This past week Kotaku put a comprehensive look into its crystal ball, breaking down what's ahead for the major platforms, while also looking at the agendas and priorities of games' top influencers and constituencies over the 365 days to come.

This is our equivalent of baseball's hot stove league, when the season's done but there's still fun in pulling up a chair to opine and speculate. Please rejoin us and your fellow readers in the following features and discussions of 2010, the year to come in games.

2010: The Year Of Better PSP Games?</
2010: The Year Of Better PlayStation 3 Games?
2010: The Year of Better Xbox 360 Games?
2010: The Year of Better PC Games?
2010: The Year Of Better Wii Games?
2010: The Year of Better Nintendo DS Games?

What Won't Be Coming To Video Gaming In 2010

You're A Gamer In 2010 ... What Will You Do?
You're A Game Developer in 2010...What Will You Do?
You Run A Big Game Publisher In 2010...What Will You Do?
You're A Video Game Retailer In 2010...What Will You Do?

Hardly takes Nate Silver to make such grandiose calls, but EA's sim gave us the Patriots with the best overall record at 14-2. Other division winners predicted: Steelers, Titans and Chargers in the AFC; Eagles, Falcons, Cardinals and Bears (because someone has to finish first in that bunch) in the NFC.

The Colts, Ravens, Panthers and Giants get wild card bids. This means that, yet again, the phrase "West Division Champion" is the NFL equivalent of a "My Kid is a Terrific Kid" bumper sticker.

Really, these are such generic calls, they hardly show off the super realism of the Madden engine. Last night I ran my own simulations, regressions and distributions and came up with the following high-likelihood occurrences during the 2009-2010 season.

• Raiders owner Al Davis trades Jeff Garcia for the Bengals Stormtrooper; he joins an offense comprised of Johnny Lee Higgins, a chair, two BART cops and Gene Shalit.

• Delaware's sports betting operation looks awful suspicious in week 12 when the Eagles beat Washington by 4 1/2.

• Terrell Owens manages to recruit Trent Edwards into his plot to undermine Bills QB Trent Edwards.

• Cincinnati sets single-game attendance record with its most popular giveaway ever: Bail.

• Sports media go wall-to-wall with Brett Favre coverage when it's discovered he buys the "Not Done Yet" DLC in Madden 10's franchise mode.

• Michael Vick goes unsigned the entire season. That's because he's not on the retail copy's roster. (It'll be intriguing to see if and exactly when he goes in the free agent pool with a roster update, though.)

• The most compelling professional football story west of the Mississippi continues to be the University of Southern California.

Update: My picks for what will win run first. My picks for what/who should win are bracketed.

Note: • = Named as a winner in the rehearsal.

Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto IV [Gears of War 2]
Studio: Media Molecule [Bethesda]
Shooter: Left 4 Dead• [Gears of War 2]
RPG: Fallout 3 [Fallout 3]
Fighter: Soulcalibur IV• [Smash Bros. Brawl]
Sports: Shaun White Snowboarding• [Same]
Handheld: God of War: Chains of Olympus [Same]
Best Graphics: LittleBigPlanet [Same]
Adapted Game (TV or Movie): Lego Indiana Jones• [Holds nose, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed]
Music Game: Rock Band 2 [RB2]
Driving Game: Burnout: Paradise• [Burnout Paradise]
Action Adventure: Grand Theft Auto IV [Metal Gear Solid 4]
Team Sports Game: FIFA 09 [FIFA 09]
Soundtrack: Grand Theft Auto IV [Not nominated: Bionic Commando: Rearmed]
360 Game: Gears of War 2 [Gears 2]
Wii Game: Boom Blox• [Smash Bros. Brawl]
PS3 Game: Metal Gear Solid 4 [LittleBigPlanet]
PC Game: Left 4 Dead• [Left 4 Dead]
Original Score: Fallout 3 [Fallout 3]
Multiplayer: Left 4 Dead• [Left 4 Dead]
Performance by a Male: Michael Hollick (Grand Theft Auto IV)• [Jason Zumwalt, Grand Theft Auto IV]
Performance by a Human Female: Debi Mae West (Metal Gear Solid 4) [Debi Mae West, MGS4]
Big Name in the Game, Male: Kiefer Sutherland (COD 4)• [Don't care, bullshit category]
Big Name in the Game, Female: Jenny McCarthy (Command & Conquer Red Alert 3)• [Ditto]
Independent Game: Braid [Braid]

They're all good reads — here's one sample from Write the Game:

Families will have more in common, sharing triumphs and losses in video games. Kids will play with their parents, and everyone will have fun.

