1) Wiis will be in short supply until Spring when supply will have met demand. Without many blockbuster games, Wiis won't be flying off the shelves until we get closer to the holiday season, which is when most of the key 2007 Wii titles will ship.
2) PS3s will be easily found throughout the year. Blue laser yields are no longer a problem. Plus, there will be no PS3 price drop. And as long as it retails for $500/600, the barrier of entry is too high for the average consumer.
3) Xbox 360 will have a repeat of 2006 sales-wise. Having an established library plus a lot of major releases will help it to hold its ground against two new competitors.
4) Specifically in Japan, the Xbox 360 will see an increase in sales as many Japanese developers have games coming out for it. "Increase," however, does not mean it will outperform the PS3 or Wii. Sorry Microsoft.
5) The PlayStation 3 will lose more exclusives. In particular, we're guessing Metal Gear Solid 4 and Devil May Cry 4 will both either lose exclusivity or, more likely, be timed exclusives. However, this will do more to help Microsoft than to hurt Sony as people will still look to PlayStation to play these franchises first.
6) Nintendo of America will finally learn that the US should be getting Virtual Console releases more in line with what Japan gets. Yes, this is the prediction that is most in line with "wishful thinking." I think we deserve at least one.
7) Microsoft's XNA, used by many students and indie developers, will see several releases as full-blown XBLA games, achievements and all. But we will also see a more open system where games can be downloaded and played directly from the 360 in a more YouTube-like manner, without going through the process of becoming a XBLA game.
8) Nintendo will not release its own version of XNA, much to the chagrin of indie developers with Wii ideas everywhere.
9) Sony will also not have an XNA equivalent, instead focusing more on improving its own online offerings for the PS3, which are currently lacking compared to the Xbox 360.
10) The E for All Expo, formerly the GamePro Expo, one of the two offshoots of E3 of old, will have almost none of the major announcements and surprises that E3 had due to it falling just before holiday season.
11) The new Summer E3, an invitation-only affair, will still carry the massive pre-E3 press events of old, and as such also include the major announcements for the year.
12) All three will have good pre-E3 press events, but Sony will slightly edge out the competition in hype generation (yes, I know I was wrong on this one last year, but hear me out). Despite any sort of lost exclusives, Sony has a lot of third party content coming to the PS3. Combine that with some quality first party content (seen that Naughty Dog game trailer yet?) and a surprise teaser trailer for Team ICO's next game.
13) We saved our ballsiest prediction for last. Whether its true or not is yet to be seen, but many have said that 2007 is the battleground for this generation. Whoever comes out on top will have enough momentum at that point to remain on top for the next four years. At the end of the year, we expect Xbox 360 to be on top with about 20 million units sold worldwide, followed closely by Wii and lastly PlayStation 3.
That wraps it up for 2007 predictions. Prediction 13 could really go any way. All three consoles are doing a lot of things right and some things wrong. But you readers wanted ballsy, so we had to make a tough call. We even threw in the loss of exclusives and the ICO team to sweeten the deal.
