Sony was only a year late to that party. If they let that happen again, the board of directors will fire the Playstation boss and they'd be right to do so.

A ten year life-cycle means that, like the PS2, the PS3 will have to be a holdover until the price of the PS4 comes down. I expect a PS4 announcement in 2013 or 2014 with a potential launch in 2014.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Thany wrote:

PS4 will not be shown at this years E3.

FYI, not really a prediction anymore:

I was just going from platform to platform. yes the prediction isnt bold with these news, but I'm covering everything, I have an opinion on.