This is my 100th post in the Zenspace catalog. That's chump change to some guys, but I just thought I'd share what is, to me, a small milestone. This is also the reason I hadn't posted in a while, as I was trying to decide on how to best commemorate the event. I wanted to take a historical cruise through the Zenspace, highlighting a post from every ten posts or so, and remember what led me to now. Unfortunately, that seemed like a lot of work and it just wasn't getting done. Add to that my actual desire to post on a bunch of other things but then I was unable to, thanks to not wanting to ruin the 100th Post thing ... and, well, it obviously gets a little silly.
So, I decided that E3 take center stage instead, and this is undoubtedly the proper choice to make. It is E3 after all. We're only a couple days out from the Microsoft conference with less than 48 hours to go, but I've still got just enough time to lay down some predictions to see if I have my finger on the industry. Chances are, I don't. My GDC '07 predictions turned out to be pretty much a bust so far (actually, they could still be OK), so we'll see how I do this time. By company seems the best way to go about it:
Microsoft
The Wii's coming in to this E3 riding high on popular opinion, but Microsoft's the crew actually in first place. This is interesting in particular, because Microsoft's never been here before and I'm not sure they understand the delicacies of maintaining hype. They'll always have a pull thanks to Halo and Grand Theft Auto 4, but the biggest problem I foresee for Microsoft so far is the utter lack of any surprise. We know no less than 100 games headed to the 360 in the next year, and many of them are all striving for blockbuster status. The question has to be, what else could they possibly have left to announce? Not much, I think. Microsoft's biggest problem will be showing people awesome stuff from awesome games, but nothing will be a surprise. They'll rely on Banjo Threeie, Mass Effect, Too Human, maybe even Halo Wars, and all the other games that we've known about since this went down last year. In short, Microsoft blew their load early to get in first place, and now they've either got to be warming up for another go, or they're dead in the water.
If the surprises do come, it might be another of Rare's titles finally getting a trailer, or some of the Japanese games we've known were in development. Although, I wouldn't hold my breath for any of those games; we may have felt it was necessary to cut back E3 to make it a more serious affair, but that doesn't mean Japanese companies are going to be comfortable announcing their titles in rooms that aren't filled with screaming fans. In case you're wondering, I'm talking specifically about Itagaki; I don't think the rock star will be happy with Ninja Gaiden 2 in a stuffy hotel conference room.
I think the Microsoft handheld thing is a joke, and if that's announced I'll be so blown away that I might just never try to predict anything ever again. I don't care if Dean Takahashi claims they're working on it or not, it just doesn't seem realistic. At all.
- Five Predictions and Un-Predictions -
1. 60% - We'll see a demo of Devil May Cry 4 on Xbox Live.
2. 10% - There will be a 360 pricedrop announced (Just don't see it happening).
3. 60% - Capcom will announce Dead Rising 2 (This could be multi-platform).
4. .1% - Microsoft announces a handheld gaming device.
5. 10% - They do the unthinkable; Peter Moore's tattoo is Metal Gear Solid 4.
Overall Place Prediction (in hype) after the show: Second
Nintendo
Please don't think I'm a hater after all this, but it's going to sound bad. See, I'm a hardcore gamer, and for that reason, I have some real problems with the Wii. I understood all the things they were saying when they announced what the purpose of this silly little machine was, and who it was directed towards, but I didn't think they'd actually go as far as they have. Or, maybe I did, but I thought they'd do it without forsaking me. That's the big problem I think Nintendo might have at this E3. Forsaking the hardcore gamer. They've already done it at their last media summit, and all these rumors keep swirling about this game or that game being canned in favor or more casual software. I'll say it right here, if Nintendo leads off E3 with announcements of casual games for the Wii, they've lost. They might fucking win the hearts and minds of the world, but they've lost me, and I think they're going to do it.
