Bold Predictions 2011

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It's that special time of year again when we all put on our funny hats and predict the future. Last year wasn't pretty for me (I said that last year, too) as I predicted the decline of Rockstar Games only to give Red Dead Redemption my game of the year nod a few weeks ago. I don't think there's enough jam in the whole world to make that crow go down any smoother.

As hope springs eternal, so do our predictions. This year I'm going to nail it. Things are going to change, I can feel it. My first prediction is so rich in nutrients, you won't have to eat anything for the rest of the day.

Every MMORPG that launches with a $14.99 monthly fee will fail to meet their goals, hemorrhage staff and ultimately scale back until it's positioned to scrape by.

It's time to make your predictions, folks! Make sure you check out last year's thread and see how you did. As usual, I'll be locking this one down in a few weeks.

Shawn's Predictions

The PSP 2 Will be Announced With a Touch Screen - For real this time. Last year I predicted the PSP2 would be announced with a touch screen and 3D support. Despite the near constant rumblings, Sony still hasn't shown us what's next for the platform. But this year ... THIS YEAR, we'll see an announcement for the PSP 2 and it will retain the controls from the PSP while challenging the iPhone with a touch screen and their own app style store.

The Playstation Move Platform Will be Marginalized - Much like the Eye Toy, the Move platform will be around but it will not be a major force in the gaming scene. Software support will be tepid.

Kinect Will Have a Must-Buy Game by Fall - I mean that in the hardcore gamer sense. It won't be your typical shooter, but it will capture the imaginations of curmudgeonly gamers.

New Nintendo Console - Nintendo will announce a new home console this year.

Non-Rabbit Julian's Predictions

Blizzard No-shows - Diablo III in 2011? Not so much. I'm not sure though if that actually counts as bold prediction at this point. Anyone waiting for information on whatever MMO project the studio is hiding behind the name Titan will be disappointed, too. According to those allegedly leaked documents, it's supposed to ship in 2013. I'll eat a shoe or something should that actually happen.

The 3DS online experience will both rock and suck - It'll be smoother and more streamlined than the online approaches Nintendo took with the Wii and the NDS. Some games will use StreetPass/SpotPass to great effect and do some neat stuff with those concepts. And yet there will be something highly annoying about the way accounts, '3DSWare', and/or matchmaking are being managed that makes you wonder why the guys behind this didn't take a hint from the competition. Once again.

The Spy Who Dodged Me - Remember that PS3-exclusive Rockstar game Sony originally announced at E3 2007 and then re-announced at E3 2009 in order to dampen the noise of GTA IV being multiplatform from the get-go and Microsoft's DLC exclusivity deal? That Agent is so good and covert that he's not going to be seen by anyone in 2011 either.

The Indie Crystal Ball - The often delayed Fez will actually get released some time this year in order to avoid Vaporware 2011 honors. Monaco will be so great that it's going to knock you straight out of your socks*. Minecraft winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize in the Independent Games Festival 2011? Yeah, probably. Also, by the end of the year, the former indie darling will have turned into a "big corporate behemoth that has completely sold out." Or so a really, really vocal part of the core community will claim before equipping themselves with pitchforks and torches.

* Even if you didn't wear any. That's just how awesome it's going to be.

Momgamer's Musings

Mass Effect 3 will not cure cancer Or anything else for that matter. It will launch with all due hype, but the first round of players will find they didn't get the epiphanic effect they got from the last two games and feel let down. The rest of us will ignore them, shudder just a bit as the game crosses and re-crosses the Uncanny Valley in all the cutscenes, and then go on to happily blow up a metric butt-tonne of Reapers.

Yet another set of game invites to ignore Civilization Network (the Facebook rendition of the classic) will finally launch to a yawn in the gaming press despite Bryan Reynolds' credentials with the franchise. The only saving grace will be that my relatives and friends who spend far more time than is healthy in Farmville and the restaurant apps probably won't jump in on this one.

