MassiveAttack
Banned
Jon Davison's 2005 predictions from his blog at 1UP. Cue "teh ultra bias" comments. Whatever. Still worth a read and a ridiculously long thread full of further "ultra bias".
9 Bits of 2005 Punditry
Last week at work we sat around sipping expensive frothy coffee drinks and being self-important media luvvies while wearing our pundit hats. The resulting list of nine important things seems sufficiently interesting to pass along to you all, so here it is, in all it's pompous glory. This is all pretty much educated guesswork, incidentally, so if it's wrong I'll rebutt any criticism simpy by saying, "it was just guesswork," whereas if it's right I'll happily act like some kind of seer-like media genius and declare, "see, I told you so back on January 17."
1. The PSP will quickly become the most important gaming platform in 2005. There'll be a slow start due to supply, and demand will be high through the holidays into 2006 and beyond. It will quickly establish itself as the primary focus for publishers with plenty of new franchises (like SOE's Untold Legends), plus revival of older IP (like Wipeout, which is brilliant). PSP price point may be lower than we'd anticipated - and let's hope so, because I just put $100 down on one at EB.
2. Microsoft will announce Xbox Next (or Xenon) before E3 in May and it won't be called Xbox 2, so as not to seem inferior to PlayStation 3. Microsoft will release the system this year. That, I'd put money on.
3. PlayStation 3 will also be announced (by E3 at the latest) and will be orders of magnitude more powerful than the Xbox Next. Sony will intimate at E3 that they are aiming for a global roll-out in early 2006, but will end up staggering release because of all the usual reasons that Sony never quite deliver on their initial promises. This time, let's call it Cell manufacturing problems.
4. Price points for both new systems will be much more than we're used to seeing, in part to help establish a longer lifetime for the boxes. A 10 year plan (something that everyone seems to be talking about these days) will require a number of key price drop points to stimulate sales... so the start point will need to be higher than $299.
5. Nintendo will do something to surprise us. The Nintendo hardware appears to be essentially the same as the Microsoft hardware, and the rumors are still circulating around the two forging some kind of hellish demon spawn strategic alliance - M$ providing OS/standards/Internet strategy, Nintendo bringing creative/development muscle and Eastern markets. I'm not sure I'm buying that. Unless it happens, in which case I'll say I wrote it right here.
6. EA will continue to grow like the huge behemoth that it is, (oh look! They did a deal with ESPN!) but we'll continue to see increasingly angry message posts on every 1UP news article that we write about them, signifying a snowballing problem of consumer distrust. If this continues, perhaps we'll see the revival of sub-brands under the EA banner. In related news, if Medal of Honor Dogs of War actually comes out this year (or ever), I'll insist on being called Susan for a day.
7. The safe money is on EA being the only third party publisher with more than one launch title ready for new systems. Which I guess is kinda related to item number 6.
8. Everyone will be talking about how awesome Midway is this year. Area 51 is awesome, NARC is just $20, and the new Blitz looks great. They had an awesome year last year, and 2005 should be even better.
9. PC gaming will have a great year. The biggest franchise announcements, outside of those on PSP, will be PC games. We're almost certain to see something from Blizzard on StarCraft (at the very least, it's about time they placated all the pissed off PC fans still irked by Ghost) and I'm thinking probably something Diablo-related too. And by that, I mean Diablo III. Quake IV we already know about, plus we know that Unreal is getting a big makeover. LucasArts' new Star Wars RTS, Empire at War should be big judging from the SW fanboy reaction online, the new Age of Empires will finally hit, and it's about time we got a new Command & Conquer of some kind. That's just an initial list without really giving it much thought. You'd be hard pushed to come up with a list of marquee names like that for Xbox or PS2 this year.
9 Bits of 2005 Punditry
Last week at work we sat around sipping expensive frothy coffee drinks and being self-important media luvvies while wearing our pundit hats. The resulting list of nine important things seems sufficiently interesting to pass along to you all, so here it is, in all it's pompous glory. This is all pretty much educated guesswork, incidentally, so if it's wrong I'll rebutt any criticism simpy by saying, "it was just guesswork," whereas if it's right I'll happily act like some kind of seer-like media genius and declare, "see, I told you so back on January 17."
1. The PSP will quickly become the most important gaming platform in 2005. There'll be a slow start due to supply, and demand will be high through the holidays into 2006 and beyond. It will quickly establish itself as the primary focus for publishers with plenty of new franchises (like SOE's Untold Legends), plus revival of older IP (like Wipeout, which is brilliant). PSP price point may be lower than we'd anticipated - and let's hope so, because I just put $100 down on one at EB.
2. Microsoft will announce Xbox Next (or Xenon) before E3 in May and it won't be called Xbox 2, so as not to seem inferior to PlayStation 3. Microsoft will release the system this year. That, I'd put money on.
3. PlayStation 3 will also be announced (by E3 at the latest) and will be orders of magnitude more powerful than the Xbox Next. Sony will intimate at E3 that they are aiming for a global roll-out in early 2006, but will end up staggering release because of all the usual reasons that Sony never quite deliver on their initial promises. This time, let's call it Cell manufacturing problems.
4. Price points for both new systems will be much more than we're used to seeing, in part to help establish a longer lifetime for the boxes. A 10 year plan (something that everyone seems to be talking about these days) will require a number of key price drop points to stimulate sales... so the start point will need to be higher than $299.
5. Nintendo will do something to surprise us. The Nintendo hardware appears to be essentially the same as the Microsoft hardware, and the rumors are still circulating around the two forging some kind of hellish demon spawn strategic alliance - M$ providing OS/standards/Internet strategy, Nintendo bringing creative/development muscle and Eastern markets. I'm not sure I'm buying that. Unless it happens, in which case I'll say I wrote it right here.
6. EA will continue to grow like the huge behemoth that it is, (oh look! They did a deal with ESPN!) but we'll continue to see increasingly angry message posts on every 1UP news article that we write about them, signifying a snowballing problem of consumer distrust. If this continues, perhaps we'll see the revival of sub-brands under the EA banner. In related news, if Medal of Honor Dogs of War actually comes out this year (or ever), I'll insist on being called Susan for a day.
7. The safe money is on EA being the only third party publisher with more than one launch title ready for new systems. Which I guess is kinda related to item number 6.
8. Everyone will be talking about how awesome Midway is this year. Area 51 is awesome, NARC is just $20, and the new Blitz looks great. They had an awesome year last year, and 2005 should be even better.
9. PC gaming will have a great year. The biggest franchise announcements, outside of those on PSP, will be PC games. We're almost certain to see something from Blizzard on StarCraft (at the very least, it's about time they placated all the pissed off PC fans still irked by Ghost) and I'm thinking probably something Diablo-related too. And by that, I mean Diablo III. Quake IV we already know about, plus we know that Unreal is getting a big makeover. LucasArts' new Star Wars RTS, Empire at War should be big judging from the SW fanboy reaction online, the new Age of Empires will finally hit, and it's about time we got a new Command & Conquer of some kind. That's just an initial list without really giving it much thought. You'd be hard pushed to come up with a list of marquee names like that for Xbox or PS2 this year.
