Bold Predictions 2014

Section: 

With the new consoles launched and settling in for the long haul, our predictions this year must cast a wider net. I won't say it was a slam dunk for me in last year's post, but I can walk with my head held high compared to previous efforts. I feel like the Oculus Rift is the real interesting question mark for 2014, with Valve's Steambox initiative nipping at its heels. I already predicted on the podcast that the Steambox wouldn't be a factor this year, and the very next day the CES announcements started rolling in. I'm still wary of what impact they'll have in the long run, but for now I must say I'm off to a bad start.

Think you can do better? Read on for the predictions from GWJ staff and be sure to leave your own in the comments! I'll be locking the thread up end of January to prevent any future editing shenanigans.

Alex "Spaz" Martinez wrote:

Whooooweeeee, my favorite part of the new year!

Let’s get the Big Three out of the way:

Microsoft

  • Will spend the majority of the year trying to get their Xbox boondoggle in respectable condition and rebuild some of that lost consumer confidence. Look for some healthy firmware updates to help with current problems (lack of controller battery-level indicator, hitches with Snap, party chat).
  • Refocuses efforts to promote the Xbox One as a media-center machine, rolling out more diverse cable/satellite offerings, to make up for early graphical disparity.
  • Attach rates for SmartGlass and Kinect cause most developers to shy away from implementing alternate control methods. An indie puts SmartGlass to good use through an asymmetrical RTS feature.
  • We're probably going to see some kind of meltdown involving THE CLOUD in the next few months.

Sony

  • Breathes new life into the Vita by promoting its ability to streamplay. Though it still can’t compete with the 3DS the Vita becomes a nice companion for the Sony ecosystem.
  • Gaikai replaces Playstation Plus game freebies. The big feature every month is the set of new(ish) additions to the service.
  • With the success of the GameRoom and Twitch streaming, Sony gives PS4 owners more content creation resources.

Nintendo

  • WiiU continues to languish between anticipated first-party releases.
  • As the Nintendo e-Store becomes more uniform between Big N's consoles, a Games with Gold/PS+ style system is added to Club Nintendo.

Valve

  • STEAMBoxen contain a Twitch-style streaming service, run by Valve!

And in General
[list]
[*] Game-streaming becomes a very, very big thing for consoles.

[*] Game-sharing/screen-sharing/Dial-A-Friend style collaboration becomes as necessary for this gen as party-chat was for the 360.

[*] Virtualization starts becoming A Thing To Look For.

[*] Look for interesting experiments to tie in with 3D printing technology — i.e., Earn A badge, print it out with a Makerbot.

[*] Expect some legal troubles arising as companies see streaming as a detriment to their brands.

Erik "wordsmythe" Hanson wrote:

I don't even know.

  • Games? Probably games.
  • Uh … "the consumerization of IT," "the internet of things," "dark networks" and "platform as a service." Yeah, that should just about cover it.
  • Oh, these are supposed to be bold? Then maybe some class warfare. Who doesn't like that?
  • Bigger than price point, the Xbox One is going to freak out people more than ever before due to privacy concerns. Microsoft will continue to push its pro-privacy marketing stance, and might turn that position into a legitimate deciding factor.
  • We will start to realize that groups on the internet aren't as cohesive as we tend to assume. For example, when "gamers" complain about one thing and then about its opposite, that's because "gamers" is a large collection of vastly different people with wildly different opinions. Such large collections are going to almost necessarily act in a way that would seem schizophrenic in an individual.
  • We'll start to see more ads and even publishing focused on consumer budgets. I suppose Valve (Steam), Nintendo and tablet/phone companies to have the advantage here.
  • More strange procedural generation and bots mashing up existing code. I anxiously await some indie game that references both William Carlos Williams and Slavoj Žižek.
Chris "ccesarano" Cesarano wrote:

The only prediction I can possibly give is that I will, undoubtedly, be wrong. Last year the only predictions of mine to hit the mark were the announcement of a new Mario Kart, which was like shooting Cheep-Cheeps in a go-kart with cinder blocks in place of the wheels, as well as the announcement of Retro Studios' new project (which turned out to be Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze). The runner-up was the release of a Mega Man game on the eShop, likely a disappointing format, to celebrate the Blue Bomber's anniversary. We got ports of the first six games, and that was about it.

