If Noby Noby Boy has any relevance on the independent games market, it’s the same as Katamari Damacy’s – can a game with unusual or low-fi presentation, or very little active marketing and lots of word-of-mouth hype, move units? And again, Braid, World of Goo and the Wii have already shown that’s possible, shown how it’s possible and laid a blueprint for future independent publishers to follow.

As for Killzone 2, it doesn’t take long to see that the enthusiast press has little love or care for it – Sony, unlike Bungie and Epic, are unable to use delays in development to drum up hype, and lacks the community building to let fans beat the drum for them. At best, it’ll be about as successful as LittleBigPlanet at moving PS3s – which, sadly, was not very well.

In this economy, the only real game-changing move Sony can make is to cut the console’s price. People simply aren’t seeing the value – it’s a repeat of the Gamecube against the PS2, that even though the exclusives for the platform are very high-quality, people are flocking to consoles with larger install bases to take advantage of online play. Straight action FPS games live and die on their multiplayer components, and nobody will spend $400 or more to play Killzone 2 alone or with a small pool of strangers when they can spend $250 and play Halo 3, or Gears of War 2, or Call of Duty 4/5 with many more people, and more likely their friends.

I do think Lego Universe will be a success, but it doesn’t have to pass WoW to be one, and it’s unlikely to find the adult market necessary to do so. The huge sales of LEGO games come from families searching for family-friendly games compatible with short playtime spans; an MMO certainly is not the latter. If NetDevil can pull that off, it’ll be huge, but what’s been said about it places it squarely in the realm of traditional MMORPGs – level up, upgrade weapons, fight enemies. That doesn’t mesh with traditional LEGO offline play, and requires too much time compared to the drop-in/drop-out gameplay of the LEGO console games.

Again with Free Realms, aiming MMOs at kids will not fly well with parents unless they can be put down quickly and frequently. Microtransactions are a good strategy in a weak economy, but they must add value. Sony must also distance themselves from things that drove their other MMO products to failure, like frequent and massive changes to core rules, high system requirements and – to a lesser extent in a game aimed at kids – Sony’s famously proprietary, inflexible natures of their game data and user interface.

EyePet’s augmented-reality technology isn’t even new for the PS3 – see the flopping of Eye of Judgement, though that was more because of a high-priced game on a system that was even more unaffordable back when the economy wasn’t as sickly. If Sony can keep the cost of the game down – packing in an EyeToy for $60, much like Nintendo’s Wii Play packed in a controller, or Wii Fit packed in the balance board – it’ll sell well among the base. It is well targeted to the PS3 demographic – it’s an impressive showpiece of technology, much like the console – and will appeal outside of it. But again, if LBP didn’t move consoles, a non-game pet simulator won’t, not when a kid can get Nintendogs and take it with them outside of the house.

I also agree the Beatles game will be a seismic shift in the rhythm game business, but Aerosmith, Metallica and AC/DC have all beaten them, and the push for major bands to participate in the field with themed “experience” products is already well underway. What the Beatles game will do is shift power and money toward artists, as Harmonix apparently sealed the deal by being sweeter than Activision Blizzard.

I love Bioshock too, Kadisco, but I think the sequel would have to use a revolutionary new engine or AI system or something to be game-changing. If it’s just an iterative addition to the first game, I’m not sure that counts. Then again, few developers seem to be following Irrational’s lead, Bioshock still stands alone IMO.

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