Geoff Keighley schedules three separate multi-day long game conferences for the middle of June. Everyone calls it G3 and it becomes a yearly event.
Rockstar releases a new 90 second long GTA VI trailer in August revealing the male protagonist is a crooked, undercover Vice City drug cop. The trailer is released completely unannounced because by this point it is impossible to keep things from leaking if you announce them ahead of time.
Sony announces and releases the PS5 Pro in September featuring Super Duper ray tracing. It is slightly closer in quality to ray tracing on PC cards but not quite.
Nintendo announces Switch 2 but it’s like an augmented reality thing with weird glasses.
Final Fantasy XVII is announced as a mainline, story-driven action game with online co-op features and attempts to link the world of Final Fantasy X to the world of Final Fantasy VII because that’s easier than coming up with something new. The first quarter of the game will be revealed to release in July 2026 but due to Tetsuya Nomura’s inability to manage projects competently we won’t get to play it till 2028 and it’ll take another 6 years for the other 3 quarters to be released.
Nintendo, instead of dropping prices on 8 year old games will instead announce they’re raising prices on those games (the Antique Media Tax) and everybody praises them for their innovation.
Konami announces they’re exiting the video game market in order to complete their shift to casino and pachinko development. Konami-owned properties will start to make appearance in video keno machines across the U.S. as well as pachinko parlors across Japan.
Tower Unite comes out of Early Access and replaces VR Chat in popularity primarily due to its much higher quality pool tables.
Gollum gets a critical reappraisal as a Misunderstood work of genius hampered by capitalism and the evil needs of shareholders. Then everyone forgets this in three days.
Mario dies in real life.
Oprah finally gets into video games and buys Annapurna, renaming it Oprahpurna. The first release under the new moniker is Dr. Phil Brain Games. It is wildly successful.
Konami releases Metal Gear Solid Pinball for the Switch. It is delisted in three days because Solid Snake’s entire hog is shown. Nobody cared that it featured real money gambling and was targeted at 9 year olds.
Miegakure is released January 1st in a surprise move. It is incredibly polished and amazing, life changing for some. Then everyone forgets it in three days.
Nintendo releases another tier of Switch Online that is 80 dollars a year. The only difference is that it contains the Zeldda and Mario CD-I games.
Sony buys Microsoft. Microsony buys Ford. Then Taco Bell buys Microsonford. They don’t change their name so now all PCs use Microsonford Windows By Taco Bell.
Yoshi has a Desert Eagle in the next Mario game. He shoots Wario in the face in slow motion.
Microsoft announce the Zune2Go, an entry into the handheld market but it’s a portable Xbox controller with a screen on the back & a magnifying mirror that flips out. big hit with makeup influencers
Bungie reveals it sold itself to Sony in order to generate enough capital to buy the rights for Oni back from Take 2. Dozens of architects are put to work crafting enormous, boxy spaces for Oni 2 and its spinoffs Oni Tactics, Oni Adventure, Oni Arena, and Oni Kart.
Nintendo announces the Switch 2: Switcheroo two hours before launch. The only discernable external difference is an extra joycon button labeled “pepsi” that emits a slow trickle of pepsi from several tiny orifices on the rear face of the controller. They bulked up the joycons to solve the stick drift issue, however 90% of users report phantom presses of the “pepsi” button within 20 minutes of playtime. It’s only launch titles are Breath of the Wild 4K and Pepsiman 3. The machine sells 200 million units by the end of the year.
Leaked memos from Microsoft show that they hired several mathematicians full-time to find out how to make a Halo game numbered higher than Infinite.
On his deathbed Biden has a vision of the one true path forward for American Greatness. Months later Big Biden’s Baked Bean Bonanza is released to critical and commercial success, and somehow manages to stop all warcrimes forever.
Metroid Prime 4 is released mid-November as a Switch 1 exclusive.
On Trump’s deathbed he tells his family to buy the rights to the Hentai Milf Quiz series.
Square-Enix announces that Final Fantasy 17 is currently under development by Tokyo RPG Factory.
Mameda no Bakeru is rereleased with new content, and is still not a good game, but is expected to sell just enough for Konami to rush out a collection of Goemon games to market 2 weeks before its release.
Patrick Mahomes accidentally reveals he completed his voice work for the character of Wakka in Final Fantasy X Remake two years ago, thinking the game had already been announced by now.
a monumental video essay by a mysterious anonymous british man critically reevaluates the original metroid, coming to the conclusion that it is a roguelike. the video game award board of elders convenes a special emergency council to reclassify every indie game ever made as a metroidvania roguelike, igniting a whirlwind firestorm avalanche of approval. the biden administration announces the discovery to the american public after the original video reaches 3 billion views on youtube. nintendo catches on after the new york times editorial board formally declares video games to be art. citing irrevocable damages, they announce the cancellation of metroid prime 4. later in the year, nintendo sues google and are awarded 36 trillion dollars by the united states supreme court
Following the collapse of the petrodollar and the internet advertising economy, we will hear news of the first instance of a game company sending out a death squad: to the team that leaked Princess Peach Showtime 6 hours early. Posts praising Nintendo’s actions here routinely get +500 upvotes on r/nintendo.
SNES homebrew will still be a decade behind the Genesis.
There will be 10000 indie metroidvania roguelike tarkovlikes with crafting and RPG elements on Steam.
The Pope will livestream his playthrough of Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4. By the time chapter 5 rolls around, he will be vtubing with a fursona.
Due to some colossally bad decisionmaking, Tim Sweeney will be ousted from the board of Epic. Six months later he will be found panhandling on a street corner, offering to make ZZT boards for food.
Final Fantasy XVII will be announced as an official tie-in with season 5 of HBO’s Westworld. The game’s scenario and plot will be a dumbed-down, half-remembered summary of the show’s first 4 seasons. Meanwhile, the show’s new season will introduce a “Final Fantasy World” theme park where tourists can meet and battle dumbed-down, half-remembered robotic representations of Final Fantasy characters.