Square still won't do a PS3 reboot of Final Fantasy VII Unfortunately, the fansites who keep drooling about this won't shut up, and it will continue to be brought up by wishfully-thinking fangirls at the drop of any hat. I'm basing my thoughts mostly on the fact that we're at the 10 year anniversary for Final Fantasy X, and I hope with all my heart they're going to do something to save Spira from the corner they painted it into in X-2 before the whole place eats itself. However, I will go out on a limb here and say the long rumored re-work of Final Fantasy VI will be announced for Nintendo's 3DS.

Allen "Pyroman[FO]" Cook

Minecraft wasn't an anomaly
There will be another out-of-nowhere indie breakout this year with the multi-million dollar magnitude of Minecraft. It will be a very good game and probably the last thing you expect. It will be a small development team unaligned with any major publisher and still be considered a "fluke" by most of the gaming press.

"Gamers" will discount Kinect/iPad for serious games, and nobody will care
The gaming press and community will continue not to embrace the iPad/Kinect for "serious" games in 2011 despite record sales of games for both. There will be some very impressive and unique games for these platforms but gamers will discount them because of the ease-of-use and lack of discrete buttons. The millions of people who don't follow gaming blogs won't care one iota, and will have tons of fun.

Without-glasses 3D (a.k.a 3DS) will become the central feature of next-gen portable devices
TVs will limit the home consoles from getting too excited about 3D without glasses, but for portable devices the floodgates will open. Almost everyone who is releasing a portable device capable of gaming will announce a glasses-free 3D device by the end of the year. Apple probably won't, but will be planning one anyway.

wordsmythe

A new golden age of game criticism
Game writers love to complain about how bad most writing about games is. A few have taken real steps to do something about that, but they're often steps in opposite directions, leading to too many cliques of isolated thinkers. I think this yearn a network communication model will emerge that helps form a real, cohesive culture of thoughtful criticism that isn't ashamed to leave the DudeBros behind.

Rise of alt cons
I know it's only half the cost of airfare to SFO, but the cost of entry to GDC is still prohibitively high, and other options are getting more and more attractive. There's space between PAX, GDC and academic conferences for something special, and I think we see something start to fill that space this year.

Indie freak out
The indie scene is strong, but a lot of attention lately has been on polish--old mechanics and ideas with good art and sound and tight controls. This year we see the crazies come back into the spotlight, and Fringe Busters will forget about featuring games that are "just a fun, little" anything. Also, Pyroman might punch me for that last sentence.

Cory "Demiurge" Banks

The MMO Will (Finally) Evolve - Driven by the financial success of Turbine's free-to-play model and a desire to break away from WoW clones, the MMO industry will finally push the envelope on what a massive online experience can be. My guess? The first true successful FPS MMO will be in beta at least by end of 2011.

The 3DS Launches Soft - Consumers will love the concept of 3D without cumbersome glasses, but the steep price point - and continued availability of the DS and DSi - will drive too many of them away. Expect lower revenue numbers for the Big N.

Android As A Serious Gaming Platform - If it's ever gonna happen, it'll be this year. Google will finally get the kind of gaming developer support it's needed, in spite of their "anything goes" model. Serious mobile development houses will follow the same path of Angry Birds developer Rovio for Android success - Ads.

Dominion Will Die - I have nothing to back this claim up, except the breath of a prayer. Please, if there is a Maker, let him end the suffering that is every new expansion of this deck-building dick of a game.

A Digital Distribution Titan Topples - 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.

Diablo 3 Launches, Top Seller of 2011 - Why the hate, guys? This year's the year we all go back to hell. And it's gonna be awesome.

Dr. Who Special Will Feature Old Doctors - Not gaming related, but every bone in my body tells me this will happen. Just like classic serials "The Three Doctors" and "The Five Doctors," Matt Smith will have an adventure that brings him into the same timestreams of David Tennet and another classic doctor - probably Peter Davidson, the fifth doctor. Rose and her terrible accent will not be featured, thank Baker.

