The future looks bright for Xbox 360 owners. What events, games, people, and trends will shape the rest of the year? OXM predicts the 30 things that will matter most in 2008.

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The Halo Franchise

Now that we’ve finished the fight, you think we’ve seen the last of Halo? Ha! If you believe that, we’ve got a prime piece of lunar real estate we’d like to sell you. Halo 3 will continue to remain at the top of Xbox Live’s most-played charts in 2008, fueled largely by downloadable map packs, not to mention all those user-created levels and gametypes. But Halo in general will remain as hot as ever thanks to Halo Wars, which, mark our words, will move 1 million units in its first month on shelves.

 

The City of Montreal

Any Xbox owner with an ear to the ground knows that digital goodness has been flowing from the halls of Ubisoft’s Montreal studio for years. But the French Canadian city seems to be breeding quality game development at a pace that not even Ubisoft’s 1,000-plus-employee location can handle. Welcome some new neighbors: EA’s Eastern Canada operation is set to unleash a retooled Army of Two in the first half of this year, while Eidos is entrusting the third iteration of the legendary Deus Ex franchise to a new team in their recently opened Montreal offices (albeit for 2009). The metropolis will definitely have a substantial impact on the coming year of gaming.

 

Peter Molyneux

He’s promised to make us love (your dog in Fable 2). He’s promised to make us cry (if your dog gets hurt). He’s promised a lot of things. And though famed Lionhead designer Peter Molyneux hasn’t actually promised that Fable 2 will ship in 2008, we’re pretty sure it will (though we know we’re tempting fate by saying that). We’re also quite confident that Fable 2 will be everything Molyneux promised the original would be, given the time and resources he’s had to make it happen. We’ve seen pieces of it in action already, and he’ll have the epic RPG to beat on 360 if everything comes together the way he promises.

 

Death of the Red Ring?

Nobody wants to dim the Three Red Lights more than Microsoft. Except, that is, for the hordes of us who’ve been personally affected by the system-locking Red Ring of Death. Microsoft began sneaking out Xbox 360s with the smaller, cooler 65-nanometer “Falcon” CPU chipset inside when they released the Halo 3 special-edition console this past holiday. And while those should be less prone to the problem, it’s the next revision of the system, codenamed “Jasper,” that should eliminate the problem once and for all. Jasper will pack 65nm CPUs and GPUs, the latter of which are key, as heat from the graphics chip was apparently the root cause of the RROD system failures. Ace Xbox 360 hardware insider and San Jose Mercury News reporter Dean Takahashi believes the problem-solving Jasper will hit shelves in August, meaning the light at the end of the tunnel is now visible for us all.

 

Achievements

What’s your Gamerscore? What’s your best friend’s Gamerscore? No matter what you’re playing or the types of games you like, Achievements and the Gamerscore points you get for nabbing them have become almost a meta-game within Xbox 360 culture…and within gaming at large. They tap into the geek-driven competitive nature to be the first to post in a forum or claim the top spot in the points ranking — be it on an old-school arcade machine or on your Friends List.

Not only have Achievements made finishing and fishing every point out of every game instant cred among the 360 community, but they’ve also driven a distinguishing wedge between the Xbox 360 and all other platforms. Would you rather play a game on the PS3 or the Wii and earn zero points, or earn some sort of reward — no matter how nebulous or real-world worthless it is (thank god you can’t boost your Gamerscore via gold farming routes on eBay…yet) — for playing that very same game? It seems like many gamers prefer the latter route, and this may be the stealth reason that 360 will continue its success among multiplatform game sales in 2008.

 

Third-Party Software

With the juggernaut known as Halo 3 already out and about in 2007, what’s next for Microsoft’s first-party publishing arm? Sure, there’s always the chance that inevitable announcements of blockbuster sequels like Gears of War 2 could be lurking around the corner, but with a rather sparse confirmed lineup for this year compared to last (Fable 2, Halo Wars, and Ninja Gaiden II count among the ’08 highlights thus far), Microsoft’s going to have to lean hard on third parties like EA, Activision Blizzard, and Ubisoft to stoke gamers’ fires for much of 2008 while it readies its own arsenal of titles. Luckily, third parties are up to the challenge, with a roster of titles such as Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell Conviction, EA’s Mercenaries 2, and Bethesda’s Fallout 3.

