2007 Gaming Predictions
DOOManiac
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">What do you think will happen next year?</div>In this thread we should all post our predictions for what will happen w/ gaming in 2007. Here's mine:
Wii: The novelty of the thing will have worn off with the general "hardcore" PS3/360 players and the Wii will be fated to being the "kid's system" like the Gamecube was. Metroid Prime 3 will come out, and do very very well, but still won't be a killer app. Wii will have many other great titles, but likewise none that really impress those who don't already plan on getting a Wii. Everyone is disappointed when no new Zelda is announced at this year's E3 equivilant. Systems sales will slow as the novelty wears off, and developers won't really figure out how to take full control of what the system offers and have that make its way into games until 2008. Despite this, Nintendo will still make tons of profit off the Wii and DS and will be wearing money hats and laughing at all the people on forums saying "Nintendo lost".
360: Will continue to have strong sales, with a new "must have" game every quarter or so, which of course will quickly be forgotten as Dead Rising was when Gears came out. GRAW2 will sell like hotscakes. Gears 2 will be announced at this year's E3 equivilant. Games on the 360 will continue to ship with worse and worse problems as the quality assurance standards are lowered by the "we can patch it later" mentality. 360 will give PS3 a real run for its money, and perhaps even "win". Whether MS actually makes any profit from the 360 seems uncertain, but if I had to guess I'd say "no".
PS3: System sales will continue to slow and people will start declaring Sony to have lost the console war. Summer, or perhaps even Fall will see Sony's first PS3 killer app released (maybe MGS4), and sales will jump very high, but the huge price tag will still continue to be the thing that causes most people ty say "enough is enough, I'm not spending that much." BluRay as a format flops completely and is constantly compared to Betamax. 2007 will probably be a bad year for Sony shareholders.
PS2: Guitar Hero 3 will come out in November, and that's about all that anyone really cares about anymore for the PS2.
PC:<ul><li>HL2:EP2 will be delayed till Summer. It will come out w/ minimal engine improvements. Source engine will really be showing its age by then. TF2, despite looking awesome, will fail to live up to promises. Portal will be very awesome but will be short, maybe 4 or 5 hours tops. People will want more.</li><li>Crysis will be delayed to Spring 2008</li><li>Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will come out and kick everyone's ######. Sadly, it still won't do as well as it should because the general game buying public (i.e. not us) doesn't really care about the Quake franchise anymore. It will have a very strong hardcore following, but BF2142 and CS:S will barely see a dent.</li><li>I'll still be trying to figure out WTH w/ ArmA, only to give up and instead oogle trailers over for Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 - The Vegasing.</li><li>Going off the success of Prey, DNF will be announced for Summer 2008 at this year's E3 equivilant.</li></ul>
Wii: The novelty of the thing will have worn off with the general "hardcore" PS3/360 players and the Wii will be fated to being the "kid's system" like the Gamecube was. Metroid Prime 3 will come out, and do very very well, but still won't be a killer app. Wii will have many other great titles, but likewise none that really impress those who don't already plan on getting a Wii. Everyone is disappointed when no new Zelda is announced at this year's E3 equivilant. Systems sales will slow as the novelty wears off, and developers won't really figure out how to take full control of what the system offers and have that make its way into games until 2008. Despite this, Nintendo will still make tons of profit off the Wii and DS and will be wearing money hats and laughing at all the people on forums saying "Nintendo lost".
360: Will continue to have strong sales, with a new "must have" game every quarter or so, which of course will quickly be forgotten as Dead Rising was when Gears came out. GRAW2 will sell like hotscakes. Gears 2 will be announced at this year's E3 equivilant. Games on the 360 will continue to ship with worse and worse problems as the quality assurance standards are lowered by the "we can patch it later" mentality. 360 will give PS3 a real run for its money, and perhaps even "win". Whether MS actually makes any profit from the 360 seems uncertain, but if I had to guess I'd say "no".
PS3: System sales will continue to slow and people will start declaring Sony to have lost the console war. Summer, or perhaps even Fall will see Sony's first PS3 killer app released (maybe MGS4), and sales will jump very high, but the huge price tag will still continue to be the thing that causes most people ty say "enough is enough, I'm not spending that much." BluRay as a format flops completely and is constantly compared to Betamax. 2007 will probably be a bad year for Sony shareholders.
PS2: Guitar Hero 3 will come out in November, and that's about all that anyone really cares about anymore for the PS2.
