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Predicting the Future AKA The Mystic Meg Console Assessment

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    Predicting the Future AKA The Mystic Meg Console Assessment

    Back in September 2013, I published the below in a blog post. I think overall I did pretty well, a bit of shame on the Facebook prediction, but you don't always get what you want.

    So, as a bit of fun, it might be interesting to share your predictions on what this new hardware cycle could hold over the next seven years, which we can look back on at the eve of the PS6 launch and giggle at our outlandish prophecies which may, or may not, have become true.

    Originally posted by MartyFrom2013
    -Nintendo 3DS

    Pokémon causes loads of additional sales boosting Nintendo’s confidence with the platform and so more developers and publishers jump onboard with great software support.



    -Playstation Vita

    Despite better games arriving on the platform, Sony loses all confidence in the brand whilst refusing to discount to a level that would shift units.



    -Nintendo WiiU

    Nintendo fail to release more than one first party title leading to slipping sales, further compounded by the announcement and release of the next Microsoft and Sony platforms.



    -Xbox 720

    Fails to make the same impact as Xbox360 due to the push on advertising, content consumption, a staid insistence on charging for online content others are offering for free and Kinect 2.0 over the games people actually want to play. As a result Microsoft slip behind Sony.



    -Playstation 4

    Becomes the platform of choice for Next Gen being region free, 2nd hand sales friendly and offering good value for money, plenty of platform exclusive must-haves and managing to get to market ahead of Microsoft at a more competitive price point.



    -PC

    Continues with its fan base



    -Ouya

    Gains a cult following from dedicated hardcore, especially within the emulation and modding community, as a result gains moddest success.



    -Gamepad

    Is left in the dust with cheaper, better specified sticks (which in fact already exist).



    -Nvidia Project Shield

    Despite plowing thousands in to the device, it flops due to lack of interest



    -Apple iPhone/iPad

    The release cycle reaches a 3 month upgrade cycle, Apple gain critical mass and promptly implode in a good looking, but ultimately lacking in substance phenomenon.



    -Android Smartphone formats

    More and more people realise this is the platform they should have been backing all along, Google seeing Apple’s demise proves it was evil all along and turns into the beast we always feared it really was.



    -Steam Box

    Valve under the delusion the love for Steam is universal put far too much money in to the system and bankrupt themselves.



    -Facebook etc Social Platforms

    Scandal at facebook due to the selling of customer data causes the Russian Mafia to take a contract out on Mark Zuckerberg, his death causes a mass suicide at Facebook headquarters causing the server farm to over heat and set on fire. Everyone rejoices its demise.
    Last edited by MartyG; 30-07-2020, 08:14.

    #2
    Haha, love the iPhone prediction. You were mostly bang on with these.

    I'll add a couple, they're a bit boring though.

    PS5

    Sony double down on their strategy of releasing blockbuster single player narrative experiences, with a heavy emphasis on sequels to their PS4 efforts.

    They keep PS Now going but continue to mostly ignore it.

    The PS5 is very successful, but not as quite as much of an initial smash hit as anticipated, selling fewer consoles within the first year than the PS4.

    Sony release an OLED TV with a PS5 built in. It costs 4 grand and flops.

    The extra features of the DualShock 5 are never used by anyone but Media Molecule.

    Series X

    Microsoft continue to grapple with a shrinking userbase by placing a greater emphasis on Game Pass and XCloud, bringing the latter to smart TV platforms, browsers and mobiles with a special Stadia-style Xbox pad which can be linked to all of them.

    This flops.

    An Apple TV style streaming puck for XCloud is continually rumoured but fails to ever materialise.

    The Series X has a loyal userbase of fans keen to own the console with the best version of third party games. The machine washes its face financially.

    Comment


      #3
      Nintendo

      Nintendo release the follow-up to the Switch: a 3D home console with a handle on it, called Swiitch. Designed to confuse clueless parents, it launches with an HD remake of Mario 64 and classic/ancient titles are available to download for a fee. Super Mario World sees it's 200th release. A mobile phone is required for voice chat in games and usernames are randomly generated alphanumeric strings.

      Comment


        #4
        Nintendo get Sega to release Initial D on Switch - drifting joycon problems fixed.

        Comment


          #5
          PS5 People buy the system and enjoy playing games on it without giving a monkeys about which console is “winning”. Too many 30fps games. PSVR2 to be very capable but still be a flop.

