In the year 2007

[Rob_Merritt]

Saw this at the Shack, lets make 2007 gaming predictions. Here is my list

In the year 2007

Alan Wake, DNF, Fallout 3, Spore, GTA4, and HL2: Episode 2 will not be released in 2007.

Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will be annouced but will not ship in 07.

To expand on HL2: Episode 2, I am predicting that will merg it with what was planned of Episode 3 and release Ep1-3 as Half Life 3: Orange in 2008. TF2 may be released in 2007 as a seperate product.

Mass Effect will end up being a not a big deal like Jade Empire. Lucasarts and Bioware will annouce a new Starwars MMORPG that is not Star Wars Galaxy but in fact based on KOTOR 1/2 story lines and expanded universe.

Star Trek Online will be an unexpected sucess.

Sin episode 2 is canceled.

EA will release a new Sim City that will take the series towards a more "animated look" and will be the easiest Sim City yet. It will be out before Spore.

After the mega sucess of the 3rd Pirates of the caribbean movie, LucasArts will finally put a new Monkey Island game in production but it will not be an adventure game.

Sierra will annouce a new Kings Quest. Watch it be released on gametap like Sam and Max.

Take Two will annouce new versions of Xcom and Civilization.

The world will be stunned as Interplay actually begins development on Fallout online because the gaming community fails to realize that investors have more money than brains. I don't expect it to ever finish or ship in any year.

The Wii will take a significant lead this year. However it will show signs of weakness towards christmas as both the PS3 and Xbox 360 bring out their big titles. The PS3 will stay in 3rd place for 2007 and 2008 but will rise to the top at the end of the generation because of its additional untapped power. The 360 will be sucessful for the entire generation but it will always be second place. (disclaimer: I'm a 360 fanboy)

Atari will be bought and will fad away as a name once again.

Vista, DX10, and Live Anywhere will rock.

(what sucks is about half of these, there are people on this forum that know if they are true or not)

[RepoMan]

Alan Wake, DNF, Fallout 3, Spore, GTA4, and HL2: Episode 2 will not be released in 2007.
Right on Fallout 3 and DNF, wrong on all the others.
Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will be annouced but will not ship in 07.
Wrong on both, neither will be announced.
To expand on HL2: Episode 2, I am predicting that will merg it with what was planned of Episode 3 and release Ep1-3 as Half Life 3: Orange in 2008. TF2 may be released in 2007 as a seperate product.
Also wrong. HL2:Ep2 will release in Q3 2007 and will be Valve's only major release next year (not counting a HL2, HL2:Ep1, HL2:Ep2 bundle on 360).
Mass Effect will end up being a not a big deal like Jade Empire.
Also wrong. Mass Effect will be Bioware's biggest title since KOTOR.
Lucasarts and Bioware will annouce a new Starwars MMORPG that is not Star Wars Galaxy but in fact based on KOTOR 1/2 story lines and expanded universe.
Hmm, interesting, maybe true.
Star Trek Online will be an unexpected sucess.
Wrong.
Sin episode 2 is canceled.
Right.
EA will release a new Sim City that will take the series towards a more "animated look" and will be the easiest Sim City yet. It will be out before Spore.
Interesting, maybe true but probably not.
After the mega sucess of the 3rd Pirates of the caribbean movie, LucasArts will finally put a new Monkey Island game in production but it will not be an adventure game.
Wrong.
Sierra will annouce a new Kings Quest. Watch it be released on gametap like Sam and Max.
No, Sierra is dead.
Take Two will annouce new versions of Xcom and Civilization.
Would be great, but wrong.
The world will be stunned as Interplay actually begins development on Fallout online because the gaming community fails to realize that investors have more money than brains. I don't expect it to ever finish or ship in any year.
I don't expect it to even start development. It will wander around in Phantom-like financing limbo for most of 2007 before the remaining Interplay people get sued for something.
The Wii will take a significant lead this year. However it will show signs of weakness towards christmas as both the PS3 and Xbox 360 bring out their big titles.
Right.
The PS3 will stay in 3rd place for 2007 and 2008 but will rise to the top at the end of the generation because of its additional untapped power.
Wrong. Globally, the PS3 will be solidly behind the 360 for this entire generation. The 360 will be sucessful for the entire generation but it will always be second place. (disclaimer: I'm a 360 fanboy)
You're a piss-poor one then :-) Wii will sell more units this generation than 360, but 360 will make more total revenue. Wii will make more profit than anyone, though, as usual for Nintendo.
Atari will be bought and will fad away as a name once again.
Yep.
Vista, DX10, and Live Anywhere will rock.
DX10 yep, the other two, not so much.
(what sucks is about half of these, there are people on this forum that know if they are true or not)
I'm DEFINITELY not one of those people.

