It's January 1, 2028. Predict the State of the Gaming Industry.

Heisenberg007

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Happy New Year 🎉 Welcome to 2028!

What do you think the gaming industry landscape looks like now? What are Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo doing? Are there any new entrants? Which studios and publishers have been acquired? How is VR gaming doing?

Make your predictions. Here are mine:
  • Sony's PS VR 2 has become a moderate success (didn't become as mainstream as some imagined, but it wasn't a failure either). Many non-VR AAA games were easily ported to VR 2 (ala Resident Evil Village), which now offers a huge competitive advantage to Sony and PS5 users.
  • Sony has acquired two of the following four companies: SquareEnix, Capcom, CDPR, and FromSoftware.
  • > 75% of PlayStation's live service games have flopped (e.g., Firewalk's and London Studio's), but the other 25% have become massive hits (e.g., TLOU Online, Horizon Online).
  • In a surprising move, Nintendo is warming up to PC releases, and either has released or announced one of their core franchises to release on PC.
  • Sony has slowed down their PC releases for single-player games but has fully embraced PC for multiplayer releases, which makes for more than 50% of their portfolio now.
  • Microsoft has announced a lower-tier ad-supported Gamepass plan that costs $5 - $7, does not include any third-party game, and brings first-party releases after a few months of launch, very much in line with this rumor. This plan has been or is set to release on PlayStation and Nintendo, ala EA Play.
  • Microsoft has become or is on the road to becoming more of a third-party publisher than a platform holder. Gamepass and xCloud have opened that possibility for them.
  • There has been one new entrant in the gaming industry, albeit at a much lower scale. That competitor is either Apple or Netflix. Their target audience is arcadey, casual gaming fans. They didn't announce any console and are instead delivering content via streaming and/or other platforms.
  • There are strong rumors that Tencent is bringing its own handheld gaming console to the market.
It may be fun to look back to this thread after 5 years and see how everyone's predictions panned out.
 
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  • Subscription services everywhere
  • Most big games are 'free' and stuffed with in-game purchases
  • Seasonal format adopted to spread games out over a wider time frame
  • People say gaming is better than ever because you get 10 billion hours of content for 19.99 a month.
 
- Microsoft has bought Rockstar after failing to buy Activision and manages to delay GTA6 to 2030.
- Sony now owns Square Enix
- Apple Owns EA
- Facebook owns Ubisoft
- No Next Gen consoles as both Sony and MS collude to delay next generation by at least 3 years to 2030 blaming of course coronavirus.
- Zelda BOTW3 comes out on Switch 2 with graphics that look worse than Witcher 3. Wins 400 GOTY awards.
- Horizon 3 comes out 2 weeks before BOTW3, gets an 89 and is forgotten in 2 weeks.
- 90% of Sony's 12 GaaS games flop, get cancelled or die within a couple of years with Bungie's new game being the only success.
- Sony shuts down a bunch of studios after their GaaS flops.
- Jim Ryan is axed after this disastrous run of GaaS trash. Joins Zynga.
- Herman fails upward and becomes CEO of Playstation.
- Gamepass is now $30. MS blames inflation and coronavirus.
- The Last of Us 3 comes out. Ellie is killed in the first 5 minutes by the owner of one of the dogs she kills in the last of us 2. The rest of the game stars John Wick as he learns to forgive himself for Ellie's brutal murder.
- Phil Spencer receives an honorary oscar.
- Gaffers on suicide watch as AAA games now take 10 years to make and we only get 2 of them a year.
 
AeonGaidenRaiden said:
Pretty sure in 5 years we will have a PS VR 3 and PS 6 by then.
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At the start of 2028? I think PS6 and next Xbox's marketing would have kicked in, but the release date for the new consoles would be Fall 2028.

A fall 2027 release date would make this generation 7 years, which I think is one year short because of what happened with COVID.
 