They might have one good year left in them, obviously with Smash, Metroid, and Mario coming (and we'll get dates for at least one of the second two at E3), but Wii Health, Wii Music, My Word Coach, and whatever the hell else there is, that can not be the focus of E3! Cassamasina claimed there is going to be a franchise renewal this year, and I'll make it very clear, if it's not Kid Icarus or Punch Out, I'm well beyond pissed. Actually, Punch Out worries me in itself, because I don't think the Wiimote is, at this point, sensitive enough to make a boxing game any better than Wii Sports Boxing, which is nothing more than a clusterfuck of flailing arms.
I think we might see Mario Kart, but I was never vastly into the series anyways. I think they'll show some WiiWare titles as well, just a couple in a montage or something, but they're so far off that it won't matter much anyways. Why are they so far off though? That's the question. It has, has, has to be for Nintendo to have enough time to figure out what to do with a HDD situation. Announcing it now, I'm not so sure, but it's, at this point, a necessity. Virtual Console and WiiWare titles are going to destory the 512MB available on the Wii, and carrying 20 SD Cards isn't a realistic alternative. The Neo Geo titles coming down the pipeline are only going to exacerbate this as well.
DS redesign? No.
- Five Predictions and Un-Predictions -
1. 85% - Nintendo announces Kid Icarus for the Wii.
2. 45% - Nintendo announces Metroid DS.
3. 30% - Nintendo announces New Super Mario Bros. 2 (Really feeling TGS on this one).
4. 65% - A Wii HDD is announced ...and it isn't big enough.
5. 05% - A DS redesign is announced.
Overall Place Prediction (in hype) after the show: Third
Sony
Sony. The monster. The behemoth. The $600 leviathan. Oh, excuse me, I meant $500. Sony's coming in to E3 with the world looking at them in a collective WTF? No one is exceptionally happy with their pricepoint, their handheld, their online structure (till Home anyways, and even then who knows), their non-stance on exclusives ... am I missing anything? They've got the most to prove, and here's an interesting thing from the guy without the Playstation 3; I see them pulling it off. The $100 price drop was the beginning of what I think is going to be a good week for Sony, that is if they don't rely too much on Metal Gear Solid 4. I'm not saying I don't want to see the game, but I'll say it one more time, winning E3 is about building new hype. We need to see MGS4, of course, but we need something else too. Something that is so new and unannounced it will blow our sneakers off. I think they might have something, what it is though, I have no idea. Also, if they go ahead and announce the PSP redesign as well as the PS3 price drop, they win by default. Cheaper hardware and new hardware is like, unbridled victory.
I think the PSP redesign is all but confirmed too. I could talk about their software but I don't have any idea what they've got planned. Some Final Fantasy tidbits would be nice, but like I said above, I think J-developers are going to be moving pretty heavily towards TGS these days, and in an off-the-wall prediction, I think that's where Square will announce the Final Fantasy VII remake. This year? Not so sure.
- Five Predictions and Un-Predictions -
1. 90% - A PSP redesign is announced.
2. 90% - A demo for Heavenly Sword is available on PSN. I weep at how cool it looks.
3. 60% - Little Big Planet steals another show.
4. 10% - There is no new Sony exclusives other than first party titles.
5. 01% - The Final Fantasy VII remake is announced.
Overall Place Prediction (in hype) after the show: First
- 10 Things I'm Particularly Stoked For -
1. More Smash Bros. Characters. Sonic to be FINALLY shown.
2. Condemned 2: Bloodshot being shown, and looking even more fantastic.
3. Golden Axe. Does it still exist?
4. Mario vs. Sonic at the Olympic Games videos. Sorry, I LOVE the Olympics.
5. Capcom announcing their new 2D fighter. It being THE game that ends all things.
6. New PSP games. I'm digging the lineup, but more is always better.
7. A new Castlevania DS game. A man can dream, no?
8. Seeing larger-scale planets in Mario Galaxy.
9. A new Mistwalker game, or Lost Odyssey in-depth. I'll take either.
10. Worthwhile content on Xbox's Bringing It Home E3 campaign.
I'm all for mature games, but maybe Riviera's PSP rehash has gone too far. There is one precise location for bukkake parties ... and my PSP is not it. Get ready for the resurgence of "Porn on Your Child's Videogame System" on Channel 4 News.
