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.

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.

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The Duck Has Spoken.

Gaming Oddities 3: How many more will I have to write?

Hey, folks. Gotta make it short and sweet tonight. So here's another gaming oddities! (The entire list of oddity articles can be found here)

Gaming has been around for decades, and the bizarre anomalies associated with it have been around just as long. I've already exposed fifteen of these oddities, and now to point out even more.

I guess Mario has invisible rudders.

Ever jump in a video game, second-guess yourself, and slam the analog stick backwards to turn around? I think it's happened to all of us. But... How the hell does this work? Last I checked, it was physically impossible for someone to change their trajectory in mid-air in such a manner. No, Mario isn't holding an invisible jetpack, and Sonic the Hedgehog doesn't have command over the laws of physics. Yet for some reason, they can manipulate their speed and direction in mid-air. Perhaps game characters are just magical like that.

Perhaps you can take it with you when you die...

I noticed this one a few weeks ago while playing Godfather. I was walking through a back alley and stumbled across a black market merchant. His price was a little steep for me, so I left. Then, he dies in a bizarre accident (It was an accident, I swear! My finger slipped!), dropping nothing on the ground. The weapon he was going to sell to me seems to have passed on as well.

On the other side of things, buying stuff from a guy then killing him never yields the money you just payed him. Are there heavenly bank accounts now? I should invest in that. And this isn't just restricted to The Godfather. Go kill the merchant in Resident Evil 4 and check out all the goodies he doesn't drop for you. Bugger.

"Well, she's dead. Nope, Phoenix Down won't help at all. Let's go."

Ever notice that when an RPG character dies outside of battle, your Revives and Phoenix Downs strangely cannot bring them back to life? But if they incurred their fatal injury in a non-scripted fight, it works just fine? Noticing a problem here?

The most famous example of this has to be Aeris' death in Final Fantasy VII. Sephiroth flies in out of nowhere and stabs her through the abdomen, she falls, end of story. But Phoenix Downs? Nope, can't use 'em. Funny, because I could have sworn I revived her a good fifty times previously. I guess the storyline can get in the way of thinking normally sometimes.

"Oh, don't worry, it's much more spacious inside!"

That must be a popular line with real estate agents in the Pokémon universe. After all, every building in the Pokémon games is far bigger inside than out. Take a look:



The building that once took up a few tiles on the screen now needs to be scrolled through in order for everything to be seen! Heck, the sprite for the lab's outside would fit in the inside map multiple times! You'd almost think that each building was actually a disguised entrance to a subterranean cavity much larger than the entryway above. Hmm... Come to think of it, Professor Oak has been looking awful pale lately...

So then, that's four more oddities out in the open. You really don't realize how many of these there are until you go looking for them! So then, I guess you can talk about this in the comment section, or in this forum thread. I, on the other hand, need to get some sleep. See ya'll on Friday!

The Duck Has Spoken.