Sony becoming functionally the sole console over the company with infinite money and the company with an enormous lead despite not being back by a conglomerate is laughable.
  • Mobile continues to grow in market share with phones/tables which connect to TV like the switch becoming the primary gaming device for most people (already here for much of the world).
  • Amazon, Google, or Alibaba enter the subscription market with game subscription services becoming platform agnostic.
  • EU or other major regulator forces game pass or similar services to be allowed on all consoles in the interest of competition.
  • Console-PCs gradually increase in market share alongside the spread of subscription services further devaluing dedicated consoles.
  • Sony to follow Microsoft's lead and focus on Playstation as a brand over hardware
  • Nintendo to fuck off from gaming and set its sights on Disney if its movie franchises take off
 
I'll limit my predictions to Sony:

- PS5 sales will be in the general ballpark of the PS2. Justification: Supply issues are now a thing of the past and based on Tom Hendersons leak they're gonna kick console production into overdrive next FY with ~30 million units, and I think that will continue for some time. A PS5 revision next year and a PS5 Pro model the following year will fuel those sales. *Skip to the last point for an addition to this

- PlayStation Productions will have an overall successful lineup of game to TV/film adaptations under their belt and will continue to expand. As time goes on we'll see them collaborate with third party devs/publishers to utilize their infrastructure and relations with Sony Pictures to help bring third party IP to film and TV where the dev studio has more power in the direction the adaptation will go so its more true to the source material, and properly adapted to the new medium

- PSVR2 will sit at around 15 million units sold. About 3x the sales of PSVR, and somewhere in the area of a 10% attach rate on PS5. However, if Sony adds official PC support at some point then that jumps to 25 million units sold. I only see that last point occurring if Sony is able to properly monetize selling VR games on PC.

- PlayStation will introduce an official PC launcher of some sort to enable trophy support on PC along with further integration into PSN. Day and date releases will be common for console/PC with their live service titles, but single player content will, for the most part, still take priority on console.

- PS+ will continue to evolve and at this point in time there will be a tier where at least SOME first party content is offered day 1

- PS3 local emulation will have become a thing ~2023/2024 so by the time 2028 hits, all generations of PlayStation will be fully supported for local playback on the PS5. Their legacy support on PSN will be considerably ahead of the current offerings

- SIE's live service initiative will see some titles with moderate success and some who never really manage to catch on. Somewhere in all of that though will be one or two mega hits. They've already got over 10 projects aiming to launch by 2025, so by 2028 they could have 15 or so. Said projects will be ones who launch on console, PC and mobile. Current front runners in my estimation are TLOU MP, Horizon's MP game and Bungie's next game, codenamed Matter due out in 2025.

- SIE will continue its expansion via the formation of new teams, expanding existing studios to support even more projects, and acquisition. Right now they sit at 18 game dev studios (several of which are multi-project), and 7 support studios. Considering the rate of expansion since 2019 until now, and projecting out another 6 years, I can easily see them sitting at over 30 game dev studios (many of which are multi-project) and either adding more support studios or greatly expanding the existing ones to support so many dev studios.

- Sony utilizes the upcoming new chip plant they're co-building with TSMC in Japan to get their ReRAM chip production off the ground finally. For reference, these were the target specs of the ReRAM tech a couple years ago:

128GB drive [8 x 16GB] - 25.6 GB/s read, 9.6 GB/s write, PCIe gen5 x8, target wattage 14.6W+
256GB drive [16 x 16GB] - 51.2 GB/s read, 19.2 GB/s write, PCIe gen5 x16, target wattage 27.2W+

This ReRAM tech will initially see use in high end expensive electronics like expensive cameras and whatnot. Fast forward a couple of years to 2028, and Sony's got the tech refined down enough that this will become the SSD in the PS6 which launches holiday 2028.

- Every Sony Honda EV sold will come with a PS5 built into it. Sony will also market this entertainment package to other EV manufacturers and PS5's will be built into more vehicles sold from other companies. Note: the PS5 sales figures here also add to the total mentioned in the first bullet point.
 