OK that's enough picking holes in your courageous first post, here's my predictions for you to squash and then piss on:

Crackdown sells over half a million units on the strength of the Halo 3 beta invites.

Spore ships in early December 2007.

Supreme Commander develops a fierce cult following but does not reach Company of Heroes level of sales.

Company of Heroes major expansion pack in November 2007. (duh. also, can't wait)

Hellgate: London has major server problems initially but rapidly develops the biggest online non-MMORPG community since Diablo II. (also duh)

The 360 will have another sales spike in Japan driven by Lost Odyssey, and will wind up having about 10% the volume of the PS3 in Japan by end of 2007, which will be considered either a staggering victory or an unexpectedly strong defeat for Microsoft depending on whether you are K0NY or not.

K0NY will continue to vacillate in a bipolar manner between relatively level-headed posts and raging fanboism.

Dungsroman will call someone a fag.

Tom Chick will continue to beat Geryk like a gong anytime they play an RTS.

[Bill Dungsroman]

RepoMan just PWND Merritt. Awesome.

(Fag.)

[Bob Violence]

Wright's said that he thinks the SimCity games have gotten too complicated and he wants the next one to appeal to folks who've never played one before. So I don't think it's a shot in the dark to guess the next one will be easy, although everything else is conjecture.

[steve]

Those are actually pretty good predictions, and I know a couple are correct and a couple are incorrect, but I'm not going to say which. (Hah! Take that.)

I do like that RepoMan says you're WRONG! And a number of his WRONGs are, in fact, WRONG.

[BobJustBob]

Crackdown sells over half a million units on the strength of the Halo 3 beta invites.

And the other 2.5 million units because the game is really really good.

[mutt]

You mean Chick's not going to continue beating Geryk like a gong?

[Troy S Goodfellow]

You mean Chick's not going to continue beating Geryk like a gong?

The only way for Bruce to win is not to play.

Troy

[LesJarvis]

And the other 2.5 million units because the game is really really good.

Yeah, Crackdown looks pretty badass.

[Gordon Cameron]

My bold prediction for 2007:

The Burning Crusade will sell a lot of copies.

[DeathMonkey]

The Wii will take a significant lead this year. However it will show signs of weakness towards christmas as both the PS3 and Xbox 360 bring out their big titles.

Is Smash Bros. not releasing Christmas 2007?

The PS3 will stay in 3rd place for 2007 and 2008 but will rise to the top at the end of the generation because of its additional untapped power. The 360 will be sucessful for the entire generation but it will always be second place. (disclaimer: I'm a 360 fanboy)

If Nintendo is able to keep the momentum up, I think it's their market to lose at this point. That said, the Wii is the only great launch they've had since the Nintendo 64 and we all know how that went. The upcoming first quarter first party releases look a bit bleak; I think, in order to maintain their momentum, they need to provide another broad title like Wii Sports that appeals to that nebulous demographic of "everybody except those who call it a cheap tech demo". Nintendo's done extremely well with having big, wide audience, non-sequel hits on the DS (Nintendogs, Brain Training), hopefully they can continue the trend on the Wii.

(Obviously I'm a huge Nintendo fanboy.)

-Scott-

[spiffy]

I do like that RepoMan says you're WRONG! And a number of his WRONGs are, in fact, WRONG.

That's... so not right.

[McCrank]

Man, how I hope and pray that your right about new X-Com :)

-Chris

[deepruntramp]

Supreme Commander develops a fierce cult following but does not reach Company of Heroes level of sales.
I'll go a step further and say Supreme Commander's a flub. Reviews turn out to be lukewarm, citing boredom with the highly generic setting, low unit diversity, and unsatisfying multiplayer, if only because a single match takes 2-3 hours to actually finish due to the huge number of units and the giant map sizes. It develops a cult following like Total Annihilation, and the genre forgets it just as fast too.

Hellgate: London has major server problems initially but rapidly develops the biggest online non-MMORPG community since Diablo II. (also duh)
I don't believe that. Hellgate's system requirements are too high. It'll have a well-populated online environment, but it won't break any records.

