A Look Back at Geek News Predictions for 2021

 

The end of 2021 is fast approaching. What better way to celebrate than to take a look back at the Geek News predictions I made on January 1st?

We’re done with 2020, but 2020 isn’t done with us

I predicted that despite vaccines rolling out that 2020, more specifically, COVID-19 wouldn’t be done with us. A return to normal wouldn’t happen until around summer, given how bad things were in the winter.

I was about 50% correct for this prediction. Plenty of people refused to take the vaccine and plenty more did take the two-dose vaccine. By June mask requirements were dropped as case rates and hospitalizations continued to plummet. Then something curious happened in August. A variant by the name of Delta cropped up and was more contagious, but the vaccines continued to work. Scientists also insisted on a third shot. Meanwhile, many third world countries had a very small percentage of their populations even partially vaccinated. In this country enough people refused to take the vaccine that hospitals began to fill again thanks to Delta. Then the Omicron variant spread even faster than Delta. A year into having vaccines hospitals are still full, cases are higher in some places than they were last year, and many countries are considering new lockdown measures. If anything, my prediction wasn’t bleak enough.

 

Apple strikes a blow against Epic as it lowers commission prices on the App Store

I predicted that in an effort to undermine Epic, Apple would lower its App Store commission prices from 30% to 15% for large developers.

I completely missed the mark here. Not only did Apple not lower prices for large developers, a document surfaced revealing that it once floated the idea of dropping rates down to as low as 20% in 2011. That never came to pass. In the actual lawsuit, Apple was allowed to keep Fortnite off the App Store, but had to allow developers the option to use external payment options by December 9th, 2021.

 

Cyberpunk 2077 redeems itself, but CDPR’s reputation continues to suffer

I predicted that through a series of patches Cyberpunk 2077 would redeem itself in the eyes of customers, but CD Projekt Red’s good reputation was gone forever.

I’m going to call this one completely on the mark. A series of patches and DLC has mostly fixed the game, but some bugs remain especially on console versions. Sony reinstated Cyberpunk 2077 on the PSN store. Although the developer cautioned players on console not to play the game on their PS4 or Xbox One unless they had the Pro or the X, respectively. The game has gone on to become one of Steam’s best selling titles in November/December. Still, the developer is plagued by settled lawsuits and tens of millions in refunds. Additionally, profits are still down as Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t sell as well as CDPR forecasted prior to launch. The developer’s reputation may never fully recover, but the studio seems to be adamant on not making the same mistake twice. Next gen versions of the game remain delayed for fear of rushing them out the door.

 

The Xbox Series X/S becomes easier to find, but the PS5 remains in short supply

I predicted that the Xbox Series X and S would become easier to find because the PS5 is the more popular console, and that supply shortages all around would ease. The newest Xbox would be easiest to find by March or April, while the PS5 would have its heyday in the summer.

This was another complete miss for me. First, the PS5 is more popular than the Xbox Series X and it’s still easier to find. This is thanks to a combination of restocks from Sony online and occasionally in stores. The Xbox Series S is easier to find than the X, but both are impossible to easily find outside of paying inflated prices because of low supply and scalpers. Even the Switch isn’t easy to find, especially the new OLED model. Forget supply constraints easing, they’re on pace to be just as bad in 2022 leading into 2023 and maybe beyond.

 

The 2020 cyber attacks are worse than imagined

I predicted that the SolarWinds hacks of December 2020 would be worse than imagined and we’d be hearing about the fallout for months.

I honestly don’t know how to answer this one except for a tentatively being on point. The SolarWinds hacks are probably worse than imagined, but so many more hacks came about that we outside of IT security kind of just forgot about SolarWinds. Just a few weeks ago the Apache Log4j vulnerability was announced and sent IT teams on a scramble to patch the exploit. It’s hard to remember one particular big hack when another large hack is just as quickly revealed and attention spans are shorter than ever.

Just over half my predictions were correct, with the rest being a mixed bag. Not too bad, but I’m still amazed at how rosy my predictions were regarding the supply chain and consoles. Well, hopefully my predictions pan out better next year.