Orange Lounge Radio

We're approaching that time again when the tabloid psychics will predict alien abduction for the English PM and the President of the USA is actually a terribly malfunctioning robot due to susceptibility to static electricity. So I'm asking for Console Gaming-related predictions for 2006. Make realistic, unrealistic, wishful, and just downright funny predictions! Please remember this is for fun and don't take anything in this thread as fact. I'll start off with one I think will happen and one "joke" prediction:

Possible (and wishful)
XBox Live Gold will support podcast subscription, playing, and publishing! The live headset and the hard drive will be required to record and publish a podcast. Just so MS won't loose valuable advertising space, they will tack on a commercial at the front, and every 20 minute interval. Maximum show length will most likely be 60 minutes. They'll probably call it Xboxcasting to avoid a nod to Apple.

Silly:
Nokia will introduce a new idea in phone-gaming with a new Burrito-shaped handheld phone with "end-talkin'"

Here's an assortment of COMPLETELY SERIOUS 2006 predictions.

* Microsoft will win the Japanese console wars.
* Blizzard will file for bankruptcy due to huge losses on WoW.
* The Nintendo Revolution will launch with a game entitled "Couch Potato," in which you control a lazy TV watcher who must defend the world against alients using his remote control -- the control scheme will earn a 10 on Gamespot.

...OK, OK, but here's a real dream of a prediction...

* The Nintendo DS will launch a new game design that connects the two screens, has a physical rather than horizontal layout, doubles the battery life, and now supports UMD movies just to stick it to Sony!

ZaBlanc wrote:Here's an assortment of COMPLETELY SERIOUS 2006 predictions.

Very funny! The Nintendo DS concept is possible, and I'd love to see it happen with a retractable hinge. The separation of the two screens just doesn't quite work in the games I have, as they mostly ignore the gap. I'm going to put a deposit on Couch Potato as soon as I can get off my ass and do something.

The separation of the two screens just doesn't quite work in the games I have, as they mostly ignore the gap.

The interesting thing I've seen is that in some games the gap is honored. Notice the star in Mario 64 when it rises up in the beginning. And in Nintendogs, they seem to account for the empty space.

So, the big question is, if the screens eventually merge, or ar at least move far closer together...which just seems obvious...how will the games determine if they need to account for the gap or not? In other words, does the API take this into account automatically?

It seems puzzling to me. And for some games, is the 3/4 inch gap a *specific* requirement? Hmmm.

Yeah I don't think a closer screen will work out since that would make the original models very hard to play on if the games will adjust to the new screens.

If they did that, we'd just have a new version of the Atari Lynx...with folding action!

Yes, it starts to violate the whole concept of "Dual Screen." Maybe the point is that some games use the two screens as if they were one, and others use the screens for distinctly different reasons.

While I'm at it, I'm going to predict a PStwo design in the same shape and size as the PSone, once the PS3 is established. However, that may be in 2007.

We need more predictions! Gaming Steve is predicting another video game crash. Although, I think it will be a recession. Commercially-developed games are mostly sequels and derivative work that cost too much. The Xbox 360 alone has paved the way for the popularity of independent games on home consoles. I think 2006 will harken in a new age of single-programmer projects. Will we have a new game craze like Tetris?

Advent Children will be pushed back to 2007, but for good reason: It will be a playable game on PS3!

Revolution will wipe out Microsoft and Sony in the console war, and all will be right with the world once again.

There will be at least twelve games with "Mario" in the title.

PSP redesign, which Sony will undoubtedly charge way too much money for. They don't want it to be "easily accessible," they want people to get second jobs to afford it.

I'll think of more later.

JustiNIC wrote:There will be at least twelve games with "Mario" in the title.

Besides existing sports title sequels, Mario and gang will go surfing, curling, wrestling, into space, and hang-gliding.