All joking aside ... widget work is proceeding forward, although slowly. My movie links are back in action and stronger than ever before. It only took a Bonds-ian level of steroids to get them going too! More posts soon to come.
I don't normally allow myself to post my writings for Modojo here on my blog, but I enjoyed this feature, and I thought I'd like to share it to my "blog readers" as well as those who take the time to look at my writings on Modojo. I'd even like to add a few possible groundbreaking moments I think 2007 could hold, apart from handhelds, but I'll save those for an upcoming post.
Focusing on the handheld market in particular allows us at Modojo to take a look at the coming year a little differently than those who are watching the console scene specifically. While the large scale releases for consoles in 2007 are mostly laid out, and already under the gaze of gamers world over, handhelds are pretty unique in that the production time is genuinely shorter, and the releases come much sooner to their initial announcements. So, while we have games like Halo 3, Resident Evil 5, and Final Fantasy XIII for consoles that are pushing against 2008 already, there are only a minuscule number of portable games that have been announced for any later than this coming summer. Taking that into account, it’s safe to say that there aren’t just a few amazing games that are yet to be announced for 2007, but there’s actually a mountain of them, especially when you consider that we have basically no knowledge at all of how the Holiday 2007 season will be shaping up. We can only expect that with both popular handhelds having larger installed bases, and the DS in particular coming off an amazing year, the number of quality releases this Holiday should dwarf the already large number of games that dropped in 2006.
With that thought as our inspiration, we’ve taken the task of placing our bets on what 2007 could possibly hold for handhelds. Well, it’s not as if we’ve dropped ideas in a hat and selected what we lucked upon, but using some serious number-crunching and hypothesizing, it seems as if some of these things are more than likely to be occurring within the year. Don’t count on everything, as we couldn’t possibly have them all correct, and definitely don’t imagine that we’re quoting some hidden industry information. We’re not here to rumormonger, but only to look at what we feel is the realistic future. So, what exactly do we feel are some of the unannounced handheld happenings in 2007?
New Super Mario Bros. 2: The New-er
This is the most beautiful instance of how development time for handheld titles being shorter than a normal games development time is going to be beneficial to gamers. New Super Mario Bros. is still racking up sales around the world, but expect Nintendo to capitalize on never letting those sales falter. Just as sales for New Super Mario Bros. should probably be wrapping up, and we do say probably, sometime around next fall; expect New Super Mario Bros. 2 to be making its way to store shelves. This is THE DS game that Nintendo wants to have available for Holiday ’07, and do you think they don’t already know that? The announcement for this release will probably come sooner than later, and perhaps something could be revealed as soon as GDC in March. Mr. Miyamoto will be giving a keynote address, and it is just at moments like that, in which big bombs like this game tend to drop onto the radar.
Estimated Release: Fall/Winter 2007
Probability: 90%
Metroid DS. Dread Samus? Dreary Silence? Dropped Suit? 
The announcement that Metroid fans have been waiting years for in 2007? Sure, why not? 2007 could very well be the Year of the Samus for all we know; and as far as we do know, it already is. Metroid Prime 3 will be released sometime in 2007 for Wii, Super Metroid, most realistically the series’ crowning achievement will undoubtedly hit the Wii’s Virtual Console at some point, and the time is finally ripe for Metroid DS to make its shocking debut. The interesting debate is of course, what type of game will Metroid DS be? Will it be a return to the 2D Metroid worlds that set the standard for the series, and that old-school fans are pining for, or will it be in the vein of Metroid Prime, or Metroid Prime Hunters? We’ve got our money on the return to 2D, as Nintendo has seemingly been comfortable going that route with almost all of their other popular franchises. If GDC isn’t the time for Metroid DS to appear, then expect it soon after, perhaps at the Min-E3 conference. Although this game will probably be announced in 2007, this is a title that could realistically find release a little later, maybe slipping into 2008.