Conversely, many parents will stick their children in front of a PS3 to shut them up, whilst kids will find an easily accessible fantasy world in which to drown their fledgling identities.

Like everything else, a balance will have to be struck. Commercialism and arty experimentation will both clash with and compliment each other. Private joys will have to be placed against the thrill of being part of a well-oiled team. Mass victory will be accompanied by sessions of the blame-game.

There is one thing we can be sure of - it won’t be boring.

The entries range from standard musings to dystopian visions of the future; the monthly entries for Blogs of the Roundtable are always worth keeping an eye on, especially as they tend to trickle in over the course of the month.

The Ghost Of Gaming Future [Write the Game via Blogs of the Roundtable/Man Bytes Blog]

Unsurprisingly, multiplayer gaming is a big trend — big enough to get a whole essay devoted to it. Luben looks at a number of issues and (future?) developments in the multiplayer arena. Of particular interest was his discussion of how to create a satisfying experience for veterans and newcomers alike:

Online gaming is sometimes like a jungle. Anonymity, coupled with an absence of regulation or any real consequences, tends to encourage all of the excesses of behavior characteristic of humanity. If multiplayer gaming is to become a mode of play accepted by all, it will have to become more civilized in the process.

Design solutions to such behavior problems are not so obvious. On Xbox Live, Microsoft allows players to rate each other, but this is effective only against the most blatant kinds of abuse. Another possibility lies in developing games that are reliant on cooperation, rather than on having the players confront one another.

Lastly, games should feature ranking systems only if they target hardcore gamers. Only these players really care about leaderboards. Experience has shown that ranking mechanisms tend to incite the most aggressive and least honest of players to cheat and take advantage of all of the exploitable quirks present in a game.

I'm looking forward to his next installment of the megatrends series, but until that comes out, part three is worth a read if you're interested in some of the issues facing multiplayer gaming — both now and in the future. Luben has some nice observations about the state of things currently and some potential solutions to the problematic elements.

The Megatrends of Game Design, Part 3 [Gamasutra]

"As an industry, we're in denial about the problems with retail," Braben argued, citing a common myth that online distribution will become the norm in the coming generation.

"Retail is killing the longevity of our titles," he said, with the massive used game market contributing to the problem. "The industry sees none of this" when it comes to preowned sales.

Meanwhile, the retail film industry puts its new films front and center, and the stores in which movies are sold are often more attractive and inviting than game stores.

"What's worse, if you ask for a new release, they'll offer you a used one, and it's not even much cheaper," said Braben. "What it's doing as an industry, means the long tail, which is what games rely on, is going to go away. And relying on online is killing ourselves."

Braben suggested selling higher-priced copies of games to rental stores, then lowering the prices of not-for-resale copies — thus making new games more affordable for players, while introducing additional revenue streams for rentals.

"We can add value for people who have actually bought the game," he said — designers should come up with additional content that rewards those who buy games new.

Well, I'm not sure if his suggestions are necessarily going to fix things (certainly won't make it any easier on retailers), but Braben sounds pretty passionate and inflamed about a lot of these topics. It's a quick and pretty interesting read, even if you don't agree with his solutions.

MIGS: Frontier's Braben On Retailers 'Killing The Longevity' Of Games [Gamasutra]

Over at the Escapist, they're taking a look at the future of gaming — Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, looks at a number of 'maybe, maybe not' predictions with his own take. Ranging from the mundane ('Game prices will go down!') to the political ('Things will get better once gamers become politicians!') to the industry-focused ('Publishing structure is stuck in a rut and won't change!'). It's a fun read with some good points on the present and future directions of the gaming industry. On the publishing structure, Halpin has this to say:

... Developers too often aspire to be CEOs and convince themselves that they have the acumen to handle it. They rarely do. Great developers are great artists, not suits. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but by and large rising developers would do far better to hire an experienced executive team and check their egos at the door. That, or merge with equally talented, like-minded firms where they should still hire the aforementioned suits. I foresee the consolidation in our business similar to that of the film industry. Several publishers will percolate up to be "the majors," a few will be "mini majors" and specialize in niche markets and genres, and there'll be a whole culture of indie developers - far more robust than today's landscape - many of whom will be inspired to their careers by user-created content. Timeline for paradigm shift: three to five years.