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mxbison said:
  • Subscription services everywhere
  • Most big games are 'free' and stuffed with in-game purchases
  • Seasonal format adopted to spread games out over a wider time frame
  • People say gaming is better than ever because you get 10 billion hours of content for 19.99 a month.
Click to expand...
It makes me sad to say, but this... subscription services and bloated games everywhere.
 
Sony is still the market leader

More PlayStation games include some kind of VR mode

Sony's video game to movie adaptations are a legit force and people will look forward to sequels to movies like Ghost of Tsushima

Xbox have dialed back their Gamepass marketing and are back to promoting their big games over the service

Ninja Theory rises the ranks as best MS 1st party studio. The Coalition continues to get better. Playground Games loses some luster after Fable

Naughty Dog continues to show the industry why they are the 🐐

Insomniac Games is right next to Naughty Dog, same with SSM

Nintendo keeps doing their thing
 
Sony signal that cross gen may be coming to an end soon.

Coming soon ads for Starfield start circulating.

Digital foundry develop a way to count pixels/frames/blades of grass that are entirely offscreen. Internet foams at the mouth when Nintendo are repeatedly found to be able to render more offscreen pixels (OSP) with a graph showing that both Xbox and Playstation OSP counts are lower than on Switch (which is the current Nintendo console.) Nintendo fanboys jump on the chance to join in with tech moaning and pedantry and say that though they can't see the pixels, they think they feel the benefit of them and that the Offscreen Blades of Grass (OSBOG) mean that Nintendo games feel like real life simulations "on PlayStation, I feel like I'm wearing a cone on my face - what's behind me? With Nintendo, I can feel the grass under my feet if I sort of kneel down so my feet are behind me, or if I walk on my knees. I couldn't give that up"
Digital Foundry's Richard Ledbetter says "absolutely remarkable use of untapped power by Nintendo. Our latest measurements say that while onscreen frames in the latest Zelda game drop to the low 20s, OFFSCREEN Frames can get as high as 144hz, making it one of the fastest Offscreen renders available for any system. Remarkable stuff from the playing card company."

Pretty much everything is the same.
 
Sony has abandoned the Asian market completely. They are still trying to block MS buying Activision and they are now only making games with old trangenda people as the main character. Sony fans are defending them and calling them brave. Every Sony game is made using motion capture and the games all look the same.

MS is still trying to finalize the Activision deal.
Star Citizen still has not released.
Nintendo just released Splatoon 5. It is the only game Japanese kids play.
 
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vivftp said:
I'll limit my predictions to Sony:

- PS5 sales will be in the general ballpark of the PS2. Justification: Supply issues are now a thing of the past and based on Tom Hendersons leak they're gonna kick console production into overdrive next FY with ~30 million units, and I think that will continue for some time. A PS5 revision next year and a PS5 Pro model the following year will fuel those sales. *Skip to the last point for an addition to this

- PlayStation Productions will have an overall successful lineup of game to TV/film adaptations under their belt and will continue to expand. As time goes on we'll see them collaborate with third party devs/publishers to utilize their infrastructure and relations with Sony Pictures to help bring third party IP to film and TV where the dev studio has more power in the direction the adaptation will go so its more true to the source material, and properly adapted to the new medium

- PSVR2 will sit at around 15 million units sold. About 3x the sales of PSVR, and somewhere in the area of a 10% attach rate on PS5. However, if Sony adds official PC support at some point then that jumps to 25 million units sold. I only see that last point occurring if Sony is able to properly monetize selling VR games on PC.

- PlayStation will introduce an official PC launcher of some sort to enable trophy support on PC along with further integration into PSN. Day and date releases will be common for console/PC with their live service titles, but single player content will, for the most part, still take priority on console.

