14 DAY TRIAL // After having a giggle and really enjoying reading this article, I've been tempted to pull out a similar "review", a slightly different one, focusing on the gaming industry and the major titles that we'll see in 2008 and further on. Let me remind you that this is a work of fiction, using the events of the past year and predicting possible (and even impossible) moves of the console manufacturers and game publishers in 2008.
January Xbox 2.0 gets an official announcement at CES 2008 and Bill Gates steps down from Microsoft. A week later, Halo 4's first screenshots get released on Sony's forum. The result? Another Sony employee trashes Halo 4 Wikipedia, Facebook and Myspace pages.
February New PSP firmware bricks all of Sony's handheld gaming devices and all owners demand refunds. Homebrewers solve the issue, but refuse to hand over the official unbricking software to Sony. They get banned from all forums and sued by the PlayStation consoles manufacturer. Nintendo announces Wii 2 and the fact that they're finally handling the demand for the first console. Assassin's Creed gets released on the PC and features Jade Raymond as a playable character plus sexy outfits.
March Apple announces a console, named iBox that's extremely similar to Nintendo's Wii. The piece of news is followed by a huge press scandal, as it seems that Steve Jobs' company had been secretly working with Nintendo. Sony makes peace with homebrewers and finally starts supporting third party software for all of its consoles.
April The Xbox Live gets hacked on April's Fools and all the downloadable content is worth 0 (Zero) Microsoft Points. Gamers rejoice, but they can't take advantage of the issue, because the servers crack, since everyone's rushing to get free content. Nintendo releases the first screenshots of Wii 2 games and a new Paper Mario title, featuring Sailor Moon! Grand Theft Auto 4 gets released and banned in 36 countries, while Rockstar get sued for including discriminatory content.
May Gamespot fires all of its editors, because they've criticized the demo of Kane & Lynch 2. One of them is seen carrying an Xbox Ultimate... Sony admits that they're running out of PSP supplies and that they're not handling the demand. Must be the fault of the European and NA versions of Crisis Core. Nintendo releases 100 titles on its Virtual Console, while Ubisoft delays all of its titles... for 2009.
June The Silent Hill 5 and Final Fantasy XIII demos get leaked on torrent sites, lots of Square-Enix and Konami employees get fired. Rockstar announces Manhunt 3 and promises to include anti-violence ads and less gory content. Game gets banned preventively in all countries of the world, except Netherlands. They get the game's demo earlier with the latest issue of Playboy magazine.
Stay tuned for part 2 of the fictional gamer's calendary 2008, as there are more goodies coming. Did I forget any major launch of consoles or games? Feel free to comment, add events and remember that it's a fictional set of events we're dealing with.