So this year I'm going to keep it simple.

Half-Life 3 will not be released in 2014

Yup, that should cover it.

Shawn "Certis" Andrich wrote:

[list]
[*] The Oculus Rift commercial device launches this Fall for $250 US. It will run at 1080P and (with calibration) motion sickness will be greatly reduced from the dev kit.

[*] Steambox will not have a retail launch this year. There will be a soft, beta launch where "dev kits" can be purchased direct from Valve.

[*] Sony will continue to hold a sales advantage over Microsoft in 2014 thanks to a lower price point.

[*] Game streaming (Gaikai or otherwise) won't be a major factor this year.

[*] Bungie's Destiny game will be a hopped up version of Boarderlands mixed with Too Human.

Charlie "TheWanderer" Hall wrote:
  • Something awful happens in a game stream: Awful things have happened already, but this awful thing will be picked up by the mainstream media and be a big part of the news cycle internationally for more than just a few days. What will be different is the tone of the discussion. It won't be about "how horrid are these games," but instead about "how connected are our living rooms." The public will become broadly aware of streaming culture, and it will not like what it finds there.
  • Major shake-ups at Valve: Something breaks culturally, deep inside Valve, but no one on the outside hears about it until it's too late. Before you know it, bits and pieces of Half Life 3 leak, the team behind it is shown to have left months ago, and everyone's left holding the bag. And by "bag," I mean Steamboxes.
  • PAX: A PAX scheduled for 2015 gets canceled in 2014. There is much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth. Potshards may be used to scratch at boils. The rivers will run red with dick jokes for a few days, and then ... dry up. Gamers will move on.
Julian "rabbit" Murdoch wrote:
  • Half Life 3 is announced as a SteamBox exclusive, but won't be released in 2014.
  • Microsoft catches up to the PS4 install base by year end thanks to a $50 mid-year price cut.
  • Xbox Live competes head to head with PS+ with a broad selection of free games
  • Titanfall is a critical miss and a commercial success, selling close to 10m units. We all scratch our heads
Allen "PyromanFO" Cook wrote:
  • Steambox will have a third-party timed exclusive announced in 2014.
  • Valve will debut a consumer-focused performance rating system based on their hardware survey that helps determine how powerful your Steambox is, making it very simple to decide between Steamboxes for your average gamer.
  • The consumer version of the Oculus Rift will be a hot item for Christmas 2014 and will be in short supply.
  • There will be Oculus Rift-format pornography simultaneous with the consumer release (I know, duh).
  • Destiny will sell more units than Titanfall.
  • Steamboxes will get Oculus Rift support well before the other consoles and the combo will do very well in the high-end tech market.
Andrew "Minarchist" High wrote:

Hey, I did pretty well last year. Nailed a couple (like the kickstarter prediction), completely whiffed on a few others.

  • The Xbox One and the PS4 both have the same first year that the Wii U did: anemic. The high price, depressed economy, continuing concerns about the high level of interconnectivity of the devices, and that lingering thought that "my old consoles can still do everything just fine" combine for rather depressing sales out of the gate.
  • The Wii U, on the other hand, maintains much of the steam it picked up in December. It doesn't quite pull a 3DS-style phoenix rebirth, but shows that it has more legs than just Mario games. Despite being basically ignored by the gaming press and most vocal supporters, it quietly sells very strong numbers to the types of gamer that many often forget exist.
  • The 3DS becomes an even bigger sensation, to the point where it actually starts to eat away at console sales (of all manufacturers). Seeing someone playing a 3DS in public becomes more common in "adult" locations like coffee shops.
  • Meanwhile, the Vita finally sees a 1st-party exclusive or two that isn't a "fancy" port. That, combined with its technological prowess and its ability to tie in to the Sony consoles, sees it sell tolerably well and have its best year to date. It won't even begin to contend for the handheld throne, but it at least gets to the point where Sony is no longer ashamed to talk about it during quarterly earnings reports.
  • The mid-tier developer makes a resurgence. While AAA games will still grab the lion's share of gamers' dollars, companies like Runic, thatgamecompany, and Telltale — not to mention the strong showing of high-polish indie contenders like Brothers and Gone Home — bring back a viable method of game development that does not cost $100,000,000 and does not consist of a single person coding in their garage after work.
  • Kentucky Route Zero will not see its 5th episode release in 2014. Possibly not even its 4th. Minarchist will be very saddened by this development.
Felix Threepaper wrote:

D'oh! Just back from hols to find the stuff I've missed. Imma just sneak in, in case time lag keeps the door ajar.