- PS+ will continue to evolve and at this point in time there will be a tier where at least SOME first party content is offered day 1

- PS3 local emulation will have become a thing ~2023/2024 so by the time 2028 hits, all generations of PlayStation will be fully supported for local playback on the PS5. Their legacy support on PSN will be considerably ahead of the current offerings

- SIE's live service initiative will see some titles with moderate success and some who never really manage to catch on. Somewhere in all of that though will be one or two mega hits. They've already got over 10 projects aiming to launch by 2025, so by 2028 they could have 15 or so. Said projects will be ones who launch on console, PC and mobile. Current front runners in my estimation are TLOU MP, Horizon's MP game and Bungie's next game, codenamed Matter due out in 2025.

- SIE will continue its expansion via the formation of new teams, expanding existing studios to support even more projects, and acquisition. Right now they sit at 18 game dev studios (several of which are multi-project), and 7 support studios. Considering the rate of expansion since 2019 until now, and projecting out another 6 years, I can easily see them sitting at over 30 game dev studios (many of which are multi-project) and either adding more support studios or greatly expanding the existing ones to support so many dev studios.

- Sony utilizes the upcoming new chip plant they're co-building with TSMC in Japan to get their ReRAM chip production off the ground finally. For reference, these were the target specs of the ReRAM tech a couple years ago:

128GB drive [8 x 16GB] - 25.6 GB/s read, 9.6 GB/s write, PCIe gen5 x8, target wattage 14.6W+
256GB drive [16 x 16GB] - 51.2 GB/s read, 19.2 GB/s write, PCIe gen5 x16, target wattage 27.2W+

This ReRAM tech will initially see use in high end expensive electronics like expensive cameras and whatnot. Fast forward a couple of years to 2028, and Sony's got the tech refined down enough that this will become the SSD in the PS6 which launches holiday 2028.

- Every Sony Honda EV sold will come with a PS5 built into it. Sony will also market this entertainment package to other EV manufacturers and PS5's will be built into more vehicles sold from other companies. Note: the PS5 sales figures here also add to the total mentioned in the first bullet point.
Click to expand...
All good prediction!

I forgot to add PlayStation Productions. But, yeah, I think more than 70% of their projects will be huge successes. They're playing their cards right so far!
 
  • 2K and EA merge
  • MS fails to purchase Activision, goes after Ubisoft instead.
  • Sony preps a next gen PSP, begins to see Nintendo as more of a threat than Microsoft.
  • Nintendo ends up selling 150 million to 200 million Switches before ending support and finally moving on. Not a lot of cross-gen stuff.
  • Switch 2 launches early 2025... But Nintendo is out for blood.
  • Metroid Prime 4 knocks it out the ducking park.
  • The Next Smash Bros. is an online sensation.
  • Mario Kart 9 is batshit wild.
  • MS tries to make a gaming phone... And fails.
  • VR continues to slowly gain users, but no big hit yet. PSVR2 sells 10 million. Quest 3 sells more, but not more than double.
  • All console makers intend to release a Roku like console with subscription plans.
  • Shenmue IV is released and completes the series, finally.
  • A Legend of Zelda movie is announced.
  • Ocarina of Time gets a full blown remake.
  • Resident Evil 9 sucks... Unfortunately.
  • Splinter Cell makes a comeback, and kicks ass.
  • Metal Gear tries to come back... Results are mixed.
  • The next Battlefield game is amazing.
  • Dead or Alive 7 is a Switch 2 game.. that is actually good.
  • Copies of Fire Emblem for Wii and GameCube start becoming worth thousands of dollars. Nintendo refuses to remaster them.
  • F-Zero NX is finally announced... But still a few years off.
  • Perfect Dark is really, really good.
  • Halo Infinite is still being fixed.
  • Naughty Dog still hasn't released a game since The Last of Us.
  • Wolverine game is alright.
  • Killzone returns and is a smash hit.
 
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Heisenberg007 said:
Happy New Year 🎉 Welcome to 2028!

What do you think the gaming industry landscape looks like now? What are Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo doing? Are there any new entrants? Which studios and publishers have been acquired? How is VR gaming doing?