 

Peter Jackson

Yeah, we know — we put the Oscar-winner in last year’s list, too. But we feel pretty comfortable in predicting his impact on 360 this year, as we’re bound to hear something about his shrouded-in-secrecy Halo film/game/thingamabob. To be honest, we’re not sure Microsoft itself even knew what Jackson’s project was in 2007, but we’re rather confident they know what they have on their hands now. In fact, this could very well be the company’s secret weapon at E3 2008.

 

Real-Time Strategy Games Get Real

Wasn’t our feature last month proof enough that this genre is here to stay on 360? Halo Wars, Tom Clancy’s EndWar, World in Conflict, Universe at War, Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath, Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution, and Supreme Commander will all be out this year, which will probably trigger more PC-to-360 ports and the announcement of new 360 RTS offerings, too. The 360: not just “The Shooter Box” anymore!

 

Open Betas

Hey, wanna help make Halo 3 really super-awesome? How about lending a hand to polish Call of Duty 4 to a military shine? Two of the biggest shooters of 2007 had public beta tests, and we don’t think they’re the last. Not only is it a brilliant way for developers and publishers to gather various data on how people play multiplayer modes, but it also puts the game into our hands early to raise anticipation for its release.

With the proliferation of Xbox Live in homes across North America, publishers have just discovered their 6-million-strong testing department — and having your friends see you on their Friends Lists playing early games works like free advertising in a viral network for those same companies. Open multiplayer betas won’t go away anytime soon — and even if we 360 owners are just cheap labor or cogs in the wheel of corporate advertising, we should be happy to get our hands on games early to try them out for ourselves.

 

User-Defined Gameplay

Mash-ups are so universal these days that they can’t even be called counterculture any more — and “universal” is going to include games to an unprecedented level in 2008. Last year got things off to a glorious start: Halo 3’s Forge and theater led the charge, but games like Tiger Woods 08 also entered the fray in fine style by allowing gamers to record their craziest feats and upload them as playable clips for others to try to beat. And it seemed like just about every game let you save screenshots or video clips off to a website.

Now that developers have had some practice letting us in on the action, it’s only going to get bigger, better, and more frequent. If Harmonix does go through with releasing the Rock Band authoring tools that’d let regular folk put their own music in the game, that mushroom cloud you’ll see over San Francisco will be us detonating with delight. And hey — maybe Microsoft will finally let us sell our in-game clothing designs from Tony Hawk on Marketplace! Not.

 

Music Licensing

Music has mattered in games for a good long time now, from setting a mood to helping break new bands. But we think 2008 is going to be the year where it really matters. Between Rock Band and Guitar Hero, music games are on the verge of a pop-culture crossover the likes of which the Wii last enjoyed, and that means the biggest-name bands should finally take notice. Our prediction is that much-clamored-for acts like Led Zeppelin, U2, Van Halen, The Beatles, and AC/DC will finally realize that these games help their fans enjoy their music even more, and licensing doesn’t always mean selling your soul to a deodorant commercial. Sure, indie bands will still get breaks on many a game soundtrack, and probably the first thing we’ll still do in any EA game is go to the Options and mute the EA Trax. But we can’t wait for the crème de la crème of everyone’s favorite music to land in games at last.

 

Co-op Campaigns

Gears of War’s supremely polished, built-from-the-ground-up two-player cooperative campaign was the shot heard ’round the gaming world. But Halo 3’s four-player co-op campaign upped the ante for all. With online gaming on consoles at a fevered pitch, why shouldn’t it be the 360’s job to make good on the whole “It’s good to play together” motto?

This is the year for that promise to come to light. Games like EA’s Army of Two — a two-player co-op shooter — may lead the charge in 2008, but expect plenty of other games to follow suit, including Rainbow Six Vegas 2’s promise of four-player hijinks and Unreal Tournament III’s team hoping to implement it, too. We already know of a good handful of triple-A shooters headed 360’s way that’ll incorporate co-op support for up to four players…though we can’t reveal them just yet. Just know that it’s not a feature that’ll be going away anytime soon, and make sure to flesh out your Friends List now.