My predictions are/were:
[list]
[*] Nintendo will buy CD Projekt RED. The Witcher 3 will become a trading card game ... but not *that* trading card game

[*] Metal Gear Solid V's narrative will have only 1 character that looks like Snake and will actually make sense. It will be critically panned for being dumbed down for Xbox fans. It will still use the terms "PMC/Private Military Company" 14,674 times.

[*] People will use Kickstarters to fund their ARGs. After 10 months of coded messages, people turning up at odd locales looking puzzled and analysing website addresses, it will be revealed that Kickstarter itself was an ARG, run by Jack Thompson (remember him?), who did it all to bring down games from within, muwahaha.

[*] Watch Dogs will feature Assassin's Creed's Desmond as a playable character as a big reveal of the Ubiverse — a persistent online world incorporating all of Ubisoft's IPs. Still no one will purchase Uplay points.

[*] Wasteland 2 will come out and be awesome. There will be a monster thread on No Mutants Allowed that will argue that it is more canon than Fallout 3.

[*] Bethesda will hire a YA fiction writer to produce a series of books about a bunch of Argonian teens living in Black Marsh, learning the Argonian ways, dealing with adversity and having some arguments. It will sell enough to get a movie, but the movie will bomb. At E3 2015, someone from Bethesda will say "Ehh, we shoulda used Elves. Or Khajiit. People love cats, right?"

Maybe I've been in the sun too long.

Comments

*Legion* wrote:
*Legion* wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2010. Book it!

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2011. Book it!

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2012. Book it!

Jacksonville Jaguars, playoffs, 2014. Book it!

(Notice how I missed last year? I saw it comin')

My other predictions:
- DayZ will go beta and get Oculus Rift support, and it will be glorious
- H-Hour will be the true, worthwhile successor to SOCOM II that I have been denied for a decade now. (Pre-alpha footage! Woo!)

Schmutzli wrote:
Lothar wrote:

My only prediction is I will spend more time on the forums here after barely spending time this year since work blocked them.

How exactly did they do this? Filter all URLs with 'game' in them? I doubt this site would produce noticeable traffic at any particular workplace.

they use websense so they block pretty much to do with games. It's not a big deal just sucks.

To the people predicting Half-Life 3 this year or next: What are you smoking and where can I get some?

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

-eSports will start to get some mainstream coverage from a “traditional” sports outlet.

I've been hearing this for years from people who follow the eSports scene but it never happens. They need to be awarding a lot more money and/or making the games a lot more interesting to watch than DOTA or Starcraft, which are essentially impossible to comprehend to a viewer with no experience with the game.

Only a few bold predictions from me:

  • Battlefield 4's woes mark the end of the numbered sequels for the series for the near term. They may try a reset with a return to Bad Company, but it may be years before we see a successor to BF4 which could come out a reset to an un-numbered "Battlefield" release.
  • Streaming games won't become the norm in 2014, but they will take a foothold and could eventually remake how we consume games in the next two or three years.
  • Steambox will launch and be a commercial failure, coming in well after the launch of the One and PS4 and failing to capture the attention of mainstream entertainment consumers.

yay, me and kexx were right, Tomb Raider reboot got positive reviews
kexx got some others right too
Actually kexx buddy, 13-3 has been released (In Japan)

yay, me and kexx were right, Tomb Raider reboot got positive reviews
kexx got some others right too
Actually kexx buddy, 13-3 has been released (In Japan)

Elysium wrote:
- A JRPG will be on Elysium's 2014 GOTY top 10 list. BOLD!

Boldest prediction on the site ever.

I bet a bunch of us could help you find enjoyment in Shin Megami Tensei IV or Bravely Default if we tried. Or The Witch and The Hundred Knight which looks like Japanese Diablo combat :p

---
Stuff I got right in 2013:

Valve announces family licensing or sub-accounts complete with parental controls. (This went into beta last month, public release this week)

Apple TV’s project is still MIA. iOS, once again, does not kill the games industry as we know it.

