Now that it's 2024, what will happen to the gaming industry in the new year? It's an extremely difficult question, after all, time machines only exist in people's imaginations, and no one can predict the future. However, some experts in the gaming industry can make professional predictions based on their own experience and knowledge, plus internal channel information, and "Jason Schreier", a senior game reporter from foreign media Bloomberg, is one of the leaders, who has provided accurate revelations many times and is very famous in the industry.
Earlier, "Jason Schreier" made a prediction for the game industry in the coming year, with a total of five major events, which have been summarized by Dr. So, let's take a look
Switch 2
The biggest gaming hardware product in 2024 should be Nintendo's new console, the Switch 2 (also known as the Super Nintendo Switch). This console will continue the success of the Switch, continuing to have a portable design, but with some unexpected changes! After all, Nintendo has been innovating since it entered the gaming industry, and it has always brought fans some kind of surprise, if not every success.
Some people say that the Switch 2 will have a VR headset, others say that its performance will catch up with the PlayStation 5, but "Jason Schreier" disagrees with the above speculation, he believes that the Switch 2 is still a handheld, and the performance will definitely improve, but this is not the point. The new machine is more like an iterative upgrade than a full-fledged innovation, and of course some new features will be added, such as: integration of AR functions, screen can be removed, etc. The above prediction is very similar to that of well-known game analyst Serkan Toto.
Personally, I hope that Nintendo's patent for a "detachable dual screen" revealed in October last year will be applied to the Switch 2. Since experts believe that the screen can be disassembled, it is completely feasible to make two pieces, this design not only expands the application scenarios of the new console, but also enables some creative gameplay that NDS could not do back then!
Saudi Arabia will continue to spend heavily on the gaming industry
According to previous news, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Salman has invested in a number of well-known game companies, including: Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, EA, Take Two, SNK, Capcom, Nexon and many more. And in 2024, they will continue on this path, after all, Saudi Arabia's economy needs to be diversified, and oil alone is obviously not enough.
Mergers and acquisitions of gaming companies are making a comeback
Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is not stopping in the gaming world, with potential buyers including the aforementioned Saudi Arabian and U.S. tech giants, including Amazon, Alphabet, and others. And potential sellers are Ubisoft, EA, and many more. In fact, after Activision Blizzard can be acquired, players are no longer surprised by this kind of merger and acquisition, and mergers and acquisitions between game companies will definitely occur in 2024, but large-scale ones are actually quite rare, and there is a high probability that there will be no them.
Service-based games face a tough test
"Service-oriented game" is a term in the overseas game circle, we can understand it as "an online game that is free to download and allows players to krypton gold with in-app purchases", and the representative products abroad are "Fortnite", "Destiny" and so on. However, Destiny developer Bungie and Fortnite developer Epic Games both made massive layoffs last year, which means that the competition is fierce and it's not easy to do. "Jason Schreier" singled out Sony, which has said it will launch a dozen service-based games in the next few years (some of which have already been axed), and faces the toughest test.
Game company union
Previously, companies such as Activision and ZeniMax had begun to organize so-called unions, but these organizations have not yet become widespread in the North American video game industry, and "Jason Schreier" predicts a major change this year!
After reading it, the doctor personally has no feeling about the last four predictions, and the most interested is Switch 2, and I am very much looking forward to seeing Nintendo's new flowers, what about you?