BJ's E3 Predictions

Oh thank heavens, E3 is right around the corner.

And this year, Nintendo isn’t putting on a press conference again, and Sony, Microsoft, EA, and Ubisoft are ALL putting THEIR press conferences on in a single day. So essentially there will be lots to talk about in a couple weeks’ time.

So, I may as well throw a few predictions out there.

I will put out my predictions, officially, in chronological order of when each press conference is going to be.

Microsoft

• I will be pleasantly surprised if Microsoft actually brings games to E3 again this year.  Let’s see, probably it’ll be half games and half all the cool media things you can do on the Xbox One again.  Nice one Microsoft.  Sorry to see you won’t sell the Xbox division to Nintendo, as they will need all the help they can get.

EA

• We’ll find out more about Star Wars Battlefront (I. am. SO. stoked.), maybe more on their latest sports games (and see the guy who sold out Shenmue to Microsoft, Peter Moore, for half the presser), and maybe one or two major surprises. Maybe.

Ubisoft

• I’m only going to watch this for Aisha Tyler, one of the funniest ladies out there, and I will just hope that Ubi starts to put out an epic lineup. But it’s Ubisoft so I won’t expect it.

Sony

• Well… Sony really needs to pull more than a few exclusives out of its hat. Luckily Sony realizes this and is probably going to pull out the mega-exclusive. People have been requesting Shenmue to be on PlayStation systems for months now (myself being one of them) and I think the time is right for Sony to announce that they have cinched one of the greatest exclusive deals ever.  It will net them tons of goodwill, and a TON of new hardware sales.  Just do it Sony. Just do it.

Nintendo

• We know of only a few games that are known to be coming out later this year: Smash Wii U (Winter), Smash 3DS (Summer 2014), Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire (November 2014)… and that is about it.  So, Nintendo will very likely bring the games.  What kinds of games, you ask? Well…
• There is a mystery 3DS game that they were talking about with an upcoming 90-minute event.  However, I don’t think they would spend 90 minutes on a single, solitary mystery 3DS title, but more than likely we’ll see three, so my predictions on this one are thus:
• I think Metroid is overdue for a reboot. Metroid could very well still be the ‘mystery 3DS title’ they were talking about (possibly Metroid Dread, which would no longer be vaporware).
• Another franchise that is overdue for a reboot is the (Famicom) Wars franchise, because Advance Wars kinda took a nosedive after they attached the Advance Wars name to the dreadful Days of Ruin.
• And one more franchise that is in dire need of a reboot is the Star Fox franchise.  There are far too many games that are fair-to-middling in that franchise, and Star Fox 64 3D, while a great game in its own right, just doesn’t do it for everybody.  So, it could be that a Star Fox game could still come out and be retooled for the ‘modern gamer’.
• Next, I think we’ll finally see the end of 3DS system-wide friend codes, and friend codes in general.  Sayonara, you didn’t serve anybody well.
• Another radical idea is that Nintendo will FINALLY take the universal eShop accounts to its most logical extreme: FULLY universal eShop accounts, tied in with Club Nintendo, that allow you to redownload ANY game you have previously bought, not just on your most recent systems.
• Add on to that the idea I have that you can do a one-time migration, through Club Nintendo, that you can get rid of the games you don’t want anymore for some much-needed eShop credit. (I mean come on, who on Earth would want to redownload that godawful Lego City game for the 3DS unless you actually LIKED that trash pile?).
• One final prediction, NOT having anything to do with the NFC stuff that everyone and their mother would be talking about, is that I would like to see Iwata try and promote the heck out of Japanese television show Game Center CX outside of its native Japan.  No Retro Game Master, or whatever that dreadful steaming pile was.  Just Game Center CX, subtitled for those of us who like that, dubbed for those who like that, but please don’t try to make GCCX into Iron Chef again. Please, just don’t.  GCCX is absolutely NOT Iron Chef, nor should it ever be.