Some epic level backlash will occur against one of 2012’s Kickstarter darlings. (DFA)

Retro’s current project revealed. Pokemon 3DS unveiled by end of the year. New Monolith RPG announced.

Mega Man resurfaces with a new 2D game from Inti Creates for downloadable services. (Mighty No. 9 isn't strictly Mega Man but close enough)

EA’s big announcements: The Sims 4, Army of Two 3, Dungeon Keeper Social. No RPG from BioWare, no Mirror’s Edge 2

Predictions for 2014:

  • A mid-tier MOBA Lords Management Game game closes up shop indicating that the fast-growing genre bubble is starting to pop.
  • EA finally hops on the digital collectible card game or MOBA Lords Management bandwagon with the Plants vs. Zombies, Star Wars, Dragon Age, or Mass Effect setting. Popcap and/or BioWare are involved.
  • Fantasy Flight Games releases Descent or Android:Netrunner for PC/tablets
  • Playdek expands to Android and PC.
  • Valve makes a push into the asynchronous games and digital board/card games spaces by adding new genre categories and other quality of life improvements
  • Alien Swarm 2 will launch alongside the final release of Steam OS and retail Steam Machines. It will be a F2P title with cosmetic IAP and challenge mode tickets similar to the TF2 model. Unlike the original, it will be fully controller enabled (with enhancements for Valve’s new controller), couch co-op friendly, and supports Steam Workshop.
  • A beta will start for Team Fortress 2 running on Source 2.
  • Source 2 is unveiled at Valve Dev Days or GDC.
  • Left 4 Dead 3 will be announced. Still no word on Half-Life 3.
  • There will be no “Steam Machine” exclusives, but there will be a palpable increase in PC exclusives, timed or otherwise.
  • Blizzard will announce Linux clients for their current stable of games
  • No Starcratt II: Legacy of the Void this year.
  • Blizzard reveals remakes of Warcraft I-III and Starcraft in the Starcraft II engine, available through the Starcraft II Marketplace.
  • GOG will start supporting Linux for games running in DOSBox or ScummVM
  • GOG inks distribution deals with Bethesda and Disney
  • Kickstarters from Will Wright, John Romero, Cliff Bleszinski, and/or Roberta/Ken Williams
  • No new Kickstarter from Double Fine but Hack n’ Slash will be an Early Release title.
  • After 8+ years of development, Final Fantasy XV will finally have a release date (for 2015).
  • New RPG from MistWalker announced for 3DS, PS4, or Wii U.
  • Monolith Soft’s X will be available before end of the year
  • No new Mario platformer this year. (Yoshi's New Island and Yarn Yoshi don't count)

Not a prediction, but I hope there will be fewer proclamations about the death or impending doom of the following: PC gaming, Adventure games, Japanese RPGs, Nintendo, Square-Enix, and Sony. In general, just hoping for a more positive feeling 2014.

PaladinTom wrote:

The Occulus Rift will not be successful with the mainstream and will wind up a niche product.

I can't hear you I can't hear you I can't hear you! anahahfahhfhaahahananananannannanan

Sony sells more PS Vitas in the US than Nintendo 3DSs in 2014 due mainly to a price drop and how well Gakai performs on it for older titles.

Even if that does happen, that won't be why.

Elder Scrolls Online fails but does NOT go free-to-play. It is completely shut down and taken offline. Rumors abound that Bethesda will mine the assets for Elder Scrolls 6 which will be rumored to take place across ALL of Tamriel.

True, the combat does look like sh*te.

Here goes...

- As many said, SteamOS hardware fails to make gains and almost all hardware partners quit (see below). However, SteamOS gets a second life via dual booting, becoming decently popular among the enthusiast crowd. The controller is declared a success in terms of hardware, but sees low adoption.

- Valve spins off its software development studio from its Steam and hardware groups, allowing each to focus more on their individual mission. All remain under Valve, but gain individual names and identity. The software studio is itself split into free-to-play and paid software. Valve uses its war chest for its first studio acquisition, becoming a publisher in earnest.

- Nvidia Tegra K1 appears in two tablets and disappears. Qualcomm continues to hold the mobile space for Android.

