Playstation Gamer UK

It’s the beginning of January which means it’s time for everyone that knows anything about video games to make predictions of what’s to come in the year. So, with this being the first of my weekly editorial style articles I figured that’s a great place to start. No matter which gaming platform you prefer next year is sure to be a huge year. However, since this is a PlayStation website, I’ll stick to that.

Christmas ‘09 starts early, very early with the launch of Killzone 2 on February 27th. The game that’s being called “the first true next generation shooter” by some will be sure to blow your socks off with it’s top end graphics that rivals what even a high powered gaming PC can pump out. If Sony can do a half decent job in marketing this game in North America it has the potential to be a system seller.

2009 is perhaps the first year that the PlayStation 3 has AAA quality titles set to be released year round, meaning it’ll finally be able to keep the public’s attention year round instead of in spurts like previous years. Starting with Killzone 2 in February, Infamous in the spring, Uncharted 2 near the end of summer, and possibly God of War III and even Gran Turismo 5 next holiday season, the PS3 has a line-up of exclusive content unrivaled by any other platform. Sprinkle in cross console games like Resident Evil 5, Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams and Batman: Arkham Asylum and the year gets even better.

But, 2009 is the year that I believe will be the beginning of the shift in the MMO market. While the majority of it will still be based on the PC with World of Warcraft making up a large portion of that, games like The Agency, DC Universe Online, Free Realms and Star Trek Online (PS3 version rumoured). These games raise the question though “will there be monthly charges?” or will they change to the micro-transaction based business model that are used by the successful free online MMOs? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

2009 could also see the beginning of an all new type of gaming, 3D gaming. There has been a lot of talk coming out of the International Consumer Electronics Show about integrating new 3D imaging into video games. It seems like it could be a good idea, if they could ever manage to get rid of those glasses.

2009 could also well be the year the PlayStation Network starts to come into it’s own. Savage Moon, and Fat Princess are two PSN exclusive games that are set to launch early in the year with Flower and Flock following later. These games are unique and because of that it’ll be very interesting to see how the public and the press react to them (so far it’s been positive). But there’s more to the PSN than games, Sony announced at CES that the news service Life With PlayStation will be receiving an update sometime in the Spring and that Home will be receiving a new EA Sports room. Life with PlayStation and Home are two features that have a lot of potential and I’m interested to see what these updates will bring.

So, it’s time for me to put my ass on the line, so to speak, and make some predictions. The first is that the PS3 will see a price cut of between $50-$100 as soon as March. For a long time the biggest thing holding back PS3 sales is the price tag, I personally have a few friends that would’ve bough a PS3 if it hadn’t been for the $399 price tag. So dropping the price fifty or one hundred dollars might be just what Sony needs to jump start sales. My next prediction is that Final Fantasy XIII won’t hit North American shores before 2010. Square Enix have stated that they will not release it in North America before the Xbox 360 version is completed and it is my opinion that that is going to delay the release a little bit, but even without this I do not believe that it will be released anywhere outside of Japan this year. And for my third prediction I predict that Blu-ray will do leaps and bounds better than it did this year. It seems a world wide economic recession can’t slow down progress and the world is progressing to HD. It may happen slower than expected but it is happening, people are upgrading to HDtvs and the winner of the “format war” has a lot to gain next year. Finally, I have one last prediction, and this one’s a biggie. Wii sales are going to begin to slow down drastically in 2009. According to VG Chartz.com the Wii sold over 25 million consoles in 2008 and I’m expecting that number to half in 2009. I believe this will happen because the hype will start to die off, eventually people will realize that the Wii isn’t that amazing and they demand will drop. In fact, I’d put it in second place in terms of console sales behind the PS3 next year. Alright, I lied, I have one more prediction. If God Of War III is released next year I predict it will receive game of the year honours from many of the video game publications around the world.

So those have been my predictions, opening myself to fanboyish comments, this is Scruffy signing off until next week.

P.S. I do not believe that I am a legitimate journalist, I believe that I am a gamer with an opinion.