2009

2007 and 2008 were great years for gaming. Bioshock, Mass Effect, Super Mario Galaxy, Metal Gear Solid 4, Little Big Planet... the list of great games goes on and on. The Xbox 360 came into it's stride, the Wii continued to sell like Hotcakes, the PS3 began to pick up speed. The New Xbox Experience showed us that a console can have a UI upgrade, and even a new image. Indy game developers racked in the accolades last year with World of Goo and Braid. And the iPhone gaming scene is apparently doing well:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/shoot-is-iphone.html
But in my mind, 2009 stands to be a year head-and-shoulders above them both. Despite the bad economy and the backlash from a crowded holiday season last year, I really think that 2009 might end up being one of the most important years of this generation. As cliche as this is, here are some predictions on that front:
1. The Wii starts to earn it's install base:
While there were some gems in 2008, it was mostly a desert for wii gamers. In fact, the best part of being a gamer with a wii as their primary console (me) was looking at videos of 2009. Just this past week was better for Wii then almost any month last year. We got Deadly Creatures, House of the Dead: Overkill, and Tenchu. And over the course of the year we will see The Conduit, Madworld, Muramusa: the Demon Blade, Dead Space Extraction, and Punchout, along with tons of other great confirmed and unconfirmed 2009 games. And with EA supposedly shifting half of their development power toward Wii, we are guaranteed one hell of a year.
2. The PS3 gains on the 360:
The PS3 had a good 2008, and it began to gain momentum in the end of the year. With great games like Killzone and Uncharted 2, along with rumors of a price-drop and the fact that it still hold such a strong brand name, might just spell a bright future for the luxury gaming machine.
3. Download as an alternative to hard-copy games make huge progress
Ok, this one is obvious, but I still think it deserves a spot. Steam has been providing downloads for a long time now, but the iPhone is finally making downloadable games more mainstream. People have always preferred having a hard-copy of media over a file, but that preference can be broken by the power of the impulse buy. iTunes provided music listeners a way to pick out an individual song and buy it without the entire CD, and now the App store is giving small games to gamers at a small price. It's true that selling someone a downloadable flash game for $5 isn't equivalent to selling someone a downloadable console game for $60, but when the main thing keeping people from buying is a mentality, any progress is good progress.
4. New IP's become more prevalent
This one might be stretching it a bit, but I think EA and Ubisoft set some trends in motion with Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, and Assassin's Creed. These were all new IP's that sold very well and proved that a compelling, innovative idea can still perform well (EA has stated that Dead Space and Mirror's Edge underperformed, but they each sold over 1million...) in a market crowded with sequels. The strategy of pumping out quick sequels will probably never die, but hopefully this year developers will put more faith in new ideas.
5. Indy Games will become more common and better-recognized by the public
Last year two indy games, World of Goo and Braid kicked the crap out of a lot of big-budget titles in the awards category, and if they are just as successful in their sales, more will come. Digital Distribution of games is making it much easier to indy developers to release their own games without the pain of aquiring and working with a publisher. This years independent games festival (IGF) should be great.