- A kinect-free Xbox One SKU is released before Christmas at $399 with a bundled sports game.

- Microsoft introduces DVR functionality with select carriers, including Sky, DirectTV, and Dish. Cable companies decline. The first implementation uses an awkward adapter, resolved by a new SKU in 2015 available only by rent through providers.

- Excitement for the indie scene on consoles fades. Besides a few notable releases on PS4, indie developers feel burned and find better sales on PC. Many choose to focus on that platform, especially as alpha and beta releases become indicative of the indie market. The lack of console indies is tempered by the release of a low cost SteamBox in a mini-ITX size at $199 (w/o controller) that focuses on low-end games, and is everything people wanted the Ouya to be. This is released by Valve itself in November to keep momentum for SteamOS going.

- In June, Apple does NOT announce a new watch. Instead they introduce a new AppleTV box compatible with Bluetooth controllers for iOS gaming on the TV. They don't make a big deal about it, but the gaming community and developers get excited. By Christmas it is a competitive 'console' selling about 1:1 with the Wii U in 2014.

- Kickstarter will have its first >$2 million flop, with metacritic score below 40. Unproven developers find they are having a harder time raising money, even as established indies make greater use of it.

- Candy Crush and Clash of Clans get sequels which at their highest point earn more than $4M per day.

- Halo scores in the 60s due to a complete lack of new ideas, and some wonder if the franchise is finally wrapping up.

- The Elder Scrolls online is a disaster. Zenimax is shaken to the core, closing id Software and perhaps a few other studios. Outside prediction: Zenimax implodes and Bethesda is auctioned. 2K games picks them up, along with id tech.

- Reflecting the success of Destiny, a Borderlands MMO is announced, with writers from Gearbox but developed at another studio. Potentially funded by Microsoft Studios and is an XboxOne/PC exclusive.

- StarCraft 2 expansion sales are disappointing; however, Hardware: Shipbreakers is a surprise blockbuster hit.

Let's see how I did:

Microsoft announces next Xbox at their own event in the spring, and they release in the fall. Two skus: low end version for $350 and gamer end for $450. Kinect will be a part of both skus.

Announcement correct, wrong on price and two SKUS, and correct on Kinect.

Sony announces the PS4 in the fall, shortly before the next Xbox releases. It will release in 2014.
The Vita stays at $250, but gets bundled with a memory card larger than 4 gigs and at least a month of Playstation Plus.

Nope.

While Android numbers will grow, iOS will still dominate software sales.

Yep

Apple will continue to get no respect.

Not really a bold prediction.

---

I haven't listened to the show yet, or read other predictions, but I wanted to get that first part in.

Predictions (with more to come?):

Knack will be a PS Plus "free" game this year.

Playstation Now pricing will be surprisingly good; however, it won't have a ton of content.

Super Smash Bros. will be a system seller for Wii U; however, the systems still won't sell.

XBox One will stay at $500; however, by the end of the year it will come with a free downloadable exclusive game. No - it won't be Titanfall.

Hmm, here are my predictions/wishful thinking.

RTSes continue to struggle on the market, but a turn-based game similar to Xcom becomes one of the most successful strategy games of the year. My bet is Frozen Endzone but could be a game not announced yet.

Dragon Age 3 is a return to form for Bioware and is considered a masterpiece right up there with DA Origins, Mass Effect 2, and KOTOR.

Heroes of the Storm is released by the end of the year and - depending on when it's released - either stands poised to overtake LOL and DOTA 2 in early 2015 or already surpasses them in number of players. Hedging my bet a little bit in case it comes out in say Nov versus summer/early fall.

Transistor is considered best indie game of the year.

The death of the MMO is greatly exaggerated as ESO and Wildstar both have respectable box sales and at least 800K subscribers by year's end. Warlords of Draenor is a huge success for WOW.

Fallout 4 is announced but the setting is not Boston.

Half Life 2 is NOT announced. But taking a page from Blizzard's sci-fi/fantasy mix in Heroes of the Storm, Gordon Freeman becomes a playable DOTA character.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Nintendo
- Nintendo will founder around for the whole year. There will be increasing calls from western investors and analysts for Iwata's removal but he will stay in place - the company standing behind him.
- There will also be repeated musings of Nintendo becoming software only - they won't.
- There will be repeated calls for Nintendo to release their games on other platforms (specifically mobile) - they won't.
- Nintendo's first party title line-up will be bolstered by several high profile releases (all critically acclaimed) but the console itself will not heat up sales-wise.