          Xbox Series X/S People buy the system and enjoy playing games on it without giving a monkeys about which console is “winning”. Series S to bolster early sales of next generation hardware. Xbox One dropped ASAP. Too many 30fps games.

          Nintendo Continue to sell inexplicably large amounts of overpriced handhelds with wonky controllers. Will milk their IP harder than the last cow on a post apocalyptic Earth.

          Comment


            #6
            I'll have a try.

            Sony


            Mass shortages and underwhelming launch titles lead to an awkward start for the PS5. The PS4 continues to chug along with independent titles and games available for both systems. The system booms in popularity in the second year of release due to a major franchise and a £100 price cut. At this point it does OK and establishes slightly more dominance in the market this time, but Microsoft are very much still around and do better in America in the end. The online service isn't as good as the Microsoft one for whatever reason. The original model has an issue where it cooks itself if you leave it turned on for too long, so a new slim model comes out which does fix the problem but there's no disc drive.

            Sony try yet again to do a new handheld console which does marginally better than the Vita but is becomes largely absent from anywhere outside Japan and is effectively discontinued from western markets a couple of years later, leaving behind a library of mostly shovelware/basic puzzlers/ports of older games. In Japan it continues to do "OK" and has a large selection of games, mostly erotic visual novels (which Nintendo largely end up banning from their system) and spinoffs of popular RPGs. They do a revised model with slightly different design and people in the west pay over the odds to import them, but arguments rage about the original having a better screen, which ultimately results in a thread being locked on Bordersdown.

            Microsoft

            The Series X does quite well thanks to a selection of online first-person-shooters and war games, though the network collapses over Christmas and is completely off for several days. A lot of people wearing ugly clothes complain about it on the Internet, with several hashtags involved. After that it's fine though. Despite promises, it utterly sinks in Japan without much of a trace and is quietly withdrawn after 3 years of selling a few hundred units a month. It has a big problem where a fault code comes up and some lights flash. They fix it under warranty, but as a general rule of thumb once they're out of warranty they aren't worth fixing. The new model fixes it and has some barely detectable minor graphical improvements, but it's barely any different, so people only get it once theirs has broken (which it will).

            Japanese small developers almost completely ignore and abandon the system despite various promises, but partnerships are formed with some of the big American ones securing several exclusives (all of which are online first-person-shooters, war games and the Madden NFL games). This leads to it slightly overtaking the PS5 but only in America. Everywhere else it sits somewhere in between - as a general rule of thumb it gets 2/3rds of the shelf space that the PS5 does in a shop. Overall they weather it about as well as they did last time, but shrinking demand outside of America is becoming a worry.

            Nintendo

            The Switch continues to sell well and a new model is introduced that has some kind of gimmick and is backwards-compatible with the old one but can have new games that aren't, using the new gimmick functionality. Inevitably some major Nintendo franchises come out on the new system and everyone else follows, forcing everyone to upgrade, but the old Switch is kept alive in a budget form firmly aimed at kids and continues to attract shovelware publishers for another decade - even after they've stopped doing games for the "new" Switch. The last game for it is basically a rip-off of Cooking Mama.

            As the Sony/MS consoles are too different in capability from the ongoing Switch, fewer mainline titles are ported across but they get a lot of Japanese exclusives (except the more pervy ones, which Nintendo opt to exclude due to the controversial "VR gaming sex" fad) and make a solid profit from the fact that Sony's handheld didn't do that well worldwide and MS haven't even done one. They don't even consider making a non-handheld "home" console this time round, but rumours continue they might do one the next generation. They ultimately don't.

            Comment


              #7
              SeriesX

              Due to a confused marketing approach from MS at launch the seriesX sells poorly in the first year. However game pass increases in popularity despite price increases. MS focus shifts to GaaS games and as such there are really only 1 viable game per genre released on the service for the entire generation. By the end of the generation MS bow out of the console race and only make GaaS games and push Game Pass.

              PS5

              Sony has a slow but steady rise in sales, by the end of the first year its obvious Sony have pulled away from MS again. Their VR games still drip out and PSVR2 is released but doesn't sell as well as the original headset. It continues to have a loyal fan base who are happy with the crumbs under the table. Sony's approach doesn't change much from the ps4 because it doesn't have to.

              Nintendo

              Carries on doing what Nintendo do. Eventually a year before the end of the generation they announce a new console, it will have some gimmick attached to it and it releases to OK sales.

              (basically everything plods on as this generation ended)

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by wakka View Post
                The extra features of the DualShock 5 are never used by anyone but Media Molecule.
                it's the Sixaxis all over again.