Estimated Release: Winter 2007/Spring 2008
Probability: 75%
Kid Icarus DS – The One from Left Field
The announcement that is eating at our core is probably the one we’ll least likely be seeing, but we can’t help but feel as if something is up. Nintendo’s playing a pretty sly game including Pit, otherwise known as Kid Icarus, in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and being so hasty in releasing the original to the Virtual Console in Japan. Nintendo has Kid Icarus on the mind, and we’ve got a feeling it isn’t just because they were feeling nostalgic. The Kid Icarus franchise is going to be making a very exalted, and much deserved return to the forefront of gaming, but alas, will it be for the Wii, or for the DS? The truth is, if the game is happening at all, it will probably be on the Wii. However, pending the success of Kid Icarus Wii, or Kid Icarus DS, whichever comes first, the game will surely appear on the opposite system in time. This hypothesis does have some pretty concrete facts on which to stand, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the loftiest of the bunch. Here’s hoping that our whining at least wins over someone important.
Estimated: Fall 2007 (Most likely on Wii)
Probability: 35%
PSP Redesign? No. Price-Drop? Yes
A little different than game announcements, is the announcement that Sony is going to be required to make sometime this coming year about the state of their handheld system. While many fear the announcement might require a priest of some sort, and an audience garbed in all black, that probably isn’t the announcement we’ll be seeing. The state of the PSP is probably going to be a little like the State of the Union, in which everyone says really good things about the past and the future, but never dares to mention the hideous, glaring faults that are actually eating away at their very souls. Somewhere in that announcement Sony will HAVE to officially announce a price-drop for their hardware. If they continue to refuse, then truthfully, retailers are probably going to start dropping the price themselves in order to push units, and be hit with less of a loss than they otherwise would. Expect the price-drop sometime in 2007, but more interestingly, we wouldn’t hold out hope for the redesign that fans are clamoring for, and that the system really needs. Sony plays the redesign game rarely, and more often than not, years after the console’s release.
Estimated: Summer 2007
Probability Price-Drop: 85%
Probability Redesign: 10%
The rest of 2007 is going to be filled with all sorts of other announcements that we haven’t yet been able to foresee, or potentially foresee, or even imagine because of their sheer outlandishness. Luckily, we can think of a few more (slightly outrageous) things that 2007 might be known for come 2008, and here’s the quick list:
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl cause riots upon their US release and bring about the apocalypse, albeit, a very cute and charming apocalypse. Probability: 65%
Another Sonic Rush game is announced for the DS, and it is again very good, continuing the proof that anyone can make a good Sonic game these days, just not Team Sonic. Probability: 85%
When Maple Story DS launches North Korea abandons all communistic traits and surrenders to South Korea, with the conditions of surrender that all North Koreans receive a free year’s subscription to the game. Kim Jong-Il becomes the next person in a long line of Korean fatalities from those who refuse to stop playing video games past the 36-straight-hour mark. Probability: 10%
No less than four Mega Man games are released amidst the various handheld consoles, and all of them are, as expected, very average. Probability: 90%
Sega FINALLY announces some version of House of the Dead for the DS. Yeah, we’re kidding. The world is not that awesome. Probability: 5%
I am given a raise, a penthouse, and Shigeru Miyamoto’s home phone number, to call and discuss a few plans about 2008. Probability: 100% … guaranteed to never, ever happen. Well, at least the raise bit; me and Shiggy party all the time!
Anything else that seems like it will be making an appearance in 2007? Will it be the year of Castlevania, or the year of Final Fantasy? Will Reggie kick more ass, but take less names? Let me know what you think, or why you think we're wrong.
The original feature can also be checked out on Modojo right here.
