By This Time Next Year: Volume 3

This is but the first of two annual traditions taking place this month. Tune in on the 23rd for the second annual Golden Duck Awards!


Beginning in November 2007 and continued in December 2008, "By This Time Next Year" (Now properly capitalized!) comes back for its third iteration, with past predictions reviewed and a whole new set crafted for the upcoming year. First up, as usual, revisiting those predictions made on December 3rd, 2009!

"...at least one more console will be added to the North American Virtual Console" = Correct!

Released the same day it was announced, Virtual Console Arcade was added during the 2009 Game Developer's Conference this March, bringing classic arcade games to the living room, bedroom, or wherever the heck you stuck that console!

...Star Fox Wii will have been announced for an early 2010 release (I'm not giving up on this!) = WRONG

I've been posting this one for two years now, and it still hasn't happened. Eh, I give up... Which, of course, means it will now happen.

...the true successor to the DS line of handhelds will have been announced = WRONG

You know, I'm honestly not sure what I was thinking here. It was preposterous to imagine Nintendo doing such a thing. The system's still flying off the shelf like mad, and it would be stupid to stem sales by pushing out a successor. They did release the DSi XL, though, which makes my prediction slightly less inaccurate... Slighty.

...Nintendo still won't have released a true solution to the Wii storage problem = WRONG

This one requires a little backstory for anyone either new to the site or prioritized enough to not bother remembering the ramblings of a random internet weirdo. At the time the previous edition of "By This Time Next Year" was written, Nintendo had announced a solution to the Wii's greatly-limited storage space, but the wording was so cryptic that it sounded as if it solved no problems at all. In reality, though, it appears to have been lost in translation, as the solution did indeed arrive in March 2009 (Same day as Virtual Console Arcade), and it sure did deliver. In short: I misinterpreted a cryptic Japanese press release and made an ass of myself. Next!

...Wii sales will surpass 60 million worldwide = WRONG

Oh, but I was so close! The Wii didn't quite reach that landmark, stopping just short of the predicted number with... Oh, this is painful... 58.37 million, according to VGChartz.com (Which I find to be quite accurate, thank you very much). Now this is just crazy. Well... I was close!

...the combined sales of the Nintendo DS, DS Lite and DSi will overtake the Playstation 2's record sales of 140 million+ = WRONG

...here, however, I was slightly less accurate. The DS, DS Lite, DSi and DSi XL (Man there's a lot of them!) came up 23.53 million short at 116.47 million. My predictions aren't faring so well this year, are they?

...Mother 3 will still be landlocked in Japan, without any sort of announcements made for a release outside of its homeland = Correct!

Okay, I admit, this was a bit of a "Well, duh!" prediction, following in the painfully-obvious footsteps of 2007's prediction of "Duke Nukem Forever will remain unreleased." Sadly, Professor Obvious couldn't be here today to cover this prediction, as he's having a stick of chalk removed from... Uh, on second thought, you don't want to know.

...at least two more Pokémon games will have been released (Main series and/or spin-offs) = Correct!

In fact, four have been released since then (Seven if you count the slightly different versions some games were released in)! Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (WiiWare), and Pokémon Rumble have all seen release since this prediction was made. Oh, that Nintendo and its Pokémon!

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And this year's overall prediction accuracy is... Five wrong, three correct. Heck, that's almost the exact opposite of last year's results! Well, perhaps these new predictions will fare better:

...Pikmin 3 will have been formally announced
...Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will have gone another year without any sort of official announcement
...a long-standing, long-since-forgotten Nintendo franchise will make its triumphant return
...Project Natal will have been delayed until 2011
...people will still be erroneously calling the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 "next-generation"
...Mario Party 9 will have been released
...Zelda Wii will have been confirmed for a Summer 2011 release
...yet another same-as-before Call of Duty game will have been released, and people will still be yet to tire of it
...a brand-new Nintendo IP will have been announced
...SEGA will once again bring shame to the Sonic brand

And thus ends the list of predictions for the year of 2010. Hmm... Ten predictions, tenth year of the century... COINCIDENCE?!

...okay, yeah, it's a coincidence. Neat, though. Well then, what do you think of my predictions? Good? Bad? HORRENDOUS? Let your opinion be heard (And maybe even make a few predictions of your own) in the comment section, or in this forum thread.

Hypothetical sequels that need to become reality

After much hoping, begging and praying, we finally get word that Boom Blox 2 is, indeed, coming our way. Honestly, while I was wanting it so dearly, I never thought it would actually come to be. I thought that Boom Blox would just be another one of those brilliant games that never turns into a franchise. With this sequel to a fantastic game finally realized, it made me think of some other deserving titles and franchises sorely in need of a not-even-hinted-at follow-up.