PC:<ul><li>HL2:EP2 will be delayed till Summer. It will come out w/ minimal engine improvements. Source engine will really be showing its age by then. TF2, despite looking awesome, will fail to live up to promises. Portal will be very awesome but will be short, maybe 4 or 5 hours tops. People will want more.</li><li>Crysis will be delayed to Spring 2008</li><li>Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will come out and kick everyone's ######. Sadly, it still won't do as well as it should because the general game buying public (i.e. not us) doesn't really care about the Quake franchise anymore. It will have a very strong hardcore following, but BF2142 and CS:S will barely see a dent.</li><li>I'll still be trying to figure out WTH w/ ArmA, only to give up and instead oogle trailers over for Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 - The Vegasing.</li><li>Going off the success of Prey, DNF will be announced for Summer 2008 at this year's E3 equivilant.</li></ul>
Comments
Wii: As larger-than-life titles are released few and far between, hype for the Wii will slow to a crawl. One day, Brawl will come out, and everyone who knows anything about gaming on any system will be playing that with friends, endlessly until 2011. Other console kids will cry and whine about how the Wii sucks, but will feel left out when all the cool kids are still playing Smash.
Prediction: It will be awesome.
The only one I know who has even heard of it is one of my coworkers, who is now considering buying a 360 for it when I told him it was the spiritual successor to System Shock.
What is Brawl? Some type of fighting game?
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The next Super Smash Bros. game.
What is Brawl? Some type of fighting game?
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D:
<a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=7FO83eZdWks" target="_blank">http://youtube.com/watch?v=7FO83eZdWks</a>
- eve-online: record PCU will break 35k. jita will lag so hard it will be removed from the universe.
Lighting is important sure, but that was never the focal point of source. The idea was to do what everybody else had been doing, <i>better</i>. More immersive: story, physics, characters, maps, etc etc. The weapons were a bit lackluster, except for the physics gun, but you can't win em all. To be honest I'd rather if valve just stuck to the functional, easy-on-the-fps lighting system and focused on making a better, more fun game. Episode 1 was good but lacked the cinematic epic feel of half-life 2, and both of them definitely lacked the environments and progressive entertainment of half-life 1.
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No, Source has nothing to do with the weapons, characters, maps, or story. That's entirely apart from the engine and can be taken from game to game, and Source games can have entirely different weapons, characters, maps, and stories (like Dark Messiah or The Ship). The relative quality of Half-Life and Half-Life 2 and its episodes are entirely apart from Source's viability as a next gen games engine, which I think is completely intact and just as good as any of the others, or at least it will be with the new improvements I mentioned.
I don't think the people coding the lighting engine are the same people who design the levels, dude. It's not just 3 people. Valve's a big company and they divide things up.
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I know that too. But when the main hype factor regarding episode 2 is "LIGHTING!!" for a valve game, that's a pretty worrying trend.
Wii: It will be a unprecedented success- its price getting lower before 2007, perhaps even into the $150 range before Christmas, propels it to being a humongous best seller come the end of the year, with it already boasting huge success thanks to many major news publications, and local 'affiliate' stations/papers praising its use for the non-gamer. For the Hardcore, it will not quite have grown yet, but several major titles will be announced for 2008 that will set it as a Industry standard, like the PS2 before it.
Playstation 3: The Sony Spiral continues, dooming them to a lowly third place- major titles such as MGS4 and FFXIII do their best to pull the system out of the fire, but fail overall, making it a powerful console with few capabilities. Considering Sony's current economic standpoint, this will only drive them down further, causing 1st-party games to be canceled and 3rd-party exclusivity to become even more forgotten than it is now.
Xbox 360: It will be resigned to "The True Hardcore" console, with people playing it because of the Library, not its innovation or power. Not to mention, with the refinements of XBox Live, it will prove to be the true online multiplayer powerhouse besides PC.
PC in 2007: The retribution year. PC has been getting a lot of flak for a really long time because of its low sales, despite a generally higher density of high quality titles. With Microsoft's new backing through "Games for Windows" however, it will become a more powerful system- I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft even unveil a Achievements system that will be cross platform between both PC and XBox 360. A decent amount of good titles will come out for sure, but the first half of the year will dominate the second half purely because of the "couldn't-quite-make-Christmas" game list that has gotten oh-so-long.
Random Insights:
XboxWii60 will be in full effect, both of them seeing steadily driving sales numbers, and not much bad-mouthing between the two, but instead together against Sony. I doubt any collaboration will happen, but the beatdown of Sony will certainly be a main feature(Mostly over their arrogance from Nintendo, and failed promises from Microsoft).
Burning Crusade will be a landmark title in the PC realm, pushing the subscriber limit all the way to 10 Million, thanks to players both coming back and bringing in new ones who are ultimately intrigued. Before 2007's end, a pack of the original with the expansion will come out, for $40, making it a obvious major seller in the market.
