Prognosticating the Year Ahead

Press the Buttons has an interesting and plausible sounding set of theories for the year ahead. From the article: "Sega will finally create an exceptional 3D Sonic the Hedgehog title when Sonic Team puts the entire extended cast (Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Blaze, Shadow, and the rest) back in the toy box for a while and focuses on what made the original Sonic games so much fun: blue skies and plenty of speed." Some of them may just be wishful thinking, though.

GTA? I don't think so.

[Perseid]

I don't see a new GTA at PS3 launch.

First of all, launch titles tend to be quick, easy, short-dev-time games. GTA is clearly none of those. So unless Take Two wants to release a half-assed launch quality GTA game, I don't see this happening.

Also, Take Two said GTA4 was in the works and it would be for the PS2. Granted, this was some time ago, but they haven't said anything to the contrary.

It's possible. But unlikely. At least in my view.

Not farfetched for a reason.

[Inoshiro]

This pundit is just looking at the trends of the past 5 years and mentioning them in terms of the next year.

Sony trying to get people onto the PS3 via shortages? Sure, it's working on the 360, and worked on the PS2, etc.

Microsoft having lots of 360s on the shelf when PS3 comes out? It'd be dumb of them not to, especially when they've said Halo 3 comes out right then.

Nintendo continuing to cater to the new, larger, unwashed of gaming, rather than the hardcore? Business as usual.

What these predictions lack is any kind of foresight over new trends. How hard is it to predict new MegaMan games?! If this person had their finger on the pulse of these companies and could predict brand new, interesting games (like Ribbit King, Katamari Damacy, and Guitar Heroes), that'd be something really worth getting excited over.

Also, Nokia already said the N-Gage was a failure. Why mention it? The PSP is also a pretty spectacular failure, since you get the same games you could play on a nice TV with surround sound, but on a smaller screen with terrible battery life. Maybe the PSP get a game worth buying beyond Lumines, but not even the GTA rehash (one of Sony's big cards) for it is boosting sales.