I'm not sure consolidation of the film industry is a good example, since it took some concerted effort on the part of the major studios and successfully stamped out the little whipper snappers for decades, but the idea of a more robust indie scene is a nice one. Not a terribly long essay, but worth a read through.

The Crystal Ball [The Escapist]

Portal Brain Age 2 Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass BioShock Puzzle Quest Rock Band Super Mario Galaxy Wii Sports The Witcher WoW: Burning Crusade

And now that the industry has become so successful at creating high quality, more polished sequels, will any of these titles really be in play a decade from now?

The Future Of Videogames [Forbes via WiiWii]

Now that these multi-media services - online video, IPTV, digital terrestrial TV and PVR functionality - are now available or poised to come on line in different markets, this 'hub' strategy is emerging as a key console battleground for Microsoft and Sony.

Hit up Our E3 Predictions post for a run down of what we think will be happening at the show, and to add your own predictions to the mix and then hop over to the Kotaku Fantasy Betting Pool to place your bets. Don't forget to read the rules and remember one post for your bets on our predictions and if you post anything else in the betting pool post you're disqualified.

Dennis McCauley, over at Game Politics, points us to an analyst report saying that the chances of a Bully sequel are slight to nill.

Bully sales trailed off pretty dramatically in November. In October, the regular edition of the game sold 125,000 units (I think that the collector's edition sold another 30,000 units...) in the U.S., so we should assume it sold a combined 250,000 worldwide.

In November, Bully sold 105,000 units... My guess is that the game did NOT sell particularly well at holiday, so probably another 150,000 units worldwide in December. We expect it to sell another 200,000 or so units over the next few months, and to disappear from retail shelves.

Those estimates total 800,000 units at an average wholesale price of around $30, so it will likely generate around $24 million in revenues. Since the game took three years to develop, it likely cost Take-Two close to $15 million in R&D, and my guess is that the company did no better than to break even. I would NOT expect a sequel.

I agree with Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter, but for a different reason. Simply put, Bully was built on the Grand Theft Auto engine and, as I said in my otherwise positive review of the game, that engine is starting to chug.

The premise for Bully was brilliant and for the most part it was carried off quite well, but if there will be another Bully it would require so much work that it might as well have an entirely new name. Brian Crecente

Bully 2 ??? Industry Analyst Says No [Game Politics]

Here's his list and my take:

Ozy: The original PSP (with memory stick) will be discontinued, and replaced by a new model with an integrated hard drive. The new model will enable connectivity to the Playstation store via internet connection, and allow you to purchase and download both emulated PS1 and native PSP games directly. Over time (meaning not in 2007), it will also allow you to purchase music and movies from the Sony store.
Me: A new PSP is coming, it has to be, but I suspect the purchase of music and movies from the Sony store will come first. When I talked to Sony about this last year, they denied that any new PSP model was in the works but said they were full speed ahead on getting music and movie download support. The new model will likely be a bit smaller, have a longer battery life and while I'd love for a harddrive to pop up, I don't see Sony abandoning their pig-headed support of the Memory Stick.

Ozy: The Playstation 3 will have an effective price drop of at least $100 by Thanksgiving 2007. By effective, I mean that it's also possible that the price will remain the same, but at least $100 of value will be added to the bundle.
Me: Not in a year. What I can see happening is retailers doing their own bundles, much like what occurred with the Xbox 360 this year.

Ozy: Nintendo will release their own Live Arcade service for the Wii. Specifically, this means Nintendo will enable third-party developers to create, distribute, and sell casual games for the Wii and DS through a new Wii channel.
Me: Nintendo has already announced that they will be enabling third-party game development for their store channel so this is sort of a no brainer. They haven't announced the sale of downloadable DS games through the service. While I think this is a great idea, they'd need to come up with a way to save that content to the DS. Currently turning the system off erases downloaded data.

Ozy: The Nintendo DS will continue to outsell the PSP in 2007. It will also enable DS<->Wii wireless connectivity, enabling cross-platform gaming scenarios and the purchase of Nintendo DS casual games. It will not enable the download and purchase of full retail games for the DS, however.
Me: Totally agree on all parts. Further more, I'd predict that Wii to DS gaming would hit around Thanksgiving.