Those aren't bold predictions. That's what happens every day/week/month/year/generation with Nintendo. :P

Fair enough! To be honest, there's not much to predict about Nintendo at the moment. They seem to be in a bit of a loop...

I added a new one to help with the boldness:
- Nintendo will launch and heavily promote a new franchise with a new character and this one will be seen as an eventual replacement for Mario by analysts and game reviewers/commentators.

Elysium wrote:
- A JRPG will be on Elysium's 2014 GOTY top 10 list. BOLD!

Boldest prediction on the site ever.

- "GOTY" redefined by Elysium to mean Game Offal Throughout Year

Love this:

Mine are:

Microsoft
- MS will try and claw back their position and, as Spaz predicts, might be able to pull it off in the US. However, the company's lack of focus towards the rest of the world will not be addressed and it will remain in a far behind second place in worldwide sales throughout the year.

Sony
I agree with Spaz that free streamed games via Sony-Gaikai will replace or at least augment the free games currently offered on Playstation plus. This will be initiated due to the prominent position Sony will find itself in the livingroom console space as the free games were after the troubles and black eyes it had suffered during the early and median PS3 years.

Nintendo
- Nintendo will founder around for the whole year. There will be increasing calls from western investors and analysts for Iwata's removal but he will stay in place - the company standing behind him.
- There will also be repeated musings of Nintendo becoming software only - they won't.
- There will be repeated calls for Nintendo to release their games on other platforms (specifically mobile) - they won't.
- Nintendo's first party title line-up will be bolstered by several high profile releases (all critically acclaimed) but the console itself will not heat up sales-wise.
- Nintendo will launch and heavily promote a new franchise with a new character and this one will be seen as an eventual replacement for Mario by analysts and game reviewers/commentators.

Valve
- SteamOS will have a decent uptake as more features are brought online.
- Steam boxes that provide functionality beyond streaming as their primary function will not sell and most of the current manufacturers partnered with the company will drop their products.
- A small cottage industry will begin to emerge from local PC repair shops offering to build "steam boxes" to the specification or budget of their customers utilising the SteamOS.

General
- Titanfall will come to PS4 at the end of the year.
- Dying Light will be hugely popular and there will be no sign that the zombie genre is anywhere near 'done'.
- Watchdogs will release and will not be good.
- Assassin's Creed will no longer be a series about Assassins, it will transition (smoothly) into a series about pirates as there was an ideological shift in the Assassin's guild leading to the massively reduced numbers hunted by the Templars... the pirates will get away with it. The next game will feature a Somali-descended immigrant in modern/futuristic America with the game being set in mid-19th century as a pirate in the African region. It will be the FarCry 2 of the series - loved and hated.
- The occulus rift will release to critical acclaim, sold-out inventory and will not catch on with the general public. Whether it's this year or next, the company will not be able to break into mainstream. In a year or two a second revision will be released but then the company will fold. It's just too expensive, exclusionary and ultimately a fragmentation of current experiences all wrapped into a peripheral that's ultimately 'optional'.

More to come.

My predictions are these:

- Half Life 3 will NEVER come out. Valve is a multiplayer game company now.
- Either the next Battlefield or Call of Duty will be multiplayer only and won't have a single player campaign.
- Dark Souls 2 sells more than 5 million copies.

I predicted Valve OS for 2012, didn't happen. But I stuck to it. Glad I did!

Here are my bold predictions for 2013

Valve

Valve will release a Steam Linux Distro. Using 'Big Picture' as your shell. Options to watch your movies and listen to your music will be built in.
Valve will release their own game controller. With buttons specifically for 'Big Picture' usage.
Valve will release the Steam Box. For selling, but also meant for reference for others. A direct competitor in the console market.

Windows

Win8 will flop. Metro for tablet, lukewarm reception. No real impact on gaming scene at all.
GFW will remain the joke of every year.

Sony

Somehow Sony gets its sh*t together and gains market share, eating in on MS' share.