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wordsmythe wrote:

A new golden age of game criticism
Game writers love to complain about how bad most writing about games is. A few have taken real steps to do something about that, but they're often steps in opposite directions, leading to too many cliques of isolated thinkers. I think this yearn a network communication model will emerge that helps form a real, cohesive culture of thoughtful criticism that isn't ashamed to leave the DudeBros behind.

Can it be off Twitter, though? Please?

No rabbit or Elysium? They scared?

Longshots...

Richard Garriott makes another mmo

Car Wars/Autoduel gets a remake

New big thing for the kinect will be VR via kinect+glasses/goggles combo.

Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

1. We WON'T hear about Episode 3. Valve will talk about something, but not that.

Bingo

Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

2. This will not be THE big year for digital distribution. That'll be 2011.

Wow, I left myself a lot of room there. This year might have been the year. I don't know.

Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

3. Developers will put more resources into communicating with the fans. Like this: http://irrationalgames.com/

I think I'll count this one.

Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

4. This will be the year of the $20, medium-sized developer, Torchlight-style, PC game.

Maybe? I don't know for sure. A lot of these kinds of games were announced this year, but we didn't see a whole lot in this space. I guess Minecraft and Amnesia? I think more of these types of games were actually released on XBLA/PSN. Maybe I was right about number 2.

Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

5. This year we will truly start to see the lack of sustainability in the current AAA business model.

Thanks, CODBLOPS.

Predictions for 2011:

1. We will hear something about Episode 3.
2. We won't be playing Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm.

Anyone got predictions for 2011 in the boardroom? I have a hunch Codemasters might be in for a fun year, although I think they're probably making a decent pile of money from Dirt to be comfortable. EA and Riccitiello might be in for a ride if they can't straighten out how to make a profit in a consistent way.

I'm going to quote last year's prediction and let it continue to be true:

No one on the podcast will play Demon's Souls other than Certis.

Other predictions:

PSP2 is announced with dual thumbsticks and some sort of touch screen. It will do 3D, but not without glasses. It will sell like hotcakes ... in Japan where it's everyone's Monster Hunter player.

Harmonix will announce a new franchise and blow us away because we never saw it coming.

Nintendo will announce a new home console at TGS. Or the vitality sensor will make a return.

Dominion Will Die - I have nothing to back this claim up, except the breath of a prayer. Please, if there is a Maker, let him end the suffering that is every new expansion of this deck-building dick of a game.

Admittedly, I like this game, but am to the point where I can only sit down and play a single round anymore.

I predict there will be no new console news this year from Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft.

I also predict that World Of Warcraft will introduce some form of Free to Play model this year.

Lex Cayman wrote:
Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

1. We WON'T hear about Episode 3. Valve will talk about something, but not that.

Bingo

Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

2. This will not be THE big year for digital distribution. That'll be 2011.

Wow, I left myself a lot of room there. This year might have been the year. I don't know.

I think this is a big fail. Not criticizing, but I think of all the predictions to have made last year, this is one of the most interesting. Business booming on PSN/XBLA. Business is booming on Steam, so much so that people now talk regularly about how Steam is how they prefer to buy games for the PC. The iTunes App Store took off on the iPhone, iTouch and iPad with Angry Birds raking in enough money to consider creating a movie of the game.

I'd love to see numbers on XBox Games on Demand. I know that once the larger hard drive models became reasonably priced I went from 2 digitally distributed games to 10. Having older games like Skate, Skate 2, Viva Pinata, Banjo Kazooie and GTA IV on the hard drive all the time leads to more frequent sessions where I pop in and mess around in those sandboxes for an hour here or there.

So from where I'm standing, 2010 was definitely the year that digital distribution broke through. Nevermind people buying tv shows on iTunes, renting movies on iTunes and the XBox and Netflix's ascendence this year.

NSMike wrote:
Dominion Will Die - I have nothing to back this claim up, except the breath of a prayer. Please, if there is a Maker, let him end the suffering that is every new expansion of this deck-building dick of a game.