Ozy: Apple will expand their gaming efforts significantly. The most likely scenario is investment in iPod and the (soon to be announced) iPhone devices to enable a common game development platform for developers to target. This platform will include WiFi wireless connectivity, user accounts and presence, and the ability to trial and buy content from a games channel in the iTunes store. Apple will not enter the gaming market with a home console of their own.
Me: I agree, though their phone probably can't be called the iPhone and I also see them trying to expand their home computer gaming market too.

Ozy: HD-DVD will begin to pull ahead of Blu-Ray in the high-definition DVD format war. This will be measurable by number of DVDs available for either format on Amazon, and total player sales (including the Xbox 360's HD-DVD add-on and the Playstation 3's internal Blu-Ray drive).
Me: This is a hard one. Much of the Blu-ray format's success hinges on the success of the Playstation 3 and I'm certainly not ready to count-out Sony's new console. If the console has the sort of epic sales that the PS2 has, Blu-ray will absolutely crush HD-DVD.

Ozy: By the end of 2007, total lifetime unit sell-through of home consoles will be led by the Xbox 360, followed by Nintendo's Wii, with the Playstation 3 third. This order will also be true of units sold-through solely in 2007 (ie, not lifetime sales).
Me: Not in a million years. Either the Wii will be first or it will be a very distant third. No second place for this console. If the innovation concept takes off and more games come out for the system that manage to cross the line from gimmick to innovation, than it will continue to be a run away hit. If that doesn't happen, it will become a glorified toy. While I understand Ozy's reasoning on the Xbox 360, I think it's still too early to tell if the PS3 is going to do the sort of sales the PS2 did, but I suspect it's going to end up being neck-and-neck between Microsoft and Sony.

Ozy: Google will show significant public interest in the gaming sector for the first time, including interest in acquisitions to bolster their Ad-sense business. The most likely target will be IGA Worldwide (to combat Microsoft's acquisition of Massive). If unsuccessful, Google will seek to acquire one of the larger game publishers on the market to gain a foothold in the in-game advertising market. Likely targets include Electronic Arts (though it would be extremely expensive), Activision, or THQ.
Me: I see Google's interest in gaming being more about information, as in a newsite or blog, and casual games, than in actually creating the games. Sure I can see them wanting to inject ad-sense into gaming, but I don't think they need to buy anyone to do it and Google seems to be more about creation than taking over.

Agree or disagree, Ozymandias' predictions are certainly well thought-out and interesting. What do you think? Brian Crecente

2007 Predictions

1. What will it bring...price drops, new hardware, failure or success of the next gen multimedia downloads?

2. What are you most looking forward to...games, finally affording hardware, flaming Sony?

3. What were you most surprised by in '06...gaming related, please - I don't want to hear about your explorations with puberty (though I couldn't be more proud).

Over on Gizmodo I predicted a substantial PS3 price drop, so what the hell, I'll stick with that. Before I played Gears of War and secured a PS3, I was most looking forward to Halo 3...now I will have to say MGS4 with a hint of Half Life 2 coming to next gen consoles. And my biggest surprise was that Microsoft has made a far better controller than Sony this time around. Mark Wilson

Have gaming history, trivia, or famous birthdays you'd like to see in TDIG? Drop us a line at tdig@kotaku.com

Oddly enough, NeoGaffers point out that the exact same post popped up on TeamXbox. TX's forums were down for maintenance last I checked, so I'll just link to NS's post because I'm not sure who wrote what first. Either way, neither posts say anything about their source, despite the fact that they seem to present the details as news.

Here's the interesting bits from the post, hit the jump for my thoughts on the veracity of the posts.

Tommorow is the X06 conference in Barcelona. Some info has been leaked including some big surprises. Here is a list of what is going to be anounced tommorow. Tune in for the confernce at Xbox.com from 6pm GMT.

Gears of War single player and multiplayer videos shown. Playable on show floor.

HD-DVD anouncement. Release date and price for Europe and United States. 119.99/E149.99 and December 1st release in Europe.$199.99 USD and November 24th release in US.
All will be bundled with Universal Media Remote.

A new Halo 3 trailer is shown. Some multiplayer info revealed. Aiming for 50-64 player online. Announce that Halo 3 will be the first game to run natively on 1080p. They will make full use of this update. Available in 2007. Playable behind closed doors.

More info about 1080p and how it will be done. New dashboard announcement. Release date revealed for late November. Will allow users to try out homebrew content made with XNA game express.

