2009 Gaming Prediction (Part 4, Decemeber 2009)

I'm going to wait awhile to predict December's games outcomes because I'm not sure what is coming out yet. EB has what seems to be a lot of placeholder cover arts and 12/31 release dates, which is a nice way of saying "we don't know when this is coming out."

2009 Gaming Prediction (Part 3, Novemeber 2009)

Part 3 takes us into Novemeber, so let's keep rolling right along.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (11/10) is predicted to be the BIG seller for the year. Activision is boasting about potential sales. In my opinion, it is going to sell well, but not as well as CoD4. That whole naming confusion will hurt them, they missed early hype with their fight over spinning Modern Warfare off as a separate franchise away from Call of Duty. They're also out of their minds with 2 special editions in addition to the regular edition. Don't go for the night vision goggles right off the bat folks! Much like the infamous Halo 3 cat helmet, you'll be able to find it for at least half off after a few months as retailers get tired of the huge box taking up shelf space. They don't have any room left, what with all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band instruments, DJ Hero turntables, and Tony Hawk skateboards that will be sitting around.

Left 4 Dead 2 (11/17) is the follow up to the much loved Left 4 Dead. With so many people playing Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer mode, is there really room for another multi-player centric title in the same month? Console side you can expect lower overall sales than L4D. It's too much of the same too soon for big sales.

Assassin's Creed 2 (11/17) Poor UbiSoft. Red Steel 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction were delayed. Here is what they think is their holiday savior. Will it deliver? I'm not sure. The first Assassin's Creed had an amazing ad campaign, a huge amount of hype, and pretty good reviews from professional outlets. But a lot of people felt burned by the repetitive nature and there was some backlash. They've talked up improvements to AC2, but wether or not they can deliver (and have people believe in them) remains to be seen.


There are more games coming out in November, but those are the big ones. Modern Warfare 2 is going to own the month pretty handily, but I imagine that Activision is going to have a lower than expected quarter and blame it on the game not selling up to estimates.

2009 Gaming Prediction (Part 2, October 2009)

Here is part 2 of my predictions on upcoming titles. Between I write this and hit post, some of these games may end up delayed. Looking on Twitter, many upcoming titles are slipping into Q1 of 2010.

Tony Hawk Ride (10/13) HAHAHAHA. You think THIS is gonna sell? You are out of your mind. Who wants to pay $120 to play the tired Tony Hawk franchise. Expect prices to fall quickly as the fake skate boards sit unbought on store shelves. (The plus side to this peripheral? It will likely lead to some awesome Back to the Future parody video on YouTube.)

Brutal Legend (10/13) Poor Tim Schafer. He has a game on his hands that is going to be a tremendous flop. The brief flareup of public metal fascination is fading, and people are getting tired of Jack Black's one note act. This isn't going to be a forgotten classic like Psychnauts. It's going to be a "dude, why isn't this awesome?" game.

Uncharted 2 (10/13) Probably the biggest Sony title for the year. Sequel to an awesome game. I think this one has the potential to win NPD's for the month, though it will probably come in at number 2, since Sony can't seem to catch a break. A super solid single player coupled with a fun multi player (in the beta at least) are going to mean another solid seller for Sony. It won't do the numbers they want though. PS3 games never do.

How do you spell flop? Borderlands (10/20)!

Dragon Age: Origins (10/20) is being pushed by Bioware, but this is going to get passed over as too old school and hardcore by mainstream RPG player. Those people will be awaiting Bioware's other game Mass Effect 2.

-EDIT- http://bit.ly/wpnDI
Dragon Age: Origins has been delayed in to November.


Tekken 6 (10/27) Do people still care about Tekken? I imagine it will sell better than Virtua Fighter 5 did, but most people have moved on. This game has next to no hype, it's more like a stealth release than a huge push from Namco, at the moment anyway. They could be waiting until closer to release, but I imgaine they're just going to seel to series loyalists.

DJ Hero (10/27) Why would a retailer carry this? Are there enough DJ Shadow fans to support this title in a genre that is quickly dying? I know you're not playing with a guitar in this one, but this doesn't scream "party game" to me like Rock Band and Guitar Hero do. Plus, it's another $120 bucks, the price of 2 new games.

Forza 3 (10/27) is a sequel to a popular series, but I don't think it's going to sell as well as Forza 2 did. There are tone of racings games already out and more coming out all the time. None will have the realistic action of Forza 3, but there is a question as to how popular that will actually be. Expect good, but not spectacular, performance.

Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time (10/27) is going to be a disappointment sales-wise. While Future was a great game, the downloadable game was underwhelming, and kind of hurt the franchise. I'm a fan (I've played through them all except for Deadlocked and Secret Agent Clank) and I want the game, but because it's more of the same, a video game comfort food.