Admittedly, I like this game, but am to the point where I can only sit down and play a single round anymore.

I still love this game, but I'm very glad I play this infrequently. I never went down the expansion pack rabbit hole and I'm glad for it. I don't feel its worn out its welcome in my home.

My Bold 2011 Prediction: (Tweaking Elysium's prediction from last year...)

Valve will announce "Orange Box 2" (maybe bringing back The Black Box moniker) which will include Half-Life Episode 3, Counter-Strike 2 and Black-Mesa Source.

DSGamer wrote:
Lex Cayman wrote:
Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

1. We WON'T hear about Episode 3. Valve will talk about something, but not that.

Bingo

Lex Cayman from Last Year wrote:

2. This will not be THE big year for digital distribution. That'll be 2011.

Wow, I left myself a lot of room there. This year might have been the year. I don't know.

I think this is a big fail...

I'm okay with that.

"Gamers" will discount Kinect/iPad for serious games, and nobody will care

I dunno, it seems a bunch of people in this forum have already embraced the iPad as a gaming platfor, at least (including me)... I mean it has a bunch of good "serious" games already.

edit: And it's been out for less than a year and it wasn't intended to be a gaming platform but it seems to work really well

PaladinTom wrote:

My Bold 2011 Prediction: (Tweaking Elysium's prediction from last year...)

Valve will announce "Orange Box 2" (maybe bringing back The Black Box moniker) which will include Half-Life Episode 3, Counter-Strike 2 and Black-Mesa Source.

Whatever's next for Half-life is anyone's guess. I'm not sure if they want to draw the line under it for a while, to tie it off, or whether it's taking so long because it's a big step and a big change from what came before.

Counter-strike is an odd one. They're currently doing a rolling beta for CS:S like they started later with TF2, so I'm not sure if another 'realistic, team based, round based, shooter' would be called Counter-strike or not. There's certainly a market for those shooters, but the community is so hostile to any changes being 'done wrong', there's lots of established competition for a new title, and might have to compete on consoles if it's a big expensive title. On the flip side, CS is a big name, and if any company were to do a PC only hardcore shooter it would be valve.

If anything I'd like to see what Valve could do with the CS idea, but give it 'the TF2 treatment' (comparing TFC to TF2) from a blank slate.

Black-mesa is another odd one. The dev team have been radio silent for a good long while, which almost mirrors Black Cat games, who made Alien swarm.

Neat!

Me wrote:

1- Announcements for the announcement of teasers take off as the dominant marketing paradigm.

I think this is arguably coming to pass.

Me wrote:

2- In an effort to keep up, Treyarch's CoD entry features a re-enactment of the My Lai Massacre. Critics debate if the scene was necessary or appropriate for a game set during World War I. Critics of the critics bemoan that games are held up to different standards than other media.

No big CoD outcry, but I understand they toy with the Kennedy Assassination, so they tried.

Me wrote:

3- I latch onto a superfluous detail in a major release, insisting that makes it the greatest thing ever. This is met by condescending sighs from all my friends.

Turned out this was Red Dead Redemption, which everyone adored, so untrue.

Me wrote:

4- The technorati continue to download, the rank and file do not, people struggle to figure out how to get the two to meet.

Yes.

Me wrote:

5- The console wars are brought to an end when an unknown squire pulls the controller from the stone, uniting the land as one.

No.

Me wrote:

6- Heavy Rain is scorned for not running at 60 FPS.

Almost.

Me wrote:

7- The discovery of a vast expanse of time between November 30th and October 1st, many publishers fund expeditions of discovery into these dark regions, in hopes of exploiting treasures yet to be unearthed, such as the Release Day of Youth, and fabled El Q Tres, a quarter of the fiscal year made of gold!

It looks like this actually has come to pass!

Me wrote:

I'd also love to see Activision get gutted, but I suspect they'll at least break even, so I'll instead hope their yearly release model gets discredited.