Make your predictions. Here are mine:
  • Sony's PS VR 2 has become a moderate success (didn't become as mainstream as some imagined, but it wasn't a failure either). Many non-VR AAA games were easily ported to VR 2 (ala Resident Evil Village), which now offers a huge competitive advantage to Sony and PS5 users.
  • Sony has acquired two of the following four companies: SquareEnix, Capcom, CDPR, and FromSoftware.
  • > 75% of PlayStation's live service games have flopped (e.g., Firewalk's and London Studio's), but the other 25% have become massive hits (e.g., TLOU Online, Horizon Online).
  • In a surprising move, Nintendo is warming up to PC releases, and either has released or announced one of their core franchises to release on PC.
  • Sony has slowed down their PC releases for single-player games but has fully embraced PC for multiplayer releases, which makes for more than 50% of their portfolio now.
  • Microsoft has announced a lower-tier ad-supported Gamepass plan that costs $5 - $7, does not include any third-party game, and brings first-party releases after a few months of launch, very much in line with this rumor. This plan has been or is set to release on PlayStation and Nintendo, ala EA Play.
  • Microsoft has become or is on the road to becoming more of a third-party publisher than a platform holder. Gamepass and xCloud have opened that possibility for them.
  • There has been one new entrant in the gaming industry, albeit at a much lower scale. That competitor is either Apple or Netflix. Their target audience is arcadey, casual gaming fans. They didn't announce any console and are instead delivering content via streaming and/or other platforms.
  • There are strong rumors that Tencent is bringing its own handheld gaming console to the market.
It may be fun to look back to this thread after 5 years and see how everyone's predictions panned out.
Click to expand...
Nothing good. War all around the world. Gamers protesting against war so they could finish the shiny new rpg of their choice :)))) that requires at minimum 350 hours to complete and 558 hours to have all achievements. Shiny new game will be all about doing things you wouldn't do but achievements have requirements so you will do them.

New line of gaming chairs with armor plating, embedded shit buckets and silicone tubing hit the markets.

The pc cases are replaced by nvidia psus that must be fed every day with organic waste and they also produce excrement that you have to shovel out in time otherwise the clock speeds will falter, vsync gets turned off and framerate capped at 30fps.

Gaming monitors hit 480 hz. And there will be a lot of articles about why that's a must.
 
Sony still believe in generations and ps6 games are the first in history to be backcompatible with both ps4 and ps5.

M has reached a total of 150 studios but they still manage to fumble 3/4 of their projects.

Nintendo continue to be the smartest one with 2015 tech and 2028 prices.

Google try again with stadium, a mix of stadia and daaaayum.
 
DKPOWPOW said:
  • 2K and EA merge
  • MS fails to purchase Activision, goes after Ubisoft instead.
  • Sony preps a next gen PSP, begins to see Nintendo as more of a threat than Microsoft.
  • Nintendo ends up selling 150 million to 200 million Switches before ending support and finally moving on. Not a lot of cross-gen stuff.
  • Switch 2 launches early 2025... But Nintendo is out for blood.
  • Metroid Prime 4 knocks it out the ducking park.
  • The Next Smash Bros. is an online sensation.
  • Mario Kart 9 is batshit wild.
  • MS tries to make a gaming phone... And fails.
  • VR continues to slowly gain users, but no big hit yet. PSVR2 sells 10 million. Quest 3 sells more, but not more than double.
  • All console makers intend to release a Roku like console with subscription plans.
  • Shenmue IV is released and completes the series, finally.
  • A Legend of Zelda movie is announced.
  • Ocarina of Time gets a full blown remake.
  • Resident Evil 9 sucks... Unfortunately.
  • Splinter Cell makes a comeback, and kicks ass.
  • Metal Gear tries to come back... Results are mixed.
  • The next Battlefield game is amazing.
  • Dead or Alive 7 is a Switch 2 game.. that is actually good.
  • Copies of Fire Emblem for Wii and GameCube start becoming worth thousands of dollars. Nintendo refuses to remaster them.
  • F-Zero NX is finally announced... But still a few years off.
  • Perfect Dark is really, really good.
  • Halo Infinite is still being fixed.
  • Naughty Dog still hasn't released a game since The Last of Us.
  • Wolverine game is alright.
  • Killzone returns and is a smash hit.
Click to expand...
ND > Are you not counting Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy and TLOU 2? They released 3 new games since TLOU and one remake.

