Backhand of Justice

The future is here! We have arrived at not just a new year, but a whole new decade, which will doubtlessly usher in brave new innovations for videogames (not to mention the long awaited introductions of hover cars and robot butlers). Following are my top 10 gaming predictions for 2010.

Next generation?

The most notable videogame development of 2010 won’t be so much what happened, but what didn’t happen: a new console generation. With the current generation approaching the traditional 5 year lifespan of all previous generations, the next iteration of consoles is nowhere to be seen.

Some are going as far as to predict that there will be no ‘next console generation,’ and new services like OnLive will replace the traditional big 3. The last thing developers want is to have to learn a new programming language for whatever crazy crap Sony comes up with next for the Playstation 4, and throw away their existing R&D that is just now yielding profits.

Obviously the next console generation isn’t going to be launched this year, but we’re not even going to hear about them beyond vague rumors from Taiwanese component manufacturers. E3 will once again be a hardware ghost town (except for the DS$, Nintendo’s new handheld update).

Motion controls will be shit (not ‘the shit,’ just shit)

Project Natal? Sony’s magic sphere wand crap thing? The industry’s obsession with motion controls will come to a crescendo in 2010 but will be a total flop.

Gamers will realize that there is no Minority Report dream of total immersion into games, and that nobody wants to actually have to act out the motions that are triggered through controller button presses. You know why Nathan Drake is awesome? Because he’s not fat, and incompetent, like most people.

Sony proudly brings you the magic wand whip thingy ... you can whip stuff with it. Whip it, whip it good.

I hope you’re all ready for sword fighting simulator 3000 and crazy ball bouncing game. Because that’s what 2010 has in store for you. The only thing to fear is fear itself. And Project Natal.

Death of the Wii

Ok, death is a bit of an overstatement. It’s still going to sell more units than the PS3 and the Xbox360 overall, and Mario Galaxy 2 is still going to sell millions of copies. That being said, Electronic Arts has moved away from the Wii, developers have tried and failed to develop mature games and even Wii Motion Plus didn’t really accomplish anything beyond Wii Sports Resort.

Game developers are always enamored with the ‘new hot thing,’ like music games, or motion controls. They’ll soon realize however that those are just fads, like Hammer Pants or daily showering, and will return to making AAA core titles for the hardcore and leave wacky crap to casual developers. The writing is on the wall, and the PS3 and Xbox360 will have the last laugh.

The long decline of Call of Duty

I’m not just calling the top on the Call of Duty franchise because this is Treyarch’s year (also known as the dark and fallow age), but because Infinity Ward caught lightning in a bottle with CoD4 and clearly didn’t have many new tricks for MW2. It’s like the Pirates of the Caribbean or Matrix trilogies where the first one built up good will for the second, which brought nothing new to the table and the third went full circle to total crap as it tried all sorts of crazy antics to revitalize the franchise.

CoD: MW3 - Shooting more people in the face, all over again! This franchise could use some new elements, like rhythm mini games. Am I right?

Infinity Ward can only kill off your character so many times with a nuclear bomb before it becomes tiresome and repetitive. I’m guessing their strategy to reinvigorate Modern Warfare 3 is hiring Nolan North to voice every character.

Bioshock bust

Despite my own personal hatred, I can admit that Bioshock revisited many impressive gameplay mechanics that hadn’t been used in a decade and therefore seemed new to those uneducated in the history of games (generous, I know). Unfortunately, any positive qualities the game possessed were due to the involvement of Ken Levine, something lacking in the sequel.

Bioshock 2 is going to be a cheap money grab without any of the story elements that created the rose colored glasses many have for the series. I’m nearly certain that the sequel is going to be a disappointment (not to me – I already hated the first one) to everybody who is excited for the game.

OH YEEEAAAHH! Kool-Aid all around!

Electronic Arts management changes

Electronic Arts fought the Wii, and the Wii won. Actually that doesn’t make any sense. The point is that John Riccitiello thought the Wii was going to be the next hot thing and lead his company towards the Promised Land where Activision currently resides.

Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case, and such masterpieces as Sim Animals Africa, Pajama Party and (I kid you not) Facebreakers K.O. party turned out to just be black holes that suck in money and consume it. This is the third time that Grandmaster Riccitiello has led his company down the wrong path, and it will be his undoing.

Hopefully the board will replace him with the entire Bioware team who can perform their duties as CEO and allocate all funds towards developing additional Bioware games. Dragon Age: Mass Effect, anyone?

World of Warcraft trundles onward

Every year is the year that WoW dies and loses subscribers. Every new MMO is the WoW killer. Wake up people, it’s unstoppable. It is going to continue to increase subscribers with Cataclysm’s release late in the year and while no game can continue forever, the reports of WoW’s death are greatly exaggerated.

Our special guest tonight is Deathwing and his handler Mike Morhaime who is wearing a suit made out of money

Unfortunately the crystal ball says that 2011 may in fact be the peak, but this year is (once again) the year of WoW. Embrace the power of the WoW, or embrace your own destruction.

Please don’t stop the music

Music games were all the rage in 2009. They will be less of the rage in 2010. While Beatles: Rock Band was well received and Guitar Hero 5 continued to coast on the strength of its franchise name, both fell short of sales expectations.

With ‘Green Day: Rock Band’ or ‘The Who: Rock Band’ or whatever crazy scheme Red Octane has planned for next year as well as ‘Guitar Hero 6: Who Fucking Cares’ scheduled for release, music games are going to lose momentum quickly.

I expect when you look across all platforms and releases, there will be fewer than half as many music SKUs this year compared to 2009.

Can you identify these people? The Beatles, right? Does anybody know what Green Day or The Who looks like? I thought not

Gamestop lives on

Digital downloads this, used game backlash that. Everybody has been predicting the demise of Gamestop for the past few years, but it hasn’t happened yet. Earnings are still strong and consumers are just as willing to use their games as currency despite Gamestop tearing their faces off with purchase and resale prices.

While the game will be up at some point, these things take time to play out and especially in the back half of a console cycle they’re going to be as strong as ever in 2010. Better luck next year, publishers.

Japan continues its long march towards irrelevance

Japan can only exist for so long with Dragon Quest 10, Final Fantasy X-14 Squared and rape simulators. Ok, rape simulators will go a long way, but the Japanese game market is going to have to innovate. A great game will sell a couple million copies in Japan compared to ten million in the west.

Seriously, Japan? What is this? I'm trying here, but help me out

The only way for an AAA title to succeed in today’s market is to be successful with US and European consumers, and that’s just not happening. I expect FFXIII to be a disappointment when stacked up against other juggernauts this year such as Mass Effect 2, Reach and even Treyarch’s CoD debacle 2010.

We’ll check back at the end of the year to see how many of these are correct, but I’ll likely delete this post around June when it is clear that it will reveal my idiocy if left to its own devices. Happy New Year!