2008 Gaming Predictions

Seeing as how it's 2008 now I thought I would use my training skills to make some gaming predictions. Below you will see 5 things that are likely to happen this year. Please feel free to argue with me on any of these predictions. Think I'm wrong? Well we'll just have to wait and see.

1) Wii Play w/ Remote will be best selling Wii game (not counting Wii Sports of course)

With the fancy marketing that is Wii Play, it has successfully managed to mantain a top spot in the software sales lists for the last 12 months. This trend will continue into, and throughout, 2008. Wii Play will manage to be the highest selling Wii game for all of 2008. Yes, it will even beat out Super Smash Brothers Brawl, the sequel to the top selling game on the GameCube. That little $10 pack of mini games is just too enticing for the typical consumer not to pick up. Need a Wiimote? Why not grab one that comes with a game. It could be looked at as a cheap trick by Nintendo but it will successully top the Wii sales charts for 2008.

2) Gears of War 2 will be release in the Fall of '08

This prediction may not be all that crazy or unpredictable but in this day and age you never know. Too Human: delayed, GTA IV: delayed, Smash Bros Brawl: delayed, Turok: delayed, PS3's HOME: delayed. Those are some very high level games, or programs, that were delayed last year. Many big games missed their highly cherished holiday release last year. This year will be very similar in the fact that many holiday games now will not make it out until the year 2009. But that cannot be said for the next installment in the Gears of War series. It will release in the Fall of this year.

3) Still no headset for the Wii, at least not by Nintendo

Oh you poor, poor Nintendo-only gamers. You want voice chat in your online-enabled Wii games so badly don't you? Well so do I, and so do many other gamers out there. But I have some bad news for you... the year of '08 will pass yet again without the release of a Nintendo branded headset. Yup, even with those huge online-enabled games on the horizon such as Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart, and Animal Crossing there will still be no voice chat in a Nintendo game. Your only shot will be if Nintendo allows other companies to create their own or you will have to buy another system. Sucks don't it?

4) Price Drop for Xbox 360 and PS3 but not Wii before '09

This one should be pretty self explanatory. During the course of 2008 both the PS3 and Xbox 360 will see a price drop. These drops will most likely not be new SKUs, which has been the way for the last year for Sony and Microsoft, but rather a straight up traditional price drop. By the way, bundles don't count. There will be many of them this year, like always but I am talking about real price drops here. What you will see out of Nintendo is a few new Wii colors. These won't happen until much later in the year, look out for them sometime before the Fall rush, but the price for a Wii on January 1, 2009 will be $249.99.

5) Saints Row 2 will have a higher GameRankings score than GTA IV

This is by far the most outrageous prediction on the list. The race will be close on this one but in the end Saint's Row will see a slightly higher average review score than Grand Theft Auto IV. Not that this will matter in the slightest because GTA will kill Saints Row in sales. But again, not sure why that really matters either, unless maybe you are a stock holder of one of the companies. But one way or another, you will see Saints Row above Grand Theft Auto over at GameRankings for both systems.

Let the games of 2008 begin.