Good read. Something to ease (or make worse) the time from now 'til TGS kicks off. Some of you will definately find their predictions (wants) interesting.

Topics on discussion are:

Capcom

Sega

Konami

Sony

Square-Enix

Level-5

Their predictions

Page 1

With Nintendo's stock price dropping and the biggest title announced so far this year being Wii Music, with Metal Gear Solid 4 failing to sell a trillion copies -- and winding up in bargain bins all around Tokyo -- the game developers of Japan are torn between several questions. Do they keep making casual games? Do they keep pouring money into big-budget blockbuster shipwrecks? Do they do something new?
 
What does "something new" even mean, anyway?
 
Recently, Hideo Kojima made a profound statement: that there will always be room for "hardcore" games. He cited the great sales of Grand Theft Auto IV as evidence of this.
 
It's this columnist's opinion that Grand Theft Auto IV is 16 times the "game" that Metal Gear Solid 4 is, thus its record-blasting sales. It's also my opinion that the game sold well because it is, first and foremost, fashioned as "entertainment" more than anything else.
 
Kojima also stated, in a different interview, that "the West has surpassed" Japanese developers. If you ask me, the excellent and amazing game developers in Japan have still got it. Capcom's Monster Hunter is evidence of this. The game is a bona-fide cultural phenomenon, and the people aren't yet tired of it because it's still great fun.
 
Now more than two years after the release of Monster Hunter Portable, the clones are out in full force. Sega had something of a splash hit with Phantasy Star Portable, which they supposedly deserved because Monster Hunter was only ever a revision of Phantasy Star Online, anyway.
 
Dragon Quest IX, coming in March 2009 for the DS, was originally announced as an ahead-of-the-curve Monster Hunter-like -- action-based, multiplayer-focused, customization-heavy. Then the cable was yanked out when the fans expressed confusion en masse via the internet. The game is now a multiplayer-focused, customization-heavy turn-based RPG, which might or might not be brilliant.
 
It will sell tremendously.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-great-tgs-preview?page=0%2C0

I stopped reading after "With Nintendo's stock price dropping and the biggest title announced so far this year being Wii Music, with Metal Gear Solid 4 failing to sell a trillion copies -- and winding up in bargain bins all around Tokyo ". It's obviously a crappy article from a publication that I've never heard of.

Oh and all of video games companies have seen their stock drop.

wow....they dissed MGS4 so much....n pretended it sold like 1 million WW.

Then you're missing out on what the article is actually about. How can you not know who EDGE are?

Interesting read. Don't really know what to say besides that :p

The Edge is generally very pro-high tech and anti-Wii.

So it is interesting ... but take it with a grain of salt.

Mike from Morgantown