That's pretty much it for notable titles in October. Agree or disagree with my assessments? Did I leave anything out? Let me know in a comment, or send me a message on Twitter (twitter.com\jvmaxwell)

2009 Gaming Prediction (Part 1, Sept 2009)

Around this time every year, as the summer lull continues, gamers everywhere start getting hyped for the upcoming holiday season. Holiday season, where tons of great games come out, a few don't sell as well as community segments think they should have, and we end up complaining about the huge backlogs we end up with. (Hint: Wait to buy games. Hot $60 holiday titles will end up cheaper just after the holidays.)

Lots of games are getting delay announcments. Bioshock 2, a ton of Ubisoft games... I imagine more will end up being delayed as we get closer to the end of the year.

Delays might not be so bad though. The global slowdown/recession is finally going to smack gaming hard for the rest of the year. Let's take a look at some big upcoming titles, from September forward. (Ship dates courtesy of EBGames.com)

-EDIT-

Guitar Hero 5 (9/1/09)

Just days before Rock Band: Beatles, comes the next installment of the Guitar Hero franchise. Activision seems to understand that people are starting to care less about rhythm games, as they are trying to make RB5 more of a value proposition. How? Like this: http://bit.ly/Z2Fb0 TA-DA! Buy RB5, get RB: Van Halen for free. If you're a RB fan this will drive you to purchase, as you'll want as much content as possible to play. It also looks attractive to people who are buying their first rhythm game. Who can pass on an opportunity to pretend to play "Eruption"? Guitar Hero 5 will be the first Guitar Hero that is outsold by a Rock Band title. Sales will be down compared to World Tour, which I think will be marked as the point that rhythm games started their decline from massive popularity to niche genre, kinda like Dance Dance Revolution.

Harmonix will be hurting after 9/9/09 when Beatles Rock Band doesn't sell like they think it will. Beatles fans aren't going to buy consoles to play a rhythm game, even if it is Beatles. I predict that Beatles DLC will eventually make it's way to Rock Band proper compatibility so they can recoup their investment.

There are way to many unsold RB and GH instrument packs out there at retail for me to think otherwise. Recent reports about declining sales of rhythm games won't suddenly pick up. The market got flooded (mostly thanks to Guitar Hero- World Tour, Aerosmith, Metallica, and Smash Hits in quick succession), and people have burnt out.

Personally I love Rock Band. I own 1 and 2, and between those and my DLC I have 200+ songs. It's a nice way to kill some time and hang with friends. But I can't see myself paying $60 bucks just to play Beatles songs. I'm a fan, but not enough of one to play a dedicated game. Plus I don't have enough friends who are Beatles fans to make it a truely social experience.

Need for Speed: Shift (9/15) Another year, another NFS. The name is gonna sell units, regardless of quality, though I imagine it will sell less copies than last year's NFS.

I don't care how well Scribblenauts (9/15) will be reveiwed and how many Best of E3 awards it won. It won't crack the NDP Top 10 in September when it comes out. I'm buying it (and it's the first game I've planned to buy since GTA4 and SC4 came out, thanks to Goozex), but I expect it will be one of those cool DS games podcasters talk about and the general populace largely ignores. That being said, I want my preorder bonus Rooster Hat!

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (9/15). Sequel to the suprise hit (and one time 360 pack-in title). This one is gonna sell less than it's predecessor. The general public isn't in to the Civil War story line, and hype amongst gamers is low.

Halo 3: ODST (9/22). It's Halo, so it's gonna sell. Nowhere near Halo 3 levels of course, because Halo has begun to lose some of it's luster, but a 1m+ seller for the 360 this year.

Uncharted 2 is going to sell like your average big PS3 title (read: maybe 500k copies by the end of the year). Mass Effect 2 isn't going to sell as well as it's prequel. Left 4 Dead 2... I just don't see the huge sales that the original had, at least on consoles.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (9/29) This game sold well in Japan, but seems to have been knocked off the charts there by Dragon Quest IX. Sadly, the KH franchise doesn't seem to be as popular here as it is there, and I don't see this one charting, especially coming out at the end of Sept.

Wow... Krystals is ripping off Subway with their new commercial

Have you seen their new commercial? It has a nice little song about spending 5 bucks to get 5 Krystals or a selection of Krystals and sides.

On a side note, is there anything more pleasant then an evening at home alone from time to time? Kicking back, watching Comedy Central, playing PSP, picking up the guitar. Ah... wife and son at her mom's house for the evening. A recharging day.

I had another idea for a joke.
"My wife cracks the whip at home. It's ok I guess, after 4oo years it's a bit of comeuppance." (I'm white, my wife is black. I do a fair bit of the house work, so it's a slavery joke!)

Pre Posting

As in typing a post on my Palm Pre.  Best early birthday gift ever? I'd say so.