                Some good stuff so far, I'm working on mine.

                -------------------------------

                Sony

                Sony launches the PS5 to market first, but it comes at a cost. A big cost. The discless machine launches at £440 and the UHD-BR at £499. Initial sales are strong as the enthusiasts lap up the first batch of boxes, but not as strong as initially predicted in the pre-sale due to the high entry price.

                The PS5 struggles after the first 6 months forcing Sony to drop the price to try and match Xbox Series X. It works, but damages Sony's balance sheets as they lose money on the custom hardware.

                Users are generally pleased with their purchase and first party exclusive titles do well.

                Microsoft

                Having waited for Sony to announce their pricing, and in reverse of the previous gen launch, the Xbox Series X free from custom IO solutions and kinect gimmicks, comes in nearly £100 less, hitting the shelves at an astonishing £379 including 30 days access to Game Pass.

                Initial sales are slightly behind the PS5, but pass them after six months, a key driver in the price cut of the Sony machine. Mid second year sees some stronger first party titles taking advantage of the hardware which helps Microsoft keep an equal footing,

                Microsoft phase out Xbox Live Gold and morphs it into a single subscription option along with Game Pass, allowing a sleight-of-hand price increase which boosts the gaming division monthly income, users don't mind too much as they see value in having access to first party games through the service.

                At the end of the generation, sales of both consoles are quite close compare to the previous cycle, the PS5 slightly ahead after a hardware revision and some good first party titles

                VR

                With the decreasing costs of entry level graphics cards like the RTX3050/3060 able to drive the required pixels, new cheaper headsets like the Valve Index Lite and HTC Wonderspace, along with wire free experiences thanks to Wifi 6, 2022 truly becomes the year of VR.

                Thanks to increased sales, fuller and better experiences become available in the VR space, more users experience the sense of scale and immersion that VR provides, leading to more sales and more games. Microsoft is able to leverage their WMR headsets on XBX, but Sony lags behind with PSVR2, still relying on a small revision of the Move controllers leading to a lesser experience with the PS5VR. Nintendo scarred by the history of the Virtual Boy, releases a basket to put Switch 2 into which no one buys.

                But with Oculus helping the charge with Quest 2 and Quest Go PC free, we have the VR singularity at last.

                Nintendo

                Nintendo release the Switch 2 at the end of 2022 using a slightly faster ARM SOC, but they are able to reach 1080P without resolution scaling.

                Along with S2 comes Mario, Zelda, Animal Crossing, Pokemon and fulfilling the number one wishlist, Metroid Switch+.

                The consoles is successful enough, with Nintendo happily doing its own thing and ignoring the rest of the world. That is until Apple comes along with a proposition.

                Apple

                Apple have reached saturation point with the iPhone - everyone who wants one has one, and despite a good showing of version XII, virtually no one is prepared to fork out £1800 for a phone contract for the entry level model, let alone £2500 for the XII-Max.

                To boost their popularity with the kids, secret meetings behind closed doors lead to a hardware colaboration with Nintendo, who are still aching to conquer the mobile space.

                To a marketing fanfare, the two firms reveal the Nipple iBoi which has a unique "hands-on" experience. After arguments over pricing (Nintendo wanting £99, Apple £999) it flops costing both firms millions.

                Google

                Shocking absolutely no one, Google cancels the Stadia project in Q2 2021. Stagnant sales and servers costing more to let idle than subscriber income covers, sees the end of the down streaming dream for Google.

                The next day, Google announces Aidats, a service so fast its users need to wear Google Goggles to stop their eyes being sucked out of their heads. Ultra-Gigabit fibre connection start eveloping its users symbiotically, creating cyberhuman hybrids who take over world governments.

                Google wins the internet, then releases the Pixel 5 with 18 cameras.

                -----------------------

                Still to come, a shock announcement from Konami, the great SteamEpic war of 2024 and SEGA raises the hopes of millions only to dash them again as the speculators get the wrong end of the stick ...
                Last edited by MartyG; 30-07-2020, 16:32.

                Comment


                  #9
                  This thread tickled a memory at the back of my mind and a forum search later dragged up this thread from the bottom of the sea of the dead:


                  It's from two years before the PS4/XBO Generation began so was a long shot effort but it's the closest I can get to finding something I posted to refer back to for this. So first:

                  Looking Backward:

                  "Not expecting things to be that different next gen. The online push is starting to settle now as devs realise it's not every gamers main focus and a balance is starting to emerge. I fully expect the app/facebook/mobile gaming bubble to somewhat burst at some point as the current model is an emerging one rather than a sustainable one."

