2013 Year in Review (Predictions)

2013 is upon us and could be the most interesting year gaming has seen in a long time. Let’s jump ahead 12 months and see what the conclusion of 2013 looks like, from an unofficial analyst’s perspective. Sure, some of these may seem silly, but you’d be surprised at how many of these predictions will be somewhat accurate.
What a year, 2013 opened with alot of mysteries. Would we get a any new consoles? Would the Wii U be successful? Would the industry recover from the 5 year slump its in? What would EA do next to piss everyone off? Will Call of Duty still rule the world? Is The Last Guardian ever going to see the light of day? The games, what about the games?!? Let’s take a look at some of the highlights from this year’s news.

Ubisoft announced the new Xbox before Microsoft. French Publisher salivating over the prospect of new hardware “accidentally” leaked system specs and screenshots of the new Assassin’s Creed game running on new Xbox hardware. Their response was, “Sorry about that, we’re French.”

Ubisoft also announced and released a new Prince of Persia and finally spilled details on Beyond Good and Evil 2.

At E3 Microsoft officially unveils its new console named Xbox 8, to align with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

• When questioned where Xboxs 3-7 went, they replied with “no comment”.
• Launched window is set as Spring 2014
• Due to increased hardware costs, Microsoft announced expansion of its subsidizing plan through Xbox Live, but no price was given.
• Halo 5 is announced as an Xbox 8 game, promo image shows Master Chief with helmet off, but doesn’t show his head.

EA released details on new Mass Effect game as launch title for Xbox 8 previous save data will not import. The press release referred to it as the “clean slate” initiative.

Sony’s E3 press conference has no new console, official press release stated that, “They aren’t ready yet.”

• A new Killzone game was to hit PS3 in Fall of 2013, however the game was delayed into 2014.
• Also at E3, Sony revealed Playstation Flo, a renamed Geikai-like streaming game, video, and music service as the newest branch of their SEN service.
• Flo works across all three Playstation devices, the PS3, PS Vita and the PS Suite for Android phones and is integrated into PS Plus.

The only real positive thing Sony experienced in 2013 was a 200% increase in Playstation Plus subscribers. The increase is credited to the key new feature Playstation Flo.

THQ’s remaining studios and their respective properties were sold to the highest bidders.

• Activision bought Volition and secured the released Saints Row 4 in the fall, and announced a new Red Faction game co-developed by Volition and Raven Software
• Square/Edios bought Relic, in an attempt to gain a foothold of the modern military shooter market. They immediately announce that Company of Heroes 2 would be delayed and simultaneously released on PC, 360 and PS3. No release window has been given.
• Take Two Interactive acquired Vigil Games and the rights to Darksiders. No announcements have been made, but development of Darksiders 3 for next gen consoles is presumed.
• EA Sports picks up the license to WWE games. WWE ‘14 was immediately delayed, and no one really cared.

Nintendo’s E3 presence was odd in that they announced new games for Wii U, but none of the games look to take full advantage of the touch pad controller.

• The Legend of Zelda U (working title) was teased at E3. Release pegged as Fall 2014, analyst predict 2016.
• Smash Bros U was announced but no mention of its previously confirmed 3DS cross platform features were mentioned. When asked about it, Reggie dodged the question several times.
• Kirby, Star Fox, and Wario games were all announced and released for 3DS, none of them got rave reviews.

The Wii U sales slumped without the presence of AAA games in the launch windows. New Super Mario Bros, continued to be the highest selling game through the year with an alarmingly high attach rate.

Pikmin 3 launched to critical acclaim, but failed to more 250,000 units. Miyamoto openly said sales were due to “Americans being obsessed with killing things, with guns.”

Digital game sales spike 150% in eight months. A combination of the increased availability of AAA games and better promotion of smaller indie games is to blame. By December, 1 in 6 games purchased for the big two consoles was independently developed.

Valve announced no new games in 2013 but spent their time pushing numerous new Steam features to stay ahead of the surprisingly stiff competition from EA’s Origin. At E3 EA announced that Mass Effect 1 and 2 would be free to download on Origin and that through Origin Battlefield 3’s multiplayer would go to free to play, and be powered by microtransactions.

Activision officially announced and released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. Sales figures are down 30% from Black Ops 2’s sales.

The Nintendo 3DS continued to dominate the portable sales numbers, and saw significant spikes after a Wii Fit game endorsed by Jillian Michaels was integrated into the pedometer of the OS.

With the success of Tomb Raider in 2013 Eidos officially brought in 50% of Square Enix’s profits. The Japanese arm of Square announced the beginning of a major restructuring of talent and assets.

GTA V launched to high initial sales but lost momentum quickly after reviews for the game were lukewarm.

• Bugs and glitches through the experience were sited as being a factor and the story was described a boring and predictable.
• Rockstar released an unprecedented number of title updates to fix the bugs but Take Two’s annual projections had to be adjusted significantly.

The Playstation Vita finally saw a price drop, but by year’s, end the complete lack of new software for the system had analyst predicting the Vita will not make it through 2014.

Xbox 360 continued to be the dominate console through 2013 and saw a 20% increase in sales after Microsoft removed Netflix streaming from behind the paywall.

Bioshock: Infinite and The Last of Us took most of the game of the year awards, but all publications acknowledged that overall the entire industry was lackluster.

Sony quietly and sadly cancelled The Last Guardian, and laid off 75% of Team Ico.

I’m sure even crazier unimaginable stuff will happen as well. What do you think will happen in 2013!?