 

Codemasters

We love it when a star starts to rise, and Codemasters had a fantastic 2007 with stellar games like Dirt and Overlord mesmerizing us for most of the summer. Sure, mistakes were made — [cough] Jericho [cough] — but by and large, this UK shop vaulted up our not-so-top-secret list of Developers Who Matter. And what they have up their sleeve in 2008 is a big part of why. Leading the charge is Race Driver: Grid, which is the next in the always-excellent TOCA series, but renamed for broader appeal; after Dirt, we can’t wait to drive their next game. And on a different front, actioners Heist and Turning Point also look most promising. Plus, we can always hope, however unrealistically, for Overlord 2!

 

Gearbox

Some developers (like Bungie, Epic, and BioWare) are discussed with the reverence that comes from having earned gamers’ devotion and trust — over and over again. Others, like Gearbox, are one small rung down on the ladder of gamer adoration, and while they have a great reputation, they haven’t yet crafted their breakout masterpiece. This year, we think Gearbox is going to take its rightful place on the pedestal next to the big boys. Between this spring’s Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway (which looks like the one WWII game to rule them all) and this holiday’s Borderlands (a sci-fi fresh start), those boys in Plano, Texas, have a lot of terrific gaming headed straight for your 360. Look out.

 

GTA IV DLC

Believe it: Those are the eight biggest letters of 2008. Before this generation of consoles, digital delivery of game content was mainly left to those of us gamers connected to the internet with a mouse and keyboard. Now it’s a mainstay for everything from “updating” software and a system’s firmware to giving us access to new maps, bite-sized games, and all-new gameplay. But it’s the upcoming exclusive downloadable content for Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV that should firmly plant the flag in console ground as a sign of things to come.

On the same day he promised the game’s cross-platform release, former Xbox VP Peter Moore guaranteed that Xbox 360 owners would see episodic content released on Xbox Live Marketplace that would extend the GTA IV experience. What it’ll be is still under lock and key at Rockstar North’s studio — but having the option to keep on keeping on in Niko’s America is definitely a tantalizing gameplay boon that will shape how games are delivered to console gamers in 2008 and years beyond.

 

So Long, Little Guy

Activision, Sierra, and Blizzard have joined forces to form some sort of gaming-nirvana Voltron. EA has gone and turned gaming’s biggest indie-development duo — BioWare and Pandemic — into direct reports. While BioWare and its ilk can’t exactly be called “little guys” and publishers buying out small studios is nothing new, gaming’s mega-merger madness of late 2007 foretells a more consolidated future for 2008.

Will the games biz become a lot more like the movie industry, with several monolithic studios branching off into different brands, including “indie” ones? It’s entirely possible, but one thing’s for sure — in the current climate of rising development costs and massive publisher battles for the top slot, the little guy still has an outlet in casual games — and that includes Xbox Live Arcade. Smaller, idea-driven studios like Chair Entertainment (Undertow) and the not-so-teeny PopCap Games (Zuma, Heavy Weapon) continue to use digital-distribution channels on consoles and major casual-gaming websites on PC to deliver their goods with, hopefully, continued success…or until they’re bought.

 

Creeping Sony Paranoia

Looking back, 2007’s software story was all Xbox 360. BioShock, Mass Effect, Rock Band, Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero III, and oh yeah, Halo 3 — you name a hot game, it was on 360. Raise a glass and toast to the platform’s success! And yet…we can’t help but think that PlayStation 3, while not a huge factor so far, is due for a rally. It could be Metal Gear Solid 4, it could be Blu-ray, it could be a price drop, or PlayStation Home, or even GTA’s release on what many gamers feel is its “native” platform. Whatever it turns out to be, we expect to hear that PS3 is “closing the gap in the console wars” thanks to one or more of those long-overdue boosts. It’s not over yet.

 

Unreal Tournament III

You always want what you cannot have. When we played UT III on Xbox 360 debug hardware for our July 2007 cover story, we were downright giddy — the multiplayer looked and felt great. But then Epic shifted, um, gears to focus on the PC and PS3 editions instead, leaving us feeling more than a little jilted. However, with main sci-fi shooter rival Halo 3 securely in the rear-view mirror by mid-2008 — and a good 18 months of post–Gears of War improvements to the Unreal Engine in Epic’s back pocket — look for Stephen Polge, Mark Rein, and the rest of the UT team to blow holes in anything that moves. If GTA is the savior for the spring, watch for UT III to carry 360 through the summer.

