Top 5 Switch Hardware Refresh Predictions

What will the year bring? Time for some guesses! It's the episode you've all been waiting for... Jason, Kirk, and Maddy go through their predictions from 2022 to see who won the annual bet and whose game we'll all play. Then, the gang whips out some hot new predictions for 2023. 

One More Thing: 

Kirk: Defunctland’s “Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery”

Maddy: Metroid Prime on Steam Deck

Jason: The Man Who Died Twice (Richard Osman)

Links:

Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_rjBWmc1iQ

Metroid Prime on Steam Deck: https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/25/23518873/metroid-prime-trilogy-valve-steam-deck-primehack-emudeck-emulation

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PREDICTIONS

KIRK

1. Microsoft will not own Activision/Blizzard at the end of 2023
2. Nintendo will announce a Legend of Zelda movie
3. Someone will announce a game that is being written by an AI
4. Gabe Newell will retire from Valve
5. Amazon will buy Roblox
6. House House will announce a sequel to Untitled Goose Game it will feature both a goose and another animal
7. Two games will include a menu toggle for NPC puzzle suggestions
8. There'll be an Elden Ring TV series
9. Xbox Cloud Gaming will come to Nintendo Switch
10. Atlus will announce Persona 6, and the mascot character will be a dog
11. BONUS: Disney will announce a video game console

MADDY

1. Princess Zelda will not be playable in Tears of the Kingdom
2. Nintendo will announce a Zelda TV show
3. Facebook and Meta will make a significant pivot due to the failure of Meta to take off with anyone ever (e.g., shutter VR entirely, acquire Twitter and lean hard into Twitter as the “new metaverse,” etc)
4. The Switch 2 will be announced and will be called the Super Nintendo Switch
5. The use of AI art will become normalized in game development to the extent that at least 3 major triple-A studios will use it in similar ways to High on Life
6. Three major games this year will be ones that we could reasonably call “mom games” (rather than “dad games”)
7. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will nod at the Spider-Verse and include Spider-Gwen as a playable character
8. Sony or NIntendo or Valve will create a new cloud gaming competitor to xCloud
9. Netfix will release an exclusive game for its mobile app that becomes extremely successful on the scale of Pokemon Go or Genshin Impact
10. There will be a video game announced or even released involving a household smart tech item, like the Samsung Smart Fridge, etc.
11. BONUS: Cloud and Sephiroth will kiss in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and/or Final Fantasy canon

JASON

1. At least three Final Fantasy games will come out, not counting ports
2. Someone will put out a video game created largely by AI
3. Civilization 7 will be announced and come out
4. Nintendo will announce and release a brand new 3D Mario game
5. EA will be acquired
6. Tony Soprano will come to Multiversus
7. One of the major sports games (Madden, EA soccer, NBA 2K etc) will switch to a two-year cycle
8. Jim Ryan will be fired/step down
9. The Legend of Zelda will finally get LEGO sets
10. Bungie will announce and release a new game
11. BONUS: Hogwarts Legacy will have a hidden message saying "f--- you JK Rowling"