2008 is over in a couple of hours. Time to make a few predictions for 2009:

• Desktop sales will continue to decline, with Notebooks out-selling Desktops at least two to one in the consumer market. Netbook sales will increase dramatically.
• The PC game industry will ignore this, and continue to target the high-end desktop.
• Touchscreen PCs will be a short-lived fad because there are no applications for it and will likely never be. We’ll be buying even more touchscreen phones instead.
• There will be no new console annoncements this year, although rumors of Microsoft’s next console will pick up.
• There will be no new traditional MMORPG launch which has more than 500,000 customers after 6 months. Churn wil be high for all new MMORPGs.
• The number of Vista installations at the start of 2010 will still be lower than the number of XP installs. DirectX 10 will continue to be a feature for less than 30% of the potential market share. Multi-GPU will continue to be irrelevant.
• At least one Unity3D game with a decent business model will be released and make money.
• The great trend in Indie games will continue, and at least one will be making serious money on a console or Steam.
• CD/DVD game sales will decline. One of the big publishers will finally launch a platform that’s a direct competitor to Steam. Just like in 2008, I will not buy any games that are shrink-wrapped.
• The Flexus ticket system on the Oslo subway will not leave the testing stage.

Happy 2009!