Buckhead excitement!

http://bit.ly/fsIhe

Today a "suspicious package" was found outside the Buckhead MARTA station, and they closed the station down for a few hours. My wife found out and frantically called me, asking me to take a walk during lunch and get as far away as possible, since the Terminus building where I work is maybe 2 blocks away from the sation.

They reopened the station as I came back from my lunchtime excursion (a walk to Phipps Plaza and back, approximately 2 miles in the heat), though they still had the outside taped up, as you can see in the above vid. I apologize for the quality, my Mogul doesn't have a very good camera on it.

Welcome to Kentucky!

Got up this morning at 5:00am, got out of the house at 7:30am, drove 7 hours, and now I'm sitting at my sister's house, trying to keep up with the idea of posting every day.

Nothing really funny happened on the way up, no jokes came to mind. I guess the exhaustion of a long ride got to me. Tomorrow I will let my wife do some of the driving. She doesn't mind, and I can get some Civ IV time in.

On another note, I got a Google Voice invite and signed up. That is some cool tech, and I'm glad I'm on board. I'm gonna give that number out to recruiters, that way I can get transcripts of when they call while I'm at work.

And the "Best Wife Ever Award" goes too...

My wife! Wednesday we meet up after work at Best Buy. I'm there to buy the new Project 86 CD "Picket Fence Cartel" and I'm playing Rock Band 2 while waiting for her to show up.

She finds me playing and suggests that we buy it, then walks to the PS3 section and comes back with it. I love having a wife who feeds my addiction. I also managed to use some rubber bands to fix my RB1 guitar's strum bar. Ghetto rigged ftw!

No post yesterday, 3 days old and I'm falling down on the job. We had an after work Ikea run to buy a bed frame and got home kinda late.

I'll have to be diligent with phone updates. We're going up north for my brother in law's birthday.


Finally, I had a joke idea. As a bit of background, I'm a white male and my wife is black. Many of my jokes have a racial theme.
We were up one morning talking about how things have changed in the 3 months since the wedding and how I've gotten better at cleaning. I made a joke about how she cracks the whip and makes sure the trash gets taken out and doesn't pile up like it did at my old place. Then I had a thought about reparations in the form of black people marrying a white person and having them do all the house work. The delivery needs work, but I think there is potential there. Opinions?

Content! Is the reason! Is the answer!

10 points if you recognize where that is from.

I said I would post at least once per day, so here I am, typing at 11pm, a time I'm normally in bed.

Civ IV: Warlords came in the mail (thank you Goozex!) and I played for a few moments. I like the few tweaks I've seen in the 20 or so minutes I played. I look forward to making the Vikings take over the world.

On a person note, I feel like a bit of an old man. I don't really go "out" at all, and I don't really get excited by the idea of going "out." Where would I go? Bars don't sound like my bag, and I'm a straight white male, so dancing isn't really my thing either. I gotta find something though, I can't keep my wife cooped up in the house with me. I'm a reclusive nerd, but she's a super social person.

Follow through!

I only had 34 posts over 2 years on my old blog. I thought I had written more, but I obviously did not.

So I've looked over them all and imported the ones I've deemed funniest. The rest are mostly just personal stuff about job hunts, a broken 360, technolusting, and a very poor prediction.

How poor was it? I thought Lair for the PS3 was going to be good! That taught me to not buy into hype, HA!

Speaking of games, I've come to the realization that I don't really like RPG's anymore. I've tried playing FFIV for the DS and the Star Ocean remake for PSP and I couldn't take it. I don't have the patience.

These days I like a game I can play for 30 minutes to an hour and feel like I made some progress. I'm slipping into casual territory. (Aside from my Civilization IV addiction.)

Honestly I don't mind it. I'm happy with playing through Resistance slowly, and blowing through DS games like Retro Game Challenge and the Castlevanias. I get games from Goozex, play them for a week or 2 and send them back.

I fear if I don't slip out of this malaise soon I'll just slip out of gaming altogether.

test

testing

Let's try this again.

Much like everyone else online, I've had several blogs at one point or another. I let those blogs wither and die.

I never really had much readership, though it was growing a bit towards the end. Looking at that blog I had written some funny stuff. That stuff will probably come over here, and then the other blog will be bombed out of existence.

Why I felt a need to dredge up history instead of starting fresh I'll never know. I'm writing stream of consciousness at work, swapping between screens, doing stuff and then filling this space with text.


I plan on writing pretty much at least once a day. I want to get used to adding content. And as I get used to adding content, I can make it compelling content. Look for jokes, youtube links when I do open mic standup comedy, Twitter solicitations, musing about culture (serious news, podcasts, gaming), and links to stuff I think you need to know about.

Bear with me as I make this interesting for the both of us.