And now that you mention it, I'm surprised there hasn't been a massive Zelda movie yet. It'd surely be a big hit.
 
Heisenberg007 said:
ND > Are you not counting Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy and TLOU 2? They released 3 new games since TLOU and one remake.
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I think he means ND not releasing a new IP since The Last Of Us, which he predicts would remain to be the state of the studio for the next five years.
 
-Single Player games are few and far between. Mostly carried by the console owners but even they seem to be moving towards multiplayer gaas games.
-The days of SP FPS campaigns are long gone (Singularity, Timeshift, Prey (2006) seem like they came a lifetime ago), CoD/BF have dropped the traditional campaign and rely on their archaic multiplayer modes and the more lucrative battle royale modes.
-Crysis 4, new TimeSplitters, new Bioshock came and failed to recapture the magic of earlier titles, either due to a lack of budget or lack of talent.
-Ubisoft is in huge trouble due to declining sales of major francizes such as Far Cry and straight up flops like Avatar game and Blood and Bones. Gets bought by some investment firm and becomes trash, eventually goes the way of THQ and it's IPs get sold at an auction.
-Embracer group gets huge flops from their more expensive games (new Deus Ex is decent critically but doesnt sell well since it's an immersive sim and young gamers are too busy with Grounded, Minecraft and Fortnite to care). Eventually starts selling it's IPs and Studios, chaos ensues followed by MASSIVE layoffs.
-AA is dead, not even publishers like Focus Home are attempting it, instead try to focus on really cheap indies like Devolver
-After the boomer shooter genre, with many Doom and Quake clones, we thought we would advance to Half-Life 2 and FEAR clones, but it never happens, indies remain stuck doing glorified pixelated Doom clones and mods for these old games.

Basically, nothing good. The problems that we have now will only get worse.
 
Perrott said:
I think he means ND not releasing a new IP since The Last Of Us, which he predicts would remain to be the state of the studio for the next five years.
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Oh okay, that makes more sense, but that's not a very valid argument. There are studios that have been producing games on a single IP for years, let alone 2, e.g., Bungie (Destiny), Turn 10 (Forza), Playground (Forza Horizon), Coalition (Gears), 343i (Halo). As long as new games are coming, and advancement is being made in the scope of those games, it's fine imo.

Though my prediction is that ND will release a new IP after TLOU Online.
 
YuLY said:
-Single Player games are few and far between. Mostly carried by the console owners but even they seem to be moving towards multiplayer gaas games.
-The days of SP FPS campaigns are long gone (Singularity, Timeshift, Prey (2006) seem like they came a lifetime ago), CoD/BF have dropped the traditional campaign and rely on their archaic multiplayer modes and the more lucrative battle royale modes.
-Crysis 4, new TimeSplitters, new Bioshock came and failed to recapture the magic of earlier titles, either due to a lack of budget or lack of talent.
-Ubisoft is in huge trouble due to declining sales of major francizes such as Far Cry and straight up flops like Avatar game and Blood and Bones. Gets bought by some investment firm and becomes trash, eventually goes the way of THQ and it's IPs get sold at an auction.
-Embracer group gets huge flops from their more expensive games (new Deus Ex is decent critically but doesnt sell well since it's an immersive sim and young gamers are too busy with Grounded, Minecraft and Fortnite to care). Eventually starts selling it's IPs and Studios, chaos ensues followed by MASSIVE layoffs.
-AA is dead, not even publishers like Focus Home are attempting it, instead try to focus on really cheap indies like Devolver
-After the boomer shooter genre, with many Doom and Quake clones, we thought we would advance to Half-Life 2 and FEAR clones, but it never happens, indies remain stuck doing glorified pixelated Doom clones and mods for these old games.

