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.