Lord no. Alas.

This year will see the release of Duke Nukem Forever, Black Mesa Source, and Half-life 2 : Episode 3.
(Italicized for extra boldness)

First mine from last year:

-A minimum of one of the top five publishers will announce they are completely dumping brick & mortar retailers and going all digital for PC releases. I'm guessing THQ will be the first. They won't necessarily say that all PC releases this year are going to be digital only, only that at some point it will become their strategy going forward.

I'm not sure if Codemasters is one of the top five publishers but they did say they're going digital only for PC. Wrong about THQ though I do believe one of their executives said somewhere that digital far outsells boxes for them now.

-THQ will also announce another major restructuring or be sold this year amid continuing losses. If they are sold, it will be to a private equity company or a media company as none of the other publishers can risk big acquisitions this year.

They continued to lose money but seem to be turning around. They didn't do another restructure though and weren't sold so I was largely wrong.

-The PSP Go will either be quietly discontinued or scaled back to almost nothing in terms of PR because of its disastrous sales and the fact that retailers hate it. By the end of the year, Sony will have to be seriously re-evaluating their portable business as piracy continues to be out of control for the PSP and publishers continue to reduce investments in the platform.

Mostly right. PSP Go gets no publicity whatsoever and it has been a disaster. If the PSP2 is true though, Sony still seems to be in this fight.

-Natal and Sony Motion Controller will ship, have initial fanfare and quickly flop and gather dust in the homes of the handful of early adopters who bought them.

Too early to tell but since the launch of both, they're rarely talked about anymore at any place I read or listen to. The only thing people still play on Kinect is Dance Central and Move is still selling but isn't on fire.

-The PS3 will largely catch up to the base features of Xbox Live and remain free. People will still complain it isn't good enough.

Nope, wrong. They've done squat in 2010.

-World of Warcraft and the launch of Cataclysm will be the only things that keep Activision in the black this year. Music game sales will plummet further, putting the genre's continued viability in question. Those of us who believe Bobby Kotick is a greedy, clueless, largely lucky prat with no forward vision will be proven right.

Half right, though some may disagree. Black Ops did sell insanely well and Cataclysm of course did gangbusters, as did Starcraft II, yet Activisions profit margins have been very thin this year. I was wrong in that Cataclysm would be the only thing keeping them in the black but they are definitely still relying on certain horses to float the company and I still think Kotick's chickens will come home to roost.

-Very few new independent studios will open this year and a larger number will go under rather than be acquired as publishers continue to tighten their belts. Of those that do open, few to none will be in California.

Pretty much right. We lost Krome, Bizarre Creations and a ton of other Activision studios this year. Some did open up but nothing huge and most of them are publisher studios, not independent. Given the economy, this really isn't surprising but I wish I was wrong about how many would go under.

-OnLive will launch in select markets and will experience a number of launch issues but will eventually become a solid service for those who choose to stick around.

Depends on your perspective but from everything I've heard, anyone who put time into OnLive and didn't immediately dismiss it has been pleasantly surprised. They seem to have figured out a business model that works and they seem to have a shot at carving out a niche at least. I think this was right.

-Red Dead Redemption will sell far below expectations and that will finally cause Strauss Zelnick and Take-Two to seriously look at Rockstar and whether they should continue to have such independence since their inability to control spending and produce profitable titles that aren't GTA are bleeding Take-Two to death. Several Rockstar studios will be closed or consolidated. Agent will be canceled (though never announced as such) and LA Noire will become multi-platform. When the Houser brother's contracts are up (not this year), they will leave and start a new company. Them being gone will only improve the quality of future Rockstar titles.

Holy HELL was I wrong on this. Obviously, Red Dead made Take-Two profitable this year and for that, I'm glad. However, there is all the Rockstar San Diego drama and many believe there's no way LA Noire will make its projected ship date. I was right about it going multi-platform. As for the Housers, given Red Dead's massive success, I don't think they're going anywhere any time soon unless they choose not to stay with Take-Two.

