As 2008 draws to a close it is now the time to look back on a year in gaming – remembering the highs, the lows and the most important videogame industry and hardware news of the year just gone.
For many, including us, the biggest surprise of the year has been the sheer number of quality triple-A games released by both the three first parties - Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft - and their numerous third-party publishing partners. Just check out the line-up of gaming goodness that adorns the shelves of your local gaming emporium this Christmas. As gamers we have never had it so good.
January to March (Q1)
Perhaps the biggest gaming news of the first quarter of the year ('Q1' to the marketeers) was also the biggest home cinema news of 2008 – the end of the HD DVD format, giving Blu-ray a much clearer shot at longer-term success.
Although it will be interesting to see how game and movie download services fare in the next 12 months, what with the recent launch of Virgin Media's 50mbps broadband service in the UK and (no doubt) many other broadband providers soon to follow suit, driving down prices of ultra-fast internet connections for us all.
As we moved towards Easter, TechRadar was the first to bring you the news of one of a number of aggressive Xbox 360 price cuts Microsoft made throughout 2008, taking the 360 to a lower price-point than Nintendo's mega-successful Wii.
As it stands right now, you can pick up an Xbox 360 Arcade unit pretty much anywhere you like for a penny or two under £100. For many, the price difference between that and the PS3 (with Sony steadfast at around the £300 mark) has been the reason why they are still to invest in the new generation of PlayStation gaming and Blu-ray movie viewing.
If Sony doesn't perform notably better with PS3 in 2009 – responding to the joint threat of the growing take-up of downloadable movie services and the move away from well-known third party developers and publishers investing their time and money in 'PlayStation exclusives' – then by this time next year we may well be sounding the death knell for PlayStation.
Metal Gear Solid 4, LittleBigPlanet and Home, while 'interesting', have not been the money spinners that Sony Computer Entertainment so desperately needed this year. Though with any luck we might all be looking forward to playing THE PS3 exclusive we are all gagging for at Christmas in 2009, with Polyphony Digital's Gran Turismo 5 rumoured to be finally down for release in late 2009.
Gaming has been hitting tabloid headlines, more often than not for the wrong/misguided reasons, more so than ever before this year. Yet one person who has tried to work with gamers and the games industry to help parents and non-gamers have a better understanding of games has been well-known psychologist, Tanya Byron – who produced a report for Gordon Brown's government, with a number of recommendations for ways in which we can all work together to ensure children and younger teens do not get access to violent 18-rated videogames or to inappropriate content online.
Annoyingly, Byron's recommendation that there needs to be a much clearer, more widely understood ratings system for games has had the effect of sparking off a rather long (largely unproductive) war of words between the two current ratings bodies – with the ongoing row between ELSPA/PEGI versus the independent BBFC due to come to an end early in the new year when a decision is made about how games should be rated.
Whatever the outcome of that decision, TechRadar hopes that it means more parents understand that some games (indeed, more and more games) are truly 'adult' entertainment and most definitely not suitable for minors!
April – June (Q2)/ July – September (Q3)
Rockstar's magnum opus, Grand Theft Auto IV, was far and away the biggest game release of 2008, dominating games news sites throughout April and, following its 27 April launch, with plenty of post-release news and forum chatter dominating many gaming sites throughout the spring and into the summer.
TechRadar's very own James Rivington pondered the fanboy extremists and the propaganda exercises of the console manufacturers surrounding the games release. Whatever your flavour, we imagine that you are looking forward to the release of new downloadable GTA IV episodes in 2009.
E3 returns to its earlier summer slot at the LA Convention Center next year, but this year's show was a somewhat muted affair, with most hardware and software companies focusing on the short-term (Sell! Sell! Sell!) more so than laying out any kind of longer-term vision for gaming and gaming tech.
TechRadar managed to catch up with Sony PlayStation boss, Kaz Hirai as well as managing to nab a good front row seat at all the major press conferences including EA, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony and others.
Aside from the fact that we managed to get an audience with PlayStation boss Kaz Hirai and a bunch of other top gaming execs, and the news that Microsoft announce gamers will soon be able to run their games from their Xbox 360 hard drives and a few new Wii peripherals announced by Nintendo, this year's E3 was not really a lot to write home about. Roll on E3 2009!
This year's summer silly season was marked by a number of rampantly speculative stories about Wii 2, Xbox 720 and PS4. And while TechRadar enjoyed the madness thoroughly we also reminded ourselves to take a long holiday in August 2009!
October – December (Q4)
Q4 is when the games industry battens down the hatches and gets ready to spend its marketing budgets in an attempt to capture that all-important Christmas dollar (*ahem*… pound).
If Easter time is when the industry wakes up from its post-Xmas slumber, the long summer recess that follows it is only punctuated by the joys of the annual trip to the Electronic Entertainment Expo in La La Land, Q4 or 'the holidays' is the time when the real hard work needs to get done. Speak to pretty much any game publishing exec in late December and they will all tell you the same thing – "I'm just looking forward to having a rest!"
Q4 is also traditionally the time when we start to get excited about the tech possibilities for the coming year ahead. Fully immersive 3D gaming on PlayStation looks like it may well be appearing in the very near future, which is about the most exciting game related news we have heard all year. Fact.
We already know that the Nintendo DSi rocks, because we have been lucky enough to be able to play the one that T3 bought in on import from Japan when it released last month. You can read our full review of the DSi right here and start to get excited about what Nintendo has in store for handheld games and fun DS utilities in 2009.
The new Wario DSi title and a bunch of other quirky downloadable games launch in Japan later this week. TechRadar hopes to see the DSi in the UK earlier rather than later in 2009, but as ever with Nintendo, they won't tell us any of their secrets!
Elsewhere in the world of handheld gaming, the much-maligned Gizmondo 2 looks like it is still on track for release in 2009 – although this time around it will be much more of a general smart-phone type device than a stand-along gaming console. We await the release with baited breath! (A polite way of saying 'we will believe it when we see it'!).
And those rumours about a PSP mark 2 being in development also refuse to go away – stay tuned for more on that particular story from the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas next month.
Right now though, it's time to unwrap Fallout 3, gift wrap the Wii Fit for the wife and stuff the Christmas bird ready for a well-deserved week of actually PLAYING some games, instead of writing about them. See you on the other side in 2009 ;)
melts itself before an uppercut can be unleashed.
