Visionary Top 5: Sony

With video game publishers focussing more and more on what’s around the corner, rather than looking ahead to what’s due a year from now, predicting the big games and moments of 2009 isn’t easy. But that hasn’t stopped us gazing into our gaming crystal ball and bringing you our predictions on what’s going to happen next year. Here, we run down our top tips for 2009 for all you Sony fanboys out there.

PS3 price cuts

Although Sony has been adamant in recent weeks about there being no planned PS3 price cut, it’s going to happen. No one announces a price cut until just before it happens in order to limit damage to sales, but we reckon a cut and appealing game bundle just in time for the Easter holiday is a nigh-on certainty. We’re going to predict a £30 price cut, which will create some very attractive multi-game 80GB PS3 bundles. Whether that’s cheap enough is another matter, but we imagine there’ll be some more price cutting in the lead up to Christmas 09.

Home pricing rethink

Home has launched, but it’s not really what we all had in mind when it was first shown off many, many months ago. For one, it costs real money to do the kind of things you expect to be free. Considering this is a social networking virtual space, charging people to set up a club seems ridiculous and the cost of individual items is far too high at the moment. Home needs to offer an abundance of free content in order for people to care about it in the first place, and only then should Sony think about charging people for extras. Sony can start by offering more customisation options for your avatar. At the moment this isn’t good enough, especially considering your enjoyment more or less rests on this virtual character. Because of this, we reckon Sony will rethink much of it’s Home pricing strategy in 2009, making it, frankly, loads better.

FFXIII won’t be released in the UK in 2009

Final Fantasy XIII might be guaranteed to bring the gaming world grinding to a halt when it’s released, but we have no idea when that’ll be. For some reason, people seem to think it’s going to hit European shores in 2009. Sorry to spoil the JRPG party, people, but it won’t. Why? We’ve heard next to nothing from Square Enix’s Western offices about the game. All we’ve got are some trailers. While these are stunning, none reveal gameplay to any satisfactory level. For all intents and purposes, we know next to nothing about the title. We’re all very excited, but we’re not holding our breath. Given how long we reckon us Brits are going to have to wait for the localisation of the European version, that’s probably a prudent decision.

Sony will offer downloadable PS2 games through PSN

Microsoft already offers select Xbox games to download, and with such a huge library of brilliant games under its belt, not offering classic PS2 games to download for the PS3 seems like a wasted opportunity for Sony. Considering most PS3s don’t offer backwards compatibility there’s even more reason to offer a download service in 2009. If we had to place our bets on titles to launch the service with, we’d go with Metal Gear Solid 2, Ico, Ratchet and Clank 3 and Twisted Metal Black. Pricing of downloadable games is a hotly debated subject, but we’re going to take a stab at PS2 games on PS3 costing £14.99.

Sony’s blockbuster holiday releases will be…

All being well, Sony will release some blockbuster games for the PS3 and PSP in 2009, but what will be their big autumn titles? We think that Uncharted 2 will arrive in late September, wowing gamers with spectacular visuals and the same high quality storytelling of the original, followed by the year’s biggest PS3 exclusive, God of War 3, in November. And let’s not forget the sales behemoth that is Gran Turismo. GT5 will sell consoles in a big way. The PSP won’t miss out either, with LittlerBigPlanet arriving in October, a year after the PS3 game and with PS3 connectivity via PSN.

Agree? Disagree? What do you think will be the big games and moments for the PS3 and PSP in 2009? Let us know in the comments section below.