-Android will solidly overtake the iPhone and more mobile titles will be announced for it first and possibly exclusively. Apple fans will continue to insist Android's a fad.

Android is dominating iPhone in overall handsets sold but most mobile titles are still releasing on Apple platforms first. Apple fans largely still laugh at it. 2/3 right.

-Alan Wake will ship as planned and will be a solid game but nothing revolutionary and it will sell modestly.

How revolutionary it is depends on personal opinion but I'm saying I was right. It came out and didn't sell well.

-Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will be announced in a sequel Orange Box package and will miss its first planned ship date but will still come out in 2010.

Totally wrong.

-Diablo III? Not this year.

Totally right.

-Until the economy improves significantly (not this year), there will be no new console announcements made by anyone.

Right.

-Industry acquisitions will be few and far between. Disney will not buy EA though they may buy THQ since it has had so many ties to Disney properties in the past and is a bargain by comparison.

There were few acquisitions, as demonstrated by how many studios unfortunately went under. Disney obviously did not buy THQ.

I did pretty well overall I'd say but when I was wrong, I was really wrong.

Now for this year's predictions:

-THQ will return to profitability this year, just barely.

-The PS3 will continue to enjoy worldwide success and will remain profitable for Sony but will still lose ground to the 360. Definitely safe to say at this point that Microsoft won this generation on the HD side.

-The PSP2 will be formally announced for release in 2012. It will be digital content delivery only and will have a touch screen. People will dismiss it as being too much too late (i.e. releasing too late but trying to once again be a home console on the go.)

-The 3DS will come out and will sell very well but not as well as the DS as more and more smartphone owners decide they don't need a dedicated gaming portable gaming platform.

-Nintendo will drop teaser hints about their next home system. It will be in HD but few other details will be given and a ship date will not be announced.

-Kinect and Move will continue to be produced and marketed but will largely fizzle out this year. As a result, more rumours will surface about a new home system from Microsoft or Sony but neither will be announced this year.

-Industry acquisitions will continue to be tepid as most publishers still struggle to find or maintain profitability. Unfortunately, we will likely see more independent studios close this year since one flop is enough to close a place down.

-More beefs about studio working conditions will come out this year. The industry at large will still dismiss these people are whiners and nothing will change.

-Disney will focus more on games for children and young people. Games like Split/Second and Tron will not be seen in their known forms again. Black Rock Studio and Junction Point Studios will either be closed or refocused on children's games and will lose much of their AAA talent, including Warren Spector.

-After Warren Spector leaves JPS, he will announce he's taking a creative leadership role at another studio rather than starting another one.

-Portal 2 will be delayed once more but will come out and be awesome.

-LA Noire will miss its targeted ship date but will come out this year. It will sell similarly to Heavy Rain, which is to say OK but not great.

-Homefront will really surprise people and end up selling well.

-Duke Nukem Forever will come out, no one will be excited (though I'm definitely playing it) and it will pretty much flop. Gearbox/Randy Pitchford will let slip in an interview that buying the IP was a bad idea and it will end up buried.

-Diablo III? Not this year.

-Half Life 2: Episode 3? Will be discussed but also not coming this year.

-Steam will destroy all our finances.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

No rabbit or Elysium? They scared?

I'm going to say yes, but they DID make predictions on the podcast. Julian is currently fondling Mickey Mouse. Elysium is ... tall and bearded, but that's no excuse.

-As noted elsewhere, Star Wars The Old Republic will not be a major success. Note, I'm not saying it will flop, APB style. EA won't advertise it through the ceiling as they should, and won't really gain appeal outside of the gamer sphere of influence (as WoW has). I think after a few years EA will have egg on their face from SWTOR.

* The Holiday season will go down as the best since 2008. Gamers will probably spend more on themselves than on loved ones.

* The Summer will go down as the dullest since...well, just about most summers.