                  I feel pretty happy with that call. We've seen a real settling of online game offerings with a smaller but more dominant run of established series taking hold and outside of that more single player efforts rise to success in a welcome veering of the market away from old bad habits. People still use sharing via social media for gaming purposes etc but it's not a big deal anymore, it's just kind of there.


                  "For games it wouldn't surprise me but in film I'm expecting 48fps to flop."

                  Not games related but listing it purely because it's another good call lol


                  "I also
                  predict that Capcom will go through some sort of crisis which forces a major shake up. They're current business approach is awful"

                  Is this one a win? They've certainly improved from what they were like late last gen though still feel early on a path of redemption

                  Most of my other posts seem focused on PS4/XBO not being worth launching in 2013 based on what PS3/360 were delivering at the time which I can kind of see looking back but I'm definitely more forgiving now of the new generation differences.


                  Looking Forward:

                  PlayStation 5: I feel fairly confident that it will fail to sell as well over the course of it's seven year life as the PS4 has done between COVID, any other issues and market contraction. However, I think Sony will find it incredibly easy to dominate the gaming space as they have most generations again largely be following the same approaches and principles that have worked so well for them till now. We will see strong but not record breaking figures for the system from launch coming off the back of a final key announcement of the systems price point which will be around £429.99-£449.99 with Sony taking a partial hit for the sake of being competitive with Microsoft and keen to incentivise hardware sales during the pandemic. End of generation sales just about tip onto 100m.

                  Xbox Series S/X: Microsoft will either match or marginally come in under PS5's launch price, being perfectly fine with taking a hit. Series X will attract some buzz on release as gamers look to two new exciting launches at the end of a miserable year but in early 2021 it will become abundantly clear that Microsoft has serious brand issues and the system is pacing well behind PS5 and is beginning to lose traction compared to XBO at the same point in its lifespan due to the erosion of the Xbox brand appeal in international markets and a starvation of compelling software launches since launch day. Either before launch or in the months that follow MS will announce the Series S which despite long rumours will be seen as a redundant reaction Sony's system and will fail to meaningfully impact Xbox sales. Game Pass will grow over the course of the generation hitting a peak of between 15m-18m subscribers and by the end of the generation speculation of huge changes for Xbox will be rampant as Microsoft close out the generation with the entire Series Generation of Xbox's losing market leadership in all territories including America and lifetime sales failing to surpass 35m units at the highest.

                  Nintendo Switch:
                  By 2021/2022 Era goes into another meltdown about another Switch Pro model that once again turns out to be yet another pointless revision from Nintendo that simply tweaks the screen and battery life and nothing more. As 2023 rolls on the recreation of the Wii era is in full swing as the Switch enjoys approaching its end of life on a global sales tally of around 90m or above but software support from Nintendo continuing to dry up as they over rely on evergreens once again. Following this news begins to emerge of a true successor and sales for its launching part way through the other consoles lives are good but without the ability to lean on ports and rereleases as strongly as the first Switch did the software support struggles again and Nintendo begins to see its sales figures slip to a degree for the successor system raising fears once again about the direction of Nintendo and its one pillar approach.

                  Stadia

                  Painfully drags itself through 2021 as Google attempts to save face but at some point mid-late 2022 is quietly put out of its misery.

                  VR
                  Over the next-generation headset tech continues to advance with accuracy and convenience tools becoming strongly adept. Despite this software support continues to become increasingly small studio/indie dependent and whilst a niche dedicated audience exists any question of VR being the direction gaming is headed is dead and buried before we even hit halfway into next-gen.

                  PC

                  Largely remains unchained after a few more years that see more companies embrace the platform as we're seeing now. By mid-gen this settles and it continues much in its current form as the best place to play most titles.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    SEGA: announces that it is once again releasing a compilation of MegaDrive ROMs for the next-gen consoles in a desperate attempt to evoke memories of the glory days.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Lyris View Post
                      SEGA: announces that it is once again releasing a compilation of MegaDrive ROMs for the next-gen consoles in a desperate attempt to evoke memories of the glory days.
                      I'm the kind of idiot who would buy it too

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by Cassius_Smoke View Post
                        I'm the kind of idiot who would buy it too
                        As long as it's got the Megadrive port of Virtua Fighter 2 on it, it'll be day one for me.

                        Comment

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