Basically, nothing good. The problems that we have now will only get worse.
Click to expand...
That's a very dystopian gaming future ... but realistic, I'm afraid.

straight up flops like Avatar game
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As much as I trash Ubisoft games, I hope Avatar turns out to be a 10/10 game and a massive critical and commercial success. Avatar is one of my most favorite IPs, and I'm stoked someone is making a AAA game. I want them to succeed so we can get more Avatar games from devs. ❤️
 
I like the wild prediction threads.

  • AAA gaming would have declined
  • Games now shorter than ever
  • Episodic content inline with Subscription boom
  • Most big games now f2p multiplayer with microtransactions and battlepasses
  • ND become like Rare and go mostly GaaS
  • Kojima releases his ARG delivery game on mobile.
  • Netflix buy CDPR
 
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Three said:
I like the wild prediction threads.

  • AAA gaming would have declined
  • Games now shorter than ever
  • Episodic content inline with Subscription boom
  • Most big games now f2p multiplayer with microtransactions and battlepasses
  • ND become like Rare and go mostly GaaS
  • Kojima releases his ARG delivery game on mobile.
  • Netflix buy CDPR
Click to expand...
Season 2 Rachel GIF
 
Nintendo enters the cellphone market.

Xbox becomes basically a PC with support for Windows, keyboard and mouse.

Sony combines their efforts with TVs, consoles and VR headsets into a borg-like assimilation seat where you jack in baby.

Sega makes sunglasses with AR capabilities. Sonic becomes an sentient AI pal and resurrects Michael Jackson in an uncanny valley like fashion.
 
mxbison said:
  • Subscription services everywhere
  • Most big games are 'free' and stuffed with in-game purchases
  • Seasonal format adopted to spread games out over a wider time frame
  • People say gaming is better than ever because you get 10 billion hours of content for 19.99 a month.
Click to expand...

Yea probably. Hence why I won't be gaming in 2028.
 
dreamstation said:
Yea probably. Hence why I won't be gaming in 2028.
Click to expand...
I keep hearing people say this when they hear the gloom and doom of the industry, and its true, we are heading that way. But why stop gaming? It's not like the games that are already out will stop being playable. Yea its sad that we will mostly rely on that, but it is what it is.

The great games that are already released will still be there, given enough time between them, they will still feel fresh when replayed. I guess it's sad for the people who dont like to replay stuff, thankfully I love doing that, one of the reasons why I like having a gaming library. I've replayed the ME trilogy like 10 times by now and dont plan on stopping, fully aware that the trilogy was lightning in a bottle and will never be recaptured like that, not by current Bioware at the very least.
 
Playstation will still be market leader, roughly 120 million sold. PSVR will be a moderate success with 12 million sold. VR remains a niche product. Playstation Studios are still releasing amazing games, however most of the GaaS games have not gained massive traction, such is the nature of GaaS games. They have some moderate success with TV and film. Playstation emulation still sucks.

Xbox will still be 3rd place, but will have done better. 75 million sold. They will not have transitioned to a third party publisher. Activision deal might or might not have gone through, if it did COD will be on all platforms. They have finally figured out how to have a stable cadence of first party output. Game pass is better then some thought, worse then others hoped. Roughly 40 million subscribers.

Both Xbox and Sony have made acquisitions. If the Activision deal fell through then it would be no publishers, only small development studios.

Nintendo is still Nintendo. Switch eventually sold around 140 million units while the Switch 2 is doing great, but not to the heights of the first Switch. On track for 120 million sold. They still ignore PC.

PC keeps doing what is does, with steady growth. Steam remains the primary store, EGS free games have either stopped or slowed to a crawl. Nvidia continues to be the GPU of choice. Several Steam Deck releases have occured, handheld PCs remain a small but growing section of PC gaming.

Next-gen console will either release 2027 or 2028, Playstation and Xbox specs are once again close to each other. Disc drives would be a add-on to both consoles with Physical making up 5% of games sold.
 