Personal predictions:

-Despite the Wii moving a shit ton of systems, Nintendo and its electron cloud of third party developers still can't manage to release more than 2-3 "must have" games. Super Mario Galaxy is pushed back to 2008. Metroid Prime 3 is released and found disappointing, the formula has gotten old. Smash Brothers Wii is rushed to make Christmas and lacks online multiplayer.

-360 has its strongest year yet. Though the Wii might sell more hardware, attach ratios on the 360 are better, and the year is full of huge hits for the system. Blue Dragon polarizes gamers - you either love it or hate it. Halo 3 is boring but everyone buys it anyway for multiplayer. Gears of War gets a free expansion pack from Epic. Viva Pinata's TV show is cancelled. All multiplatform games continue to play best on the 360.

-PS3 chokes and sputters. Sales dwindle bigtime in Q1 and by Q2 it's as bad as the PSP. There aren't any killer app exclusives for the system until Christmas, and even then, the PS3's Christmas isn't any better than this past one. The system continues to suck ass and be loathed. Square announces a Q3 2008 release for FFXIII.

-The PC chugs along. Vista and DirectX10 are not big deals -- aside from a couple games that suck anyway, nothing requires either. Spore is released, adored by critics and hardcore gamers, but sales are disappointing. Vanguard is released in beta condition, has a decently strong population to begin with which constantly falls for a year til it stabalizes around EQ2's current numbers. Burning Crusade is released; reviews are stellar; players aren't comfortable with the new stuff and do nothing but bitch, yet never actually cancel their subscriptions.

[LesJarvis]

Here's a safe one: the PS3 and 360 continue to be indistinguishable graphically.

[Midnight Son]

Most PC games will be released as Not-Ready-For-Primetime beta software. Thus, no change.

[Moggraider]

Most PC games will be released as Not-Ready-For-Primetime beta software. Thus, no change.


Are you not noticing the stream of patches to 360 games of late?

[RepoMan]

(Fag.)
No, Bill, no! It's too soon! It's not 2007 yet!

Wait, I guess it is 2007 in Japan or something :-D PSYCHE!

Those are actually pretty good predictions, and I know a couple are correct and a couple are incorrect, but I'm not going to say which. (Hah! Take that.)

I do like that RepoMan says you're WRONG! And a number of his WRONGs are, in fact, WRONG.
But you won't say which, huh? Wuss! C'mon Bauman, I'm bookmarking this sucker and if a year from now I had my head solidly up my ass I'll be the first to say so. Get your Nostradamus on, man. I dare ya.

[steve]

But you won't say which, huh? Wuss! C'mon Bauman, I'm bookmarking this sucker and if a year from now I had my head solidly up my ass I'll be the first to say so. Get your Nostradamus on, man. I dare ya.
People pay me BILLIONS for my predictions, man; I ain't given them up for free.

Okay, here's one: For the 13th straight year, I won't use any of my vacation time.

[Kalle]

This thread will be resurrected for christmas 2007

[Midnight Son]

Are you not noticing the stream of patches to 360 games of late?

I'm sorry, but I do not own that dedicated FPS machine.

[Moggraider]

You're saying the PS3 is patch-free?

[deepruntramp]

I'm sorry, but I do not own that dedicated FPS machine.Then how are you posting in this thread?

Oh, you meant the 360.

[SuperHiro]

Supreme Commander will sell a dissappointing number, and it will get middliing reviews. But that will not stop Total Annihilation fanatics who did buy it to constantly complain and moan and bitch about how it got shafted by stupid media slash gamers slash teenagers. From release to year end, every single RTS themed thread will degenerate into an arguement about Supreme Commander. It will usually start by someone saying an RTS lacks a certain feature that SC has, and therefore SC is a better game that got shafted by the media and stupid gamers blah blah blah.

[roguefrog]

Supreme Commander will receive high praise for its innovative features and win many awards like its predecessor. Ignorant gamers after playing the game for less than 5 minutes will flock to message boards to bitch and complain about the graphics or not understanding the resource system, or how to use units, or that the game has no personality thus all the mechanics suck. Hopefully the next C&C, Age of Empires, or Warcraft clone will be rolling out of the factory to placate them.

[Talisker]

Burning Crusade is released; reviews are stellar; players aren't comfortable with the new stuff and do nothing but bitch, yet never actually cancel their subscriptions.
Nicely put, although not exactly going out on a limb there :)

[wumpus]

Why does this thread make me think of the song "In the Year 2525"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Year_2525_(Exordium_and_Terminus)

I love wikipedia. I just learned that notable humorist Dave Harry has a "VIOLENT[sic] hatred" for this particular song.

