VideoGamer.com’s Visionary Top 5: Microsoft in 2008

Welcome to VideoGamer.com’s Visionary Top 5 series. 2007 has been an amazing year for gamers – some say the best ever. Will 2008 be able to match it? VideoGamer.com gazed into the crystal ball to find out what gaming’s greatest minds have in store for us next year. Today we predict what Microsoft will be blessing us with in 2008… Merry Christmas!

MS will release a 360 with an in-built HD-DVD player for Christmas 2008

Got a HD TV but no way of playing disc-based HD movies? Yeah. Me too. So wouldn’t it be cool if you could buy a super elite 360 that would do just that? Of course it would. Then there would be no need to fork out £100 for the HD-DVD add on Microsoft is selling. Sure, MS has held strong and made the HD-DVD drive great value by allowing you to send off for five free HD-DVDs when you buy it, but I can’t be bothered with all that. And I don’t have the shelf space for it either. We reckon MS will cave to gamer pressure and announce a new 360 model next year with an in built HD-DVD player, for about £280. Mark our words.

Gears of War 2 will come out in November 2008

Bit of a no brainer this one. We’ve already seen some Internet retailers list the follow up to Epic’s monster hit for November 15, 2008, exactly two years after the first game came out. While we know that retailer release dates are as hit and miss as Peter Crouch, we kind of think this one is more realistic. Two years is perfectly long enough to get the game done, and MS needs a big game for Christmas 2008, and they don’t come any bigger than Marcus Fenix and a giant mutant-splitting chainsaw. Oh, and it will of course look amazing.

Rare will start to show its worth

Let’s be honest, cult GoldenEye 64 developer Rare hasn’t exactly set the world on fire since it was snapped up for a paltry $377 million in September 2002. All they’ve made for Xbox 360 is Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, Viva Piñata and… Jet Pack Refuelled on XBL Arcade. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like what Rare can do. Time for Rare to step up, and we reckon 2008 is the year they’re going to do it. There’s definitely a new Banjo Kazooie coming to 360, but how about Kameo 2, a new Perfect Dark and, wait for it, Killer Instinct 3, as hinted on the Christmas card sent to game journalists last week. But don’t expect another beat-em-up 2D fans, we predict a re imagining of the 90’s arcade classic as a God of War killer. You heard it here first.

Microsoft will cut the price of the Xbox 360 to counter Sony’s introduction of Home on PS3

Home, a virtual “Second Life” style hub for Sony’s online service on PS3, will, we reckon, be coming out in Easter, and for free too. To counter this, we reckon MS will indulge in some price-cutting goodness for the 360. It won’t be much, for sure, but it will still be seen by many as a step in the right direction. MS said last week that it intends to sell more 360s in 2008 than in 2007. We can’t see this happening unless the price of the thing gets a good seeing to, and Easter, or Christmas 2, as the men in suits like to call it, would be the perfect time. How about £179.99 for the 360 Arcade, £220 for the Premium and £279 for the Elite? Done.

The Xbox 360 will continue to be the leading console in terms of game sales, but won’t top the Wii

While we reckon the 360 won’t catch the all-conquering Nintendo Wii in the UK in terms of hardware sales, we think it will still be the platform of choice for game sales. So you’ll see games that sell the most will be on the 360. Regarding hardware, it’s difficult to predict who will be number one in the race for number two – we don’t have official figures for hardware sales in the UK. But there is a feeling that the PS3 is doing well, and will have a better time of it in 2008 as better games come out. Our prediction? The 360 will edge out the PS3 but the gap will be minuscule. Round two! Fight!