These were the ones I think were pretty damn close

This year?
- Steam OS will get integrated streaming (with or without Twitch)
- Steam OS will get a version of Kickstarter built in (or maybe the actual).
- Nintendo will release a new console. More social will be the theme.

My last prediction is that it will be somewhat boring in 2014.

Can I play too?

Commercial/Critical Failures

Bungie's and Respawn's attempts to integrate single player narrative with multiplayer - in Destiny and Titanfall - respectively are unable to withstand beta testing and are dramatically scaled back (rather like MAG). Both games miss their initial release dates.

Nevertheless, both games sell well initially, but eventually die a swift death as players realise that there's really nothing new to see in either.

Watch Dogs is finally released in Q4 and turns out to be a huge critical and sales disappointment. The attempt to combine elements of Metal Gear (stealth), GTA (open world), Dark/Demons Souls (shared world PvP), and Deux Ex (hacking) results in a game that does nothing well and pleases no one.

Elder Scrolls Online is released, and looks and plays like a relic from the past. It is patch furiously for the first 6 months, but never fulfills its pre-release promise (and hype). Bethesda allow it to die quietly.

Cancellations

The Last Guardian is officially cancelled.

Successes

Rockstar releases two brilliant pieces of standalone DLC for the GTA V platform.

Any bold predictions on the resurrected Star Control IP?

The Xbox One and the PS4 both have the same first year that the Wii U did: anemic. The high price, depressed economy, continuing concerns about the high level of interconnectivity of the devices, and that lingering thought that "my old consoles can still do everything just fine" combine for rather depressing sales out of the gate.

It isn't going to help that most of what's on tap for the Xbox One and PS4 are cross-generation releases for the 360 and PS3 (Thief, Watch_Dogs, Alien: Isolation, Dragon Age), or enhanced ports of games already released for the previous generation (like Tomb Raider). My bold prediction is that Holiday '14 we'll see lots of comments on the forums about how next-gen is finally getting started.

jdzappa wrote:

Hmm, here are my predictions/wishful thinking.
Dragon Age 3 is a return to form for Bioware and is considered a masterpiece right up there with DA Origins, Mass Effect 2, and KOTOR.

Yaaay!

jdzappa wrote:

Fallout 4 is announced but the setting is not Boston.

Boooo!

Another prediction: To continue the thought of the death of subscription MMOs, TESO will have a free-to-play option (or go completely F2P) by the end of the year.

I don't really have any predictions so much as expectations. I expect that 2014 will be one of the best years of gaming that we will know, trumped only by 2015, 2016, and each following year.

It is such an exciting time to be a gamer. I can't wait for the Harmonix Kinect game, Titanfall, Watch Dogs, the Witcher 3 and all the games from 2013 I didn't get to. I hope that MS tightens up the XBO user experience, but so far I couldn't be happier with the actual games themselves.

I love games!

Predictions for this year:

Esports becomes much bigger

With Dota and LoL bringing in millions of viewers, Consoles supporting streaming, and the popularity of Twitch getting bigger, watching streams is becoming more mainstream. This could be a big year for esports if they can capitalize on it. We won't be seeing any esports on ESPN, ESPN3 or ESPN8 the Ocho anytime soon, but I think if some advertising was out there, it could get bigger. Last year I was watching DOTA in a bar, so if LoL or DOTA wanted to do a grass roots thing to have it shown at different bars, that could totally be a thing.

The new consumer version of the rift is be out in time for the holiday season this year

By the time it will be out, it will have been hyped for 2-3 years. If they've got the motion sickness issues fix, which by the sounds of it, they have, this could be very big. It's going to take a while for it to be mainstream, but anyone that tries it out will be very impressed by it. It really needs a new killer app to really wow. Preferably without any extra things you need to buy. If Left 4 Dead 3 worked natively with the new rift, that would be amazing.

Smash Bros on the 3DS will be more popular than Smash Bros on the WiiU

Basically just because there's a bigger consumer base. If there are any things that transfer between the 3DS version and the WiiU version, that will probably lead to a lot of sales of the WiiU and the WiiU version of the game.

The real reason that Kinect is always on will finally be revealed: To ban thirteen year olds that swear too much online

This would be great.

Half-Life 3 will not be out this year

Because I want to be proven wrong on this.

I wouldn't say Minarchist "nailed" it with last year's Kickstarter prediction.