[McBain]

Barry, dammit!

Dave Barry!

Barry has violent hatred for a lot of things. Like 1.5 gallon toilets.

[dannimal]

Barry, not Harry.

I'm only a little ashamed to admit that I thought of Cleopatra 2525 right off the bat.

[McBain]

Hey man, Cleopatra 2525 used to come on in the same hour as, uh, Total Recall 2070?

That show wasn't bad. It really should have been called "Blade Runner 2070," but it wasn't bad.

[tromik]

No one thought of Conan O'Brien? Or was that just too obvious?

[Linoleum]

In the yeeeeeeeeear 2000......

Peter Molyneux will release a new game where you can make a giant monkey throw copies of his recent releases!

In the yeeeeeeeeear 2000.....

Bethesda jumps on the cover-based gameplay made popular by Gears of War and R6: Vegas and announces 'Duck and Cover' control scheme for Fallout 3

In the yeeeeeeeeeear 2000.....

Capcom tries to steal the magic of the Guitar Hero series putting Dante in as the star of musical hero rhythm game "Devil May Care".

In the yeeeeeeeeeeear 2000....

Mr T. gets his own Wii game with gestures to Pity da Fool. The included gold chains to hang between wiimote and nunchuck are recalled due to being a little too heavy.

[SolomonGrundy]

Just becasue they call it a nunchuck there should be a Bruce Lee game...a Good one.

I predict-
Most games that we drool over will suck
XNA has a mega hit by the end of the year.
A jedi based game for the Wii becomes the best selling game of all time.

[Andrew Mayer]

Capcom is going to move even more firmly into the 360 camp.

The 360 will gain some traction in Japan as some of the major developers decide to make a bigger play for the American market and announce more "Blue Dragon" type exclusives.

In that vein, the former "Clover" team will announce a 360 exclusive title.

The Wii is going to have a great year. Third party titles we'll see succeed will diverge dramatically from the traditional :core market" games as the platform becomes essentially the home equivalent of a handheld system.

Metroid fails, but not spectacularly. Many Mario sports games are announced.

Nintendo annnounces a more fully featured sequel to Wii sports.

[Rob_Merritt]

Lets see how poor I did.

Alan Wake, DNF, Fallout 3, Spore, GTA4, and HL2: Episode 2 will not be released in 2007.

Wrong only about Episode 2

Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will be annouced but will not ship in 07.
They weren't annouce but they didn't ship either.

To expand on HL2: Episode 2, I am predicting that will merg it with what was planned of Episode 3 and release Ep1-3 as Half Life 3: Orange in 2008. TF2 may be released in 2007 as a seperate product..

Wrong.

Mass Effect will end up being a not a big deal like Jade Empire. Lucasarts and Bioware will annouce a new Starwars MMORPG that is not Star Wars Galaxy but in fact based on KOTOR 1/2 story lines and expanded universe.
Beyond wrong

Star Trek Online will be an unexpected sucess.
HA!

Sin episode 2 is canceled.
Right

EA will release a new Sim City that will take the series towards a more "animated look" and will be the easiest Sim City yet. It will be out before Spore.
Right

he mega sucess of the 3rd Pirates of the caribbean movie, LucasArts will finally put a new Monkey Island game in production but it will not be an adventure game..
Ugh. Wrong. So so wrong.

Sierra will annouce a new Kings Quest. Watch it be released on gametap like Sam and Max..
Wrong

Take Two will annouce new versions of Xcom and Civilization..
Wrong on Xcom. :(

The world will be stunned as Interplay actually begins development on Fallout online because the gaming community fails to realize that investors have more money than brains. I don't expect it to ever finish or ship in any year.

They did higher a single developer!

The Wii will take a significant lead this year. However it will show signs of weakness towards christmas as both the PS3 and Xbox 360 bring out their big titles. The PS3 will stay in 3rd place for 2007 and 2008 but will rise to the top at the end of the generation because of its additional untapped power. The 360 will be sucessful for the entire generation but it will always be second place.
Right (so far)

Atari will be bought and will fad away as a name once again.
Wrong. Still fading though

Vista, DX10, and Live Anywhere will rock..
WORST PREDICTION EVER!