Zelda the beloved golden child, 95+ Metascore. Nintendo will announce Switch 2.0 after July 2023 and the upgrades will not be significant apart from docked performance improvements

Hogwarts - 86 Meta. Good but not enough water

Diablo will release a buggy mess as per. Activison/Blizzard will yet again catch some heat and the MS deal will go through

Forspoken - 77 Meta. This game is not going to perform well sales-wise so it's not looking great for SE until

FF XVI - 89 Meta. Graphics and gameplay good, story nonsensical. Annoying characters and bad enemy AI.

RE4 Remake - 90 Meta.
Street Fighter 6 - 90 Meta.
Tekken 8 - 84 Meta.
Hellblade - 88 Meta.

PSVR2 will get good reviews but not enough content. The VR Horizon will be 4-5 hours in length

The Metal Gear remake will finally be confirmed and Bloodborne remaster (not remake) to be announced.

Overwatch 2 has already been forgotten and the single player DLC thing will not revive it. They fucked it.


Abandoned will vanish. The BlueBox Twitter will be deleted with no update

MS will purchase Sega next Wednesday!
 
A plethora of subscriptions services everywhere and they will go up in price.

Physical games will unfortunately be considered obsolete and possibly not supported anymore. Maybe an add on disc drive will be added? Digital, subscriptions and streaming will be shoved down your throats.

Free to play everywhere with microtransactions, DLC and season passes galore. Many companies will be pushing F2P and paying for extra content.

Game development will get more expensive "supposedly", therefore games will increase to $80 at the start of the new generation. All games will increase in price, even indies.

Microsoft if they don't become a multiplatform publisher will attempt to buy or will consume considerably more publishers for XBOX and Sony will keep trying to get timed exclusive deals rarely, if ever buying any major publishers. Nintendo will keep doing their own thing.

Even less risks and creativity in AAA games unfortunately, but Indies or even AA games could get a boost and truly flourish.

The future is looking bright and gaming will be better than ever.
 
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Blizzard is reborn from its ashes and is back to the glory days.
From Software is experimenting with genres other than soullikes (like Armored Core) but doesnt that well. They announce new soulike IP or Bloodborne 2 and hits sales records.
Sony is releasing live service games, gamers retaliate by not playing them and decides to announce GoW at ancient Egypt, Uncharted 5 and Last of Us 3. All break records.
GTA 6 still no released. The milking of GTA V still holding.
If MS buys Acti-Blizz, Sony also buys some major names in the industry.
Sony cancels 3 tier ps plus plan. They all become 1 plan, ultimate.
Nintendo has released switch 2 around 3 years ago and is ready to ship switch 2 pro. They also bow have accomplishments (nintendos achievements)
Mobile gaming is bringing trillions of dollars but has destroyed many lives. New laws destroy the gatcha lootbox battlepass etc systems.
Companies still push for VR, still isnt mainstream.
Half Life part 3 is announced, not released.
Beyond good and evil 2 has just released.
PS6 and new Xbox are simply renamed Playstation and Xbox and will be the last consoles released as they will be upgradable (:O)
 
Easy.

Consoles no longer exist. The only way to play games is via a subscription and streaming service. You can still access the games you purchased digitally on previous systems, but you'll need to pay for a monthly sub to do so.

The subscriptions on offer come in a multiple tiers depending on affordability. On the far end you have the "free" subscription that's supported by ads. When you play a game, an unskipable 3 minute advert will play every 15 mins of game time. On the other end of the scale you have the "Alpha" tier, where you pay £70 per month, but get access to every game day one with no ads.

Microsoft, Sony, Epic, Nintendo and Tencent rule the gaming landscape. Between them, they've purchased all independent developers and publishers. In 2028, there is no independent studio or publisher left. When a new studio is created, it starts a violent war between the gaming powers to control the studio.
 
Everyone is playing Fortnite and no one plays COD, making the 2022 crying over the game look even dumber than it was.
 
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