Business

Why is the industry so quick to dismiss the single-player experience? What happens when an online service goes down, which happened to Xbox Live a few years ago and is currently affecting PSN? What happens when your internet service provider has connectivity issues or goes down completely? If today's games are more about connectivity and playing with others, wouldn't the $60 spent on each game be a waste at that point?

I was excited for Mortal Kombat. The demo played pretty well, albeit a little on the slow side. The special editions of the game looked pretty neat. It felt like a throwback rather than an attempt to keep expanding in the direction that the games took during the last console generation. It seemed like a day-one purchase for me, if only to support the revival of a fighting game that used to share the spotlight with Street Fighter some 15 years ago.

L.A. Noire is one of the most anticipated games of 2011. The premise is unique, as gathering evidence and solving cases are going to be at least as important as any other features of gameplay. The motion capture looks amazing. The voice acting sounds fantastic. There's a lot to be excited about when the game finally emerges next month. Unfortunately, L.A. Noire is also set up to be one of the most segmented game releases in recent memory.

I came out pretty strong on Twitter recently, decrying the loss of instruction manuals as publishers such as Ubisoft and EA Sports have made moves to abolish print manuals in exchange for digital manuals that can be found as extra content on the game disc. While publishers are reasoning that eliminating such manuals is better for the environment, it seems evident to me that there are more significant factors at work here.

Last October, I wrote about what I perceive to be the dishonorable practice of review embargoes. I stand by my belief that the reason for many embargoes is to prevent early negative reviews for potentially spoiling sales of a game. Consumers can be excited about the game and buy it and launch day without reviews being made available until after many purchases have already been made. The cases of Medal of Honor back in October and of the recently-released Homefront are classic examples of using embargoes to this effect.

I already have problems with launch-day downloadable content. Although discussions about the subject on Twitter with PR people and those "on the inside" have generated a few valid explanations, I'm still not 100% fine with the practice.

Recent events make me realize that some of the same people that I have had respect for also want to see me fail—at least indirectly. In response to the ESA's recent decision to link press invitations to E3 with site traffic, which will likely all but eliminate any chance that I have at attending this year's event, I have been seeing some of these people approve of these changes and actually consider them to be better for everyone. I will not publicly call any of these people out, but I will say that the sense of entitlement among these privileged individuals is disheartening and disappointing.

Nintendo righted the Wii ship a little with decent December in terms of sales. Comparatively speaking, however, Nintendo's victory was hollow when you notice that Wii sales were down a whopping 38% year-over-year (YOY). Put that number next to a 42% increase YOY for the Xbox 360 and you can argue that Nintendo wasn't a winner at all.

2011 has the potential to be a big year for video games. We're weeks away from seeing the Nintendo 3DS hit retail, motion control technology for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 will continue to mature, and there's going to be plenty of software just waiting to be bought. Before the year really gets into high gear, I'm going to log five predictions here about some events that I think will happen.

Although we're officially into 2011 now, it's not quite time to turn the page when it comes to sales numbers as figures for December 2010 should be trickling out over the coming week or two.