[Kalle]

This thread will be resurrected for christmas 2007

Guess I was wrong!

[LesJarvis]

Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 will be annouced but will not ship in 07.

They weren't annouce but they didn't ship either.

You were more right here than you gave yourself credit for. Starcraft 2 was announced in May 2007.

[EvilIdler]

WORST PREDICTION EVER!

If there was such a thing as a prediction & divination license, you'd have it revoked by now :)

[Sarkus]

EA will release a new Sim City that will take the series towards a more "animated look" and will be the easiest Sim City yet. It will be out before Spore.

Right

I can't really give you a "right" on this. Sim City Societies is not a "new Sim City" in the sense that you meant it. It was never promoted as the successor game to Sim City 4.

[Damien Neil]

Eh, Societies has "Sim City" in the name. It's a Sim City, just as Civ Rev is a Civ, even if it isn't "the next Sim City".

[Gabe Lewis]

I can't really give you a "right" on this. Sim City Societies is not a "new Sim City" in the sense that you meant it. It was never promoted as the successor game to Sim City 4.

Way to nit-pick. He was basically right on.

[Sarkus]

Way to nit-pick. He was basically right on.
Sure it's a nit-pick, but it all depends on how you interpret his original prediction. When he wrote it did he mean that there would be a spin-off Sim City title (what we got) or did he really think Sim City V would meet his prediction? I'm not sure he should get credit for something vague. It certainly mattered to Sim City fans that Societies wasn't Sim City V.

[Kevin Grey]

The Wii will take a significant lead this year. However it will show signs of weakness towards christmas as both the PS3 and Xbox 360 bring out their big titles. The PS3 will stay in 3rd place for 2007 and 2008 but will rise to the top at the end of the generation because of its additional untapped power. The 360 will be sucessful for the entire generation but it will always be second place.
Right

Right (so far)


The Wii is showing signs of weakness?

[Grifman]

I'm not sure he should get credit for something vague.

Isn't that how most psychics work? :)

[Sarkus]

Isn't that how most psychics work? :)

I was trying to avoid using that word. I don't really want to offend Rob.
:-)

[triggercut]

Way to nit-pick. He was basically right on.

...except Sim City Societies doesn't look like animation--it is much closer to a realistic look than any version of the game.

[RepoMan]

Since I can't automatically quote the bits of my post #2 in this thread where I said some bullshit about your predictions (or rather, I can't quote the quotes of yours I already quoted), I'll just go over my originals:
Crackdown sells over half a million units on the strength of the Halo 3 beta invites.
Right.
Spore ships in early December 2007.
Motherfuckin' wrong-o-matic.
Supreme Commander develops a fierce cult following but does not reach Company of Heroes level of sales.
Right.
Company of Heroes major expansion pack in November 2007. (duh. also, can't wait)
Right, not that it was hard to guess.
Hellgate: London has major server problems initially but rapidly develops the biggest online non-MMORPG community since Diablo II. (also duh)
Yeah, duh, alright. Wrongolio.
The 360 will have another sales spike in Japan driven by Lost Odyssey, and will wind up having about 10% the volume of the PS3 in Japan by end of 2007, which will be considered either a staggering victory or an unexpectedly strong defeat for Microsoft depending on whether you are K0NY or not.
Baaaaa ha ha haaaaa, what an idiot, me.
K0NY will continue to vacillate in a bipolar manner between relatively level-headed posts and raging fanboism.
Yep, until the banhammer crushed him like a tiny, tiny bug.
Dungsroman will call someone a fag.
Actually, wrong! Bill's really eased up on that lingo.
Tom Chick will continue to beat Geryk like a gong anytime they play an RTS.
True dat. Fortunately for Geryk, he decided to play Solo Brain Surgeon permanently FTW.

[BobJustBob]

And the other 2.5 million units because the game is really really good.

How did I do?

Edit: From Wikipedia: "Ultimately, by the end of 2007, the game sold 1.5 million copies worldwide." It deserved more.

This thread will be resurrected for christmas 2007

Haha wrong.

[jfletch]

Sure it's a nit-pick, but it all depends on how you interpret his original prediction. When he wrote it did he mean that there would be a spin-off Sim City title (what we got) or did he really think Sim City V would meet his prediction? I'm not sure he should get credit for something vague. It certainly mattered to Sim City fans that Societies wasn't Sim City V.

Is this a joke post? Does it really matter?

[Dave Markell]

It all depends on what the definition of "is" is.