While HL2's graphics won't be good as DOOM said, I think the gameplay will more than live up- Episode One was everything I wanted HL2 to be SP wise, and the HDR still makes it the second most beautiful engine today, if you ask me. Portal will be a breakout hit, spawning a revival of sorts in the puzzle genre for a few years to come. TF2 will be a good throwback to the old days of TF, and incite new fans, but otherwise innovate nothing(but a awesome art style). Left 4 Dead will come out late '07, along with the rest of the rush of reinvigorated Co-Op titles. And lastly, "The Crossing" will be unveiled early in the year, and...well, I don't know if it will be as huge as VALVe is toting it or not. I'm gonna say no for this, because people aren't saying its a completely new idea, just pushing things we have currently.
I think the big breakout MP game next year for PC is going to be Quake Wars- no doubt there. Its gonna be huge, and possibly the great success the first was, except it will make money too. And as for console MP, I think Halo 3 is going to get pushed into 2008, but on a weird note, get released early- perhaps around April, or May. The multiplayer beta that is going to go around(which btw, you can get in for buying certain copies of Crackdown) is going to last for 2 or 3 months, then be shut down.
And to come to a close, I think were going to see the industry embracing both the new Physics cards, as well as that "Killer" network card, which I've seen getting nothing but "Awesome if you have the money" reviews.
And I really don't see the Source engine going out of date any time soon.haha, really don't.
I see alot of games in 2007 with oh so sexual graphics but beyond that im not to hooked. crysis has my attention mainly because I think Farcry rocked with its environments. When the next Deus Ex (not DE 2) comes along I'll jump with joy. so im hoping Bioshock <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
I don't play consoles btw.
PS3: You'll see some remakes of ps2 titles but with richer environments and larger hordes of enemies or some such. Somebody will stumble on a game that was previously missing *something* that nobody could put their finger on, and now it'll sell like mad. Blu ray as a movie format will fail to take hold. I doubt the system as a whole will "fail". And even if it does, someone will capitalize on the system and some kind of crazy homebrew will flourish.
XBox360: People will become fed up with buying content they already thought they had bought. But will continue buying because everyone they know is still buying XBox360 games.
Portal will come out, and then I'll go <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> . Then I'll probably read some thread on some random forum and go <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":angry:" border="0" alt="mad-fix.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" /> .
And I really don't see the Source engine going out of date any time soon.haha, really don't.
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HL2's graphics are far superior than real life's graphics. So, yes, HL2's graphics and engine probably won't be going out of date anytime soon.
I know that too. But when the main hype factor regarding episode 2 is "LIGHTING!!" for a valve game, that's a pretty worrying trend.
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No, that's not the main hype factor. That's just the main factor in my predictions for 2007, because EP2's gameplay really has nothing to do with the year it comes out or the state of PC gaming or anything like that, whereas the engine's tech specs are definitely time sensitive and relevant to PC gaming as a whole. IMHO Ep2 is going to be as spectacularly fun as EP1, probably even better, with all those open environments and the new enemies and the Strider buster and the new vehicle and all that stuff, but really, that only matters to Episode 2. As far as PC gaming goes, the Source engine's continued viability as a next gen engine is pretty important.
As for other things:
I expect no less than 40 new MMOs to be released this year, no more than 5 being will actually be fun, and maybe 1 or 2 will put a dent in World of Warcraft. WoW will still be the most popular though in the end.
As for consoles, I also predict the Wii will start to lose it's wow factor as people start moving back to standard controllers for typical games. The PS3 will probably start to pick up speed, slowly. I'm expecting Sony to really throw everything they have at BluRay and lower the price drastically to compete, which could be enough to save the format, but probably not. The 360 will continue to have a few big successful games that just heavily copy features and game play off of every previous success until an overly hyped game failsmiserably in reviews and sales for being a clone. At some point, Microsoft will make announcements about their next console to be released in a year or two.
The golden age will only last until the release of Duke Nukem Forever, though, which will be the pinnacle of human achievement. Upon seeing it, humanity will collectively commit suicide, with the knowledge that we have fulfilled our purpose and no longer have a reason to exist.
Its not gimmicky. =( Its actually a very useful tool in creating video games. I can't wait for that sniper arcade game that you used to play with the big sniper rifle (cant remember) to come out for the Wii, amoung other things. First person shooters are the things I'm most excited for, though! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> Its exactally like a light gun, but you also have movement attached on. Thats going to be *incredibly* fun.