More news on Live Anywhere and how it will function. Talk about function with Zune and XBLA titles.

Rare show off new version of Killer Instinct for the 360. Will support 4 player tag matches. Playable on show floor.

Alan Wake shown and fully playable. Will also be availble on Windows Vista. Coming this Spring.

Fable 2 trailer shown. Multiplayer confirmed.

Black Xbox 360 anounced. Available this Christmas around the world. New Xbox 360 core and premium bundles shown. Xbox 360 Classics game list. Kameo, PDZ included. More this spring including Oblivion.

Many more videos and games are playable. I have just listed some of the major ones.

Predictatron 2000
Gears of War: Most certainly true.

HD-DVD Announcement: When else would they announce this?

Halo 3: I expect there will be some talk of the game, but I'm not sure about the details in this particular prediction.

Dashboard: I already talked to Shane Kim about 1080p. While I suppose it's possible they'd dig more into the technology behind their update, I doubt it will take up much time. It's more likely that they will announce the details of their dashboard update and some new gee whiz features.

Live Anywhere: Hmm, not sure on this. I get the sense it's still a ways out, but I could be totally wrong.

Killer Instinct, Alan Wake, Fable 2: Sure more games will be shown off, that will likely be the thrust of the press event.

360 Bundles and such: I'm sure a black 360 is on the way, and since 360 bundles have hit Europe already, it makes sense there will be more talk of this.

While this is Microsoft's last chance to grab the spotlight before the launch of their two rivals, it seems like they would have made all of the huge announcements at TGS last week.

I expect to be wowed a bit, but nothing amazing to come out of this. Brian Crecente

X06 Info Revealed [Neoseeker]

• Microsoft will take advantage of the fact that people have piled into their conference to hear about Halo 3 by spending 45 minutes talking about Windows Vista. We're all basically doomed — we know that Vista is a major focus of Microsoft's conference, and I am assuming that I will have to do something to keep myself awake. We'll learn all about translucent windows, the Games folder (which, get ready, will SHOW THE ESRB RATING for your games oh boy howdy), and what games will be exclusively for Vista (Halo 2 and beyond).

• Sony will spend much of their press conference talking up the online and multimedia functionality of PS3. There will be much pomp and circumstance surrounding packed-in content on the hard drive (which will be internal and standard), downloadable content, and online play.

• Remember the amazing surprise when Twilight Princess was shown off at E3 2004? Nintendo's press conference on Tuesday will be something on the order of two dozen of those "holy shit!" moments, all strung together. Fanboy tears will flow.

ESRB Ratings in the Games folder? We have no idea from where that prediction has been plucked, but labeling subfolders per ESRB rating seems like a great way to clue kids in quickly to which games on their Dad's computer have the most tits and gore. Maybe a better way to handle this would be to create parental controls on profiles that prevent kids from playing games rated for an older audience? With an opt-out tick box for more permissive parents at the admin screen, natch.

Game Life E3 Predictions [Wired]

These past couple weeks, Nintendo has already made huge several announcements. With the console named and the DS Lite US release date announced, big N must have something exciting in store for its press conference. Our final team Kotaku E3 Prediction Poll wonders what the hizzy heck that is.

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Sony has made lofty claims, regarding the PS3's power. But as jaded gamers start to wake up from the Next-Gen dream, will Sony continue to make these claims? And, if they do, will we buy it? So, here's our next Team Kotaku E3 prediction poll.

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With E3 minutes away and kicking off next week, it's time to gaze into that crystal ball we like to call Team Kotaku's E3 Predictions. Word around the game console is that Microsoft will unveil more details about Halo 3 to divert attention from Sony and Nintendo. But, what do y'all think?

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

From Sony they are expecting the Playstation 3 to be showing video of gameplay on the floor and behind-closed -oors sit-downs with some of the games.

Microsoft is going to have to show off Halo 3 in some form, they predict, and I agree. They also say that the company will be touting their surprisingly popular Xbox Live Arcade suite and perhaps some Live dashboard updates.

Nintendo will be going full bore on the Revolution, but the site also thinks there will be a heavy push for their DS. I'm assuming this was written before last night's big DS Lite announcement or they would have mentioned that.

Overall, the article sounds like it could be fairly close to the mark. Though I think they downplay the possibilities of the PS3 not hitting this year a bit too much.

First Look E3 2006 [Game Daily]

The complete brief is here.