* L.A. Noire and Deux Ex: Revolution will be pretty-to-look-at games and one will be in the conversation for GOTY, but one of them is going to be a dud. I just don't know which is which.

* Rumors and code names of the next generation of consoles will "leak."

* No Diablo III.

* The Elder Scrolls V will suffer from the classic "big world but lack of depth" syndrome that's plagued Oblivion.

* Batman: Arkham City will come oh so close to being GOTY, but get hampered by layering too many new bells and whistles that it gets in the way of what worked in the last game.

* Ditto Portal 2.

* Mass Effect 3 will be the GOTY and it'll be on three discs for the 360.

* Ice-T will be in the next Fallout game. (Hey, I was right about Matthew Perry, wasn't I?)

* Star Wars: The Old Republic will come out this year, but it'll be a critical failure. After the initial rush following the launch, the only people sticking with it long term will be Star Wars fans and Bioware fans. But, being the next Star Trek Online still will mean that TOR is a disappointment.

* Kinnect and Move will still sell, but GOTY-caliber titles or major brands incorporating these peripherals to the extent that Microsoft and Sony would like still won't happen just yet.

* Duke Nukem Forever will release this year and it'll be a competent shooter; after the nostalgia wears off, it'll have a quick trip to the Steam sales.

* Also, "Steam sale" becomes the new "bargain bin."

* XCOM will release this year and aside from the whack-job fanatics, people who had their qualms about the direction 2K Wherever was taking this will concede that it's a well-done game in the spirit of the original X-COM. That said, expect sales of the original to pique on Steam both before and after the remake is released.

* The NFLPA will pull a Brett Favre and ultimately settle with the league after training camp and the preseason, ensuring the regular season will be played. *Legion* shall go nuts from not being able to watch hours upon hours of preseason games on his DVR.

* Something I predicted last year but I can see still happening thanks to LA Noire: issues between Hollywood and the gaming industry concerning actors in games (both voice and likeness) and their compensation will start to come to a head.

* Goodjers the world over try to figure out a Rock Band song that'll trip up Demiurge for this year's International Goodjer Day.

* Also, at the next gathering at Hedgewizard's, we'll be cited for gross pollution due to all the pipe and cigar smoke.

*Legion* wrote:

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2010. Book it! :D

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2011. Book it!

Also, something about SOCOM 4 rocking your socks off.

I just read my predictions for last year. Man! I'm really funny!

OK 2011, here goes.

- Kinnect will continuously outsell PS' Move 2:1 and even 3:1 throughout the year. Sony, in acts of desperation, will demand developers to shoehorn Move functionality in existing games (like LBP and Heavy Rain).

- Indie development will continue to go strong, Angry Birds-like stardom will continuously appear always first for iOS platform and then migrate to every corner of the digital universe.

- Epic Mickey for PS3/Move will be showed but released until 2012. (Prediction for 2012? Camera still broken)

- Sony will not release a PSP2, justifying that "PSP Phone/XPERIA Play" is a fantastic way to go.

- At least one Indie developers using the free UDK will hit a homerun, Epic will give them the posterboy treatment and start releasing more guides and how-too's.

- At least 5 (count 'em, FIVE) AAA titles will use Steamwork's engine. This will send Brad Wardell into a fit of skull-splitting proportions.[quote=garion333]I'm going to quote last year's prediction and let it continue to be true:

- Nintendo will show Super Mario Bros. Wii 2 (yay!) But release until 2012 (awww...)

Harmonix will announce a new franchise and blow us away because we never saw it coming.

And Viacom will approach them once again.

----EDIT TO ADD-------

- Valve releases DOTA2 with full out-of-game-achievement functionality. Blizzard/Activ and Valve talk tough about proprietary rights. Nothing comes out of it, both companies respectively use the "DOTA" moniker.