First up is my often-discussed sequel to that wonderful Gamecube launch title, Luigi's Mansion. Looking back at the controls and gameplay of Luigi's Mansion, it's a perfect fit for the Wii. Aiming the Poultergust with the Wii remote's pointer, turning on the spectral vacuum with the A button, all the while moving about with the analog stick. Luigi's Mansion 2 is probably my most-wanted of all hypothetical sequels, and if I don't get word on its existance soon, I'll begin sacrificing vacuums to the gaming gods.

Can we at least get a New Play Control version?

Another game in need of a sequel would have to be Warcraft III. Yes, Warcraft III. Not World of Warcraft. We need a true Warcraft IV, with good ol' RTS action in place of this monotonous grinding MMORPG that seems to have taken everyone hostage. Technology has advanced greatly since the days of Warcraft III (Released over six and a half years ago), meaning so much more could be done in this hypothetical Warcraft IV. Genre-redefining features could come into play, revitalizing the RTS world that has been stagnating somewhat over the past few years. The possibilities within a Warcraft IV are just mind-blowing, and, if Activision Blizzard can manage to pull its money-soaked head from its ass, they'll see the potential and get cracking on the true follow-up to this series.

See this, Blizzard? Make a sequel to this.

The next franchise I'd like to bring attention to is one that hasn't been discussed here in a while, and that's Jak & Daxter. With amazing adventures, great level design and witty writing, it's definitely one of my favourite franchises. However, despite total sales amounting to nearly ten million units, Naughty Dog has, for some reason, not seen fit to make Jak 4. The ending of Jak 3 was a perfect lead-in to a prequel/sequel (Hard to explain; You'd have to play it to understand), yet here we are, over four years passed the third installment's release, and not even a peep on the much-needed fourth edition of the main series. Seriously, the potential in Jak 4 is so great that it would, quite seriously, make me buy a Playstation 3 if it were to be released.

Uncharted's fine and dandy, but give me a Jak IV! All these
fan-made mock-ups are starting to hurt!

If there's one thing Sonic Team's proven to us over the years, it's that a well-known and beloved franchise can, indeed, be dragged through the mud long enough to make it unrecognizable and devoid of entertainment. If there's one thing Dimps has proven, though, is that said franchise can be successfully revitalized in the right hands. Such is the case with the Sonic Rush series, bravely and competently carrying on while the Blue Blur's console adventures continue to scrap the bottom of the septic tank. Or rather, it was the case, up until the series all but disappeared with the release of the second title, Sonic Rush Adventure, back in 2007. Since then we've heard nothing of the well-deserved third iteration of this diamond in the rough, with the Nintendo DS instead being subjected to a bizarre RPG branching-off made by the more-than-capable BioWare in the form of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. As if Sonic is a character well suited to the RPG formula. We don't need more bizarre off-shoots, SEGA. We need another Sonic Rush! Just... Feel free to cut back on the annoying sidekicks.

That jet ski had better be going to Sonic Rush 3...

Deviating a bit from the mainstream, another sequel I'd like to see is a follow-up to Hotel Dusk. Now, I don't say Hotel Dusk 2 because, lets face it, it would be quite boring for the next game to take place in the same building. Anyways, I feel that the characters of Kyle Hyde and Mila are far too interesting to just toss aside. I feel that much more can be done with these characters. Also, I think that the 1960s are an interesting decade to place a game in, and I'd really like to see more of what Cing can do with such a unique time period choice. This hypothetical Hotel Dusk sequel, whatever it may (Hypothetically) end up being called, would be an excellent way to continue supporting Nintendo platforms with intelligent and mature content. Perhaps after work wraps up on the Wii sequel to Trace Memory/Another Code we'll see some more '60s sleuthing. Until then, I think I'll be staying in good ol' room 215. After all, it is rumoured to make wishes come true...

I don't know about you, but Melissa's sure
excited about a sequel.

And with that, we come to the end of this article. Of course, there's many, many more games worthy of not-even-hinted-at sequels out there, but if I were to write up each and every one of them I'd be here all day. These five, though, are certainly some of the most deserving of the bunch. What would you say are your five most-wanted-yet-not-even-hinted-at-sequels? What out-of-the-blue sequels are you most hoping for? Feel free to let me know in the comment section, or this forum thread.

Shadow with a gun, Sonic with a sword... What could be next?

As everyone with an internet connection is now well aware of, Sonic will be returning to the Wii next year. Thing is, he won't be alone. No, Sega thought it necessary to give Sonic a huge freaking sword to help do the job. Because, you know, it's not like he couldn't fight without a weapon. He's only the fastest thing alive.