RolandofGilead wrote:

I wouldn't say Minarchist "nailed" it with last year's Kickstarter prediction.

If there is anything to it, I suppose it is that the big money moved from Kickstarter to early access programs in 2013. The only difference I see between those two is that a KS project will have the crowd funds earlier in the dev process than an early access game but considering KS's policy for video games (playable prototype required) not all that much. Be it early access or Kickstarter, "Ask the public to pay money for an unfinished product in the hopes that we will eventually deliver a game you would want" funding got MUCH bigger in 2013. Between Torment, Starbound, Rust, DayZ, and Star Citizen, there may have been over 100M in crowd-funded games in the last 12 mo.

shoptroll wrote:

[*]Blizzard will announce Linux clients for their current stable of games

[*]GOG will start supporting Linux for games running in DOSBox or ScummVM

These two represent my bold prediction (although I think Blizzard will not announce Linux clients)
Steamboxes will not take off, but SteamOS will become the most popular dual-boot Linux OS.

In order to beat the Occulus Rift et al to the market Nintendo releases the Virtua Boy HD. Come on, you know this should happen. Heads will asplode.

Kinect will be removed from the One in Europe. This happens only after porn games made for the Kinect become ubiquitous.

Protagonists in video games will all be female and multicultural as publishers overreact.

Nintendo secretly publishes games on the Wii U under a third party name and those games fail to sell.

Tool releases their next studio album. Please let this happen.

Microsoft eats humble pie way more swiftly than Sony did and will go neck and neck in terms of hardware sales.

Indie games don't die. Come on, people.

Valve stops developing games. This already happened, right?

Here are mine

KICKSTARTER : Despite the succesful releases of some big name crowdfunded projects such as Wasteland 2 and Broken Age delivering on their promises, there will be enough delayed and cancelled projects in the next 6 months to cast a serious doubt over the legitimacy of Kickstarter from a consumer perspective and new projects launching on Kickstarter will have nowhere near the level of success that we've seen in 2013

PS NOW: The platform will launch to a lukewarm consumer response despite favorable critic reviews. By the end of 2014 Sony will have announced that it becomes part of PS+, somehow.

STEAMBOXES: Despite the enthusiasm, the machines will not sell enough to warrant further investments from Valve or any of the parties involved. The good old ''build-your-own'' PCs will remain the gamer's choice when comes the time to buy a new PC.

PS4 vs XBOX ONE: Facing slower sales than Sony and because they are ''listening to consumer feedback'', Microsoft launches an XBOX ONE sku without Kinect at 399$ and sales are revitalized.

yeah. I think that's it. we'll see how my predictions turn out

Might I make a suggestion that bold predictions thread next year be posted 2 weeks prior to CES and that it then be locked just before it starts? Of course, that would mean starting the thread on December 23rd. But that way, the crazy announcements of CES wouldn't get jumbled inbetween the start and end of the thread.
And we could speculate endlessly on stupid things like what new TV tech is coming!

Bold prediction: My suggestion will not happen.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Might I make a suggestion that bold predictions thread next year be posted 2 weeks prior to CES and that it then be locked just before it starts? Of course, that would mean starting the thread on December 23rd. But that way, the crazy announcements of CES wouldn't get jumbled inbetween the start and end of the thread.
And we could speculate endlessly on stupid things like what new TV tech is coming!

Bold prediction: My suggestion will not happen. :D

I did ask last week whether it was happening or not! My "predictions" were already formulated and, apparently, not bold enough once the thread was introduced!

Only one bold prediction from me, but it's a doozy. Gears of War will be coming to the PS4 this year.

Duoae wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

Might I make a suggestion that bold predictions thread next year be posted 2 weeks prior to CES and that it then be locked just before it starts? Of course, that would mean starting the thread on December 23rd. But that way, the crazy announcements of CES wouldn't get jumbled inbetween the start and end of the thread.
And we could speculate endlessly on stupid things like what new TV tech is coming!

Bold prediction: My suggestion will not happen. :D

I did ask last week whether it was happening or not! My "predictions" were already formulated and, apparently, not bold enough once the thread was introduced! :)

Hey, my suggestion was entirely free from any comment from anyone. Hope you didn't think I was picking on you after blasting your Nintendo ones.