The predictions about handhelds are all very interesting. The ascendence of iOS has been hugely disruptive. Especially with the iPad becoming a gaming force. You have to start to ask yourself if Nintendo is in trouble, don't you? I know that sounds crazy considering how long Nintendo has been relevant, but I think they might be in trouble. Nintendo has had the handheld platforms as a huge profit center to back up any mistake made on consoles. From the Gameboy through the DS Nintendo has dominated portable gaming. The iPhone has been hugely disruptive, though, and it's hard not to wonder if Nintendo will need to strike a deal wiggle their way into a cell phone or something like that.

Perhaps the novelty of 3D will be enough for people to own both a 3DS and an iPhone, but I think they might be in trouble. I'm tempted to predict that the 3DS will be the first Nintendo handheld to fall flat relative to previous handhelds and that the result may be a phone partnership or Nintendo where Nintendo is a 1st party developer on a phone/gaming device they design. I can't see them going the way of Sega, but it's tempting to make that comparison right now.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

- At least one Indie developers using the free UDK will hit a homerun, Epic will give them the posterboy treatment and start releasing more guides and how-too's.

Epic are already pretty good with the UDK documentation for the (mostly) monthly releases of UDK.

Certis wrote:

Elysium is ... tall and bearded

Exaggerated gasp!

*Legion* wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2010. Book it! :D

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2011. Book it!

Also, something about SOCOM 4 rocking your socks off.

I think you're right. This will be the year of SOCOM. People are bored with Halo, Battlefield Bad Company and Call of Duty. They're ready for a multiplayer shooter experience circa 2002. Maybe Mark Brunnell will come back to QB the Jaguars back to the AFC Championship.

Lionhead Studios will announce Black & White 3 for the Kinect.

Assuming there is one this year, 2011 will be the first year for Call of Duty by a studio other than Infinity Ward or Treyarch. Anyone want to guess if it's a hit or miss, or if it's a radical departure from the formula?

Grubber788 wrote:

- Space simulators will achieve some renewed interest in the form of multiplayer-only games. (Maybe it's more of a wish than prediction)

Well, hope is spring's eternal.

Kinect and Move both tank hard forcing MS/Sony to push their next game-box onto the fast track for a 2012 release.

Ok, I know this list will be re-edited, but let's go:

First, the foolproof ones:
Apple will release a new version of a product. The owners of the old version will hate the old product, and will wait in line for the new product, which is only slightly better than the old product.

There will an incredibly cool new trend in gaming that is so much better than the old trend from last year, which totally sucks now.

An indie title made by a European will be pretty cool and get a niche group of players.

Nolan North will do some voice over

Paradox will release a game that's pretty complicated and difficult to play except for the hardcore.

That sequel in that franchise will have better graphics, but the gameplay will not be better than the original.

How could they release that buggy title in June?

Everything is different in the new Madden, but not really.

More virtual elf boobs in web ads.

And now for the less likely ones:
Evil Genius 2 will be announced.

Anchorman and Anchormon: Extra Mahogany Edition will premeiere as adventure games (please God let this happen)

Fable Online will be announced extremely prematurely by Peter Molynieux. Peter will also claim the game cures cancer.

Mechwarrior will return in some form, but not how everyone expected.

The Civ V expansion will improve gameplay overall, but will add a new feature everyone hates.

At Blizzcon, we finally find out about the mystery MMO.

Left for Dead 3 will be announced at E3, and then Valve will half-heartedly announce Episode 3 (2012).

The Old Republic will be a big hit....for the first 6 months. It will review well but not great, it will be stable as hell, but ultimately the gameplay will be kind of boring.

Star Trek will go Free to Play ala Champions Online and LoTRO.

Spore 2 announcement. Just that it's planned. Or at least another expansion.

Will Wright will not return to gaming.

Shogun: Total War will be the Strategy game of the year.
Deus Ex will be very, very good, but will not live up to the trailer hype.

We finally see what Tali looks like under her Quarian helmet in Mass Effect 3, and nobody got it right.

Duke Nukem will actually be pretty decent.

Assassin's Creed 3 will be revealed. Heading to Asia, but China, not Japan.

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