Of course, this isn't the first time a Sega character has packed some weaponry. The infamous Shadow the Hedgehog game from 2005 featured Sonic's angst-ridden co-star Shadow wielding a gun and trying so hard to be bad-ass. This got me thinking: What if other normally weaponless characters decided to change things up?



Well, Mario is a plumber, after all, so it would only make sense that he'd have a wrench on him somewhere. Yet, for some reason, Mario's never even touched one in all his years in videogames. I wonder why that is? Perhaps Nintendo isn't so keen on their star character beating enemies to death with a plumbing implement. Could get kind of messy.



Sure, Olimar usually has his Pikmin to do all the dirty work, but really, it's foolish to depend so heavily on weird little plant dudes. With all the tiny little objects he finds on that strange planet, you think he'd turn one into a weapon of some sort, just in case he gets separated from his battalion. So why not a push pin? The little captain could surely wield something as small and lightweight as that. Of course, stabbing Bulborbs would probably lead to a far higher rating than the series' standard E for Everyone. Those guys would almost certainly do a lot of bleeding.



The Rabbids have grown tired of their humour-based weaponry. The world is learning to defend against their plungers and fly-swatters. Now, it's serious. The Rabbids have decided to fight fire with fire. Using their industry connections with Builders League United, the Rabbids have secured several dozen flamethrowers for their world-domination scheme. Because if there's one thing that goes well with idiot rabbits, it's lots and lots of fire.

Although the chances of any of these weapon pair-ups happening are slim, the hilarity that comes from imagining them is immense. The day I see a Rabbid wielding a Team Fortress 2 flamethrower is the day I can die a happy man.

Discuss This Article On The Forums

The Duck Has Spoken.

Letters to the industry 2

Not the article I was planning on doing. That should be available for your viewing displeasure tomorrow. As for now, try to enjoy this.

To: Sega
Subject: Sword-swinging hedgehogs

So, I saw the scans and details regarding Sonic and the Black Knight. It looks like you're really putting some effort into the content of this game, and I really appreciate that. The problem, though, is the premise... Sonic with a sword? He's the fastest thing alive, people! He needs no weapon but his insane speed and agility!

I will admit that the game looks fun, possibly even more so than Unleashed, but still... Sonic with a sword? What's next, NiGHTS wielding a crowbar Gordon Freeman-style? Actually, that might be kinda cool...

The point is, I really don't believe hedgehogs and weaponry mix all too well. Need I mention Shadow the Hedgehog? Didn't think so, as I'm sure it's permanently stapled to your cubicle wall with the words "NEVER AGAIN" scrawled on it in blood.

To: Nintendo
Subject: Mario is Missing

So, I'm really excited for Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Sports: Resort, but... Where's the main man gone? Not a single game with Mario in it has been released since Dr. Mario Online Rx, and after Super Sluggers, the big guy's future looks pretty barren. I'm very surprised to not see any word on another New Super Mario Bros., or even the next Mario Party. What's the deal?

Of course, I'm not at all considering you'd abandon a character as iconic as Mario, but it's just so incredibly weird to not have any word at all on more than one upcoming title with the pudgy plumber in it. Well, at least Wario Land: The Shake Dimension looks solid. Sure, it's not Mario, but it will still be a blast, I'm sure.

PS: What happened to Disaster: Day of Crisis? If I hear that's been canceled, I'm sending Weegee after you!

To: Electronic Arts
Subject: This is Spore-ta!

I've been a big fan of the Spore idea ever since I first heard of it, and I can hardly wait to get my hands on the final copy. However, I also have a few concerns to voice.

One, please don't bombard us with tonnes of add-on discs right out of the gate. That sort of thing may fly with Sims 2, but when it comes to Spore, please leave well enough alone. Well, unless one of the discs includes a "Blocks penis-headed animals", in which case I'd be camping out for it.

Second, if Will Wright wants to delay it, let him! I know this isn't a concern of any sort right now, but I'm just tossing that out there in case a situation like this arises in the future. If Will says it needs more time, give it more time. Do not question The Will Wright!

Alright, so I guess that's all that truly needs to be said about Spore. One minor note on a slightly different topic, though: Please just give the Wii real sports games, and not this "All Play" crap. I applaud you for trying, of course, but... Wait, were you even trying?

To: Nintendo EAD
Subject: Animal Crossing: City Folk

Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

PS: Thank you

To: Readers
Subject: Guess what?

You can discuss this article on the forums if you please. Or the comment section, too, if that's more your style.

The Duck Has Spoken.