 

HDMI

Why would you stick with component cables and their five-headed hydra of plugs if you can get a single cord that carries high-definition video and a full surround-sound signal? You wouldn’t. And that’s why the entire consumer electronics industry is embracing the high-definition multimedia interface — more commonly abbreviated as HDMI — as the standard connector for everything from home theater to video gaming. If you don’t have a TV with at least one HDMI jack now, you soon will, as virtually every HDTV sold this coming year will come HDMI-equipped. We expect ubiquity to drive down the outlandish prices of cables this year, too.

 

Political Noise

It’s hard to predict what the biggest talking points will be in an election year, but we’re pretty sure that games will be in the crosshairs. In the wake of the Manhunt 2 kerfuffle, Senators Hillary Clinton, Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Sam Brownback called for ESRB ratings reform in late 2007. With the gritty, controversial GTA IV due in 2008’s early months and projected to sell strong throughout the year, gaming is too juicy a target for any hot button–hungry candidate to ignore.

 

The Fuzzy Future of 2008

Was 2007 the best year in gaming? It certainly was the best year yet for quality Xbox software. So many top-notch games shipped in 2007 — so many that several titles moved their release dates to 2008 just to get out of the way. But after that slam-bang holiday season…um, then what? Look beyond GTA, Halo Wars, and the strong probability of Fable 2, and the pickings get pretty slim. Alan Wake, Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter IV…they’re all on the horizon, but we don’t really expect them until 2009. So what will fill the months in-between? As solid as the recent past has been, the future is unsettlingly unstable.

 

Gamer Culture Goes Mainstream

Slowly but surely, gaming is getting out of the cultural ghetto. Suddenly, G4 isn’t the only place you can see videogame ads. Mainstream media reports on game launches the way they used to only discuss big-movie opening weekends. Hot Topic stocks entirely modern Gears of War and Guitar Hero shirts right alongside the kitschy/ironic retro-tendo apparel — and new company G8 is targeting gamers specifically with edgy tees. We’re even hearing game references dropped in sitcoms and dramas without a punchline to polish them off. That trend will only continue — as consoles invade more households this year, look for gaming to continue its subtle transition from mostly geek to somewhat chic.

 

Story

Even the most hardcore gamers will concede that story is gaming’s Achilles’ heel. As game consoles and PCs grow ever-more-powerful, we’ve seen amazing achievements in graphics and sound, but not always a good, strong narrative to go with them.

And yet, there’s hope for the future. Some of 2007’s best — and best-selling —360 games boasted stories that were remarkably fresh and compelling. Mass Effect’s heroic sci-fi saga left us breathless, as did BioShock’s tale of tragedy amid the ocean depths. And with Half-Life 2, its Episodes, and especially Portal, The Orange Box blessed us with one giant package of writing brilliance. In this year more than most, story became prominent in the industry’s collective mind, and we think that interest will pay dividends in 2008. Hopefully, as publishers look at design docs and gamers make purchasing decisions, story will become a bigger consideration, and we’ll begin to see more discussion and more development focused on the power of a good plot.

 

Gears of War 2

Sure, it hasn’t been officially announced yet, and it may not be for months to come. But with Microsoft reporting Gears of War’s sales in excess of 4 million copies for Xbox 360, everyone feels a sequel is inevitable. And mere confirmation of that follow-up — the second in a rumored trilogy — will rock the gaming world. Now that Gears is a proven property (with a PC port to boot), we’re expecting Microsoft to put some serious muscle into promoting their next big system-seller. As the console wars grow increasingly competitive, the frenzy surrounding Gears of Wars 2 may rival that of Halo 3. Luckily, Epic is a studio that can deliver on the hype.

 

Rock Band: The Platform

Remember when RedOctane promised that Guitar Hero II would have “more downloadable content than any other 360 title”? Well, that vision was partly realized — as of mid-December, 24 downloadable GHII songs were on Live Marketplace, and a few more may hit before year’s end. But with Rock Band, Harmonix is taking this idea to the next level — 24 downloadable songs were available for Rock Band within the first month of its release. And the developer claims this trend will continue for the foreseeable future.

It all ties into Harmonix’s long-term plan for the game — a plan wherein Rock Band isn’t simply the first in a franchise, but is itself the franchise. If the string of downloadable songs continues throughout 2008 — and we have no reason to think it won’t — Rock Band has the potential to be a platform unto itself: perpetually upgradable, with no big expenses for gamers (other than individual songs) and no huge sequel-developing investment for Harmonix and MTV. And we’re perfectly happy with that. When the base game is this good, we’d rather spend the year playing new songs for it than waiting empty-handed for Rock Band 2. 

 

Fewer 360-Exclusive Titles

Unlike some of the other OXM 30, we’re not eager for this trend. But it’s indisputable: 2008 will burst the exclusivity bubble we’ve enjoyed on Xbox 360 for the last year or so. 360 owners have had it good for a while, getting big third-party games that other platforms never received such as Splinter Cell Double Agent, BioShock, and the upcoming Splinter Cell Conviction. But with the Wii’s and PS3’s rapidly expanding installed bases, game publishers have extra incentive to make titles multi-platform, where they can reach the maximum number of consumers.

Changes in some of Microsoft’s developer deals have affected 360 exclusivity, too. The publisher still owns the Halo license, but not Bungie Studios; and while the now-privately-owned developer says it’s really interested in making games only for 360 right now, we wonder how long that will last. For its part, Mass Effect developer BioWare says it has no plans to produce sequels to the Microsoft-published game for any system besides the 360, but the studio’s recent purchase by EA boosts the odds of future chapters (or re-issues) reaching other consoles.

It’s the nature of the business economy — 2008 will be the year of sharing with the other kids.

 

MMOs on 360

Despite its graphical power and amazing online capabilities, the Xbox 360 has had just one massively multiplayer game to date. (Phantasy Star Universe doesn’t quite qualify.) And Final Fantasy XI hasn’t really garnered the mindshare or critical reception that’d prove the genre’s success on our platform.
That’s why all eyes will be on Age of Conan in 2008. As the next MMO to hit the 360, it’s a second litmus test for the category, and it could influence whether future MMOs are produced — or ported to — the platform.

 

Price Tweaks

As the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 grow increasingly competitive in 2008, the console-makers will focus more on price than ever before — and that means more than just price drops. Microsoft will put incredible care into managing the price-points of its three different 360 SKUs (360, Elite, Arcade) — perhaps introducing new SKUs — as it tries to entice any and all customers.

Better yet for current 360 owners, we’re expecting Microsoft to add greater flexibility to pricing of Live Arcade games and other Marketplace products. In late 2007, the publisher finally began tweaking pricing of XBLA games, offering select older titles at discounted prices. As Microsoft becomes more comfortable with sales and other tweaks to Marketplace pricing, we think these first steps will evolve into a full-fledged walk, with retail-style price-tiering and discounting becoming the norm.

 

XNA Is Ready to Play

This issue’s preview of Schizoid signifies a big jump for XNA — for the first time, a professional dev studio has taken Microsoft’s user-aimed software development kit and built a game with it. Meanwhile, XNA Game Studio 2.0 will be ready soon, adding better functionality to the program. What’s that spell for the average 360 gamer? XNA will finally take off as a generator of retail games this year, with more and more users building games that their fellow gamers can enjoy on Live Marketplace. Early developmental screens of games like Alex Okafor’s Gunstyle have us jazzed at the prospect. Fingers crossed.

 

More XBLA Originality

For a long time after its debut, Xbox Live Arcade had a split personality. On the one hand, it included some fresh original games that seemed custom-made for the service, such as Marble Blast Ultra, Geometry Wars, and Heavy Weapon. At the same time, it offered oodles of retro coin-op ports — some great (Gauntlet, Time Pilot) but many mediocre (Scramble, Robotron 2084, Yie Ar Kung-Fu). The upshot: on a given week, the quality of the XBLA release was a crapshoot.

Thankfully, Live Arcade seems to be moving toward fewer recycled coin-ops and more original games. 2007 closed with some solid non-retro releases — Undertow, Mutant Storm Empire, Every Extend Extra Extreme, and Switchball — and many XBLA games slated for 2008 are either all-new titles (Castle Crashers, Penny Arcade Adventures, Schizoid) or retooled ports of underappreciated console titles (Rez HD). Either way, Arcade gamers stand to benefit in the coming year with more than just memories to sustain the service.

 

We're not done! Check out our thoughts on the things that won't matter in 2008, the things that might matter in 2009, and the whole Japan thing in the Online Extras for The OXM 30.