Looking Back on Looking Forward on 2023

The prediction business is a messy one indeed. With another worse than average year for prognosticating, I have once again fallen into being no better than a coin flip. Perhaps I should feel better about it, given the complexities of these predictions not having even odds themselves, but at the end of the day year, I can only be right or wrong. And now, the breakdown:

1. Tesla will become the first company to have a current market cap $1 Trillion lower than its peak cap.

No sooner did I make this prediction than Tesla posted a $12 Billion profit and the stock rallied. The share value had already jumped $100 by early February and that was that.

But if nothing else, Tesla’s biggest shareholder received the Guinness World Record for the largest loss of personal fortune. That’s something, but it has no bearing on the prediction.

2. No console will see a major hardware revision.

I almost made it through the year, but Sony followed up last year’s Black Friday special of the PS5 existing with the PS5 Slim existing. While I had some words about how Sony went about it, I promise it wasn’t because it gave me an L on my predictions.

3. Sony isn’t done buying anime-related businesses to feed to Crunchyroll.

This was a close call. Back in May, when Sony picked up Origamix Partners, but kicked it upstairs from Crunchyroll to Aniplex instead. While it was big enough to not go unnoticed, it was hardly a deal with the same scope as last year’s acquisition of RightStuf.

4. Atlus won’t announce Persona 6.

The head-to-head prediction I made against Geoff ends in my favor. And to make the news even worse somehow, Atlus didn’t announce a definitive version of Persona 3, either.

5. Microsoft and Activision will remain separate companies.

I had a good run, but the merger cleared its final regulatory hurdle with the United Kingdom in early October and executed the merger on Friday the 13th. Because that wasn’t ominous, or anything.

6. The Boston Bruins will win the President’s trophy, but not the Stanley Cup.

It would seem reverse psychology never works on Fate when you are deliberately invoking it. This will go down as one of my worst wins.

While it took the Florida Panthers all 7 games to do so, the President’s Trophy-winning Boston Bruins were knocked out in the first round in a stunning display of bad coaching, collapsing defense and Sergei Bobvrosky suddenly remembering he was good at goaltending (which he traditionally forgets in the playoffs).

7. We’ll know where to send the first colony ship… when we can build one.

Perhaps I was too hopeful. The exoplanet hunt becomes more robust with an increasing array of tools and techniques at our disposal to explore other star systems from the comfort of home. However, we’re yet to identify a habitable planet beyond mere theory. If anything, we’re making more progress on methods to eliminate exoplanets from the possibilities.

8. Flashpoint will make it to theaters.

It didn’t do much business there despite all the hype, but Warner Bros.’ apparent obligation has been met. While it is cold comfort, a lot of Internet nerds probably feel vindicated when they said the wrong Micael Keaton movie was sacrificed for a tax break.

9. The Simpsons will get canceled

I didn’t even make it out of January before The Simpsons (as well as Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers) got picked up for two more seasons. But surely THAT will be the end of the line…

Though perhaps my intuition was only slightly off, as a different Matt Groening show, Disenchantment, did get the ax.

10. Geoff will start streaming on our Twitch channel.

In what I can only conclude was an act of active sabotage to rob me of a winning record this year, Geoff has managed to stave off streaming this year.

While one could count him saddling up for our two multiplayer streams of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, I cannot in good conscience let myself off the hook that easily.

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Record

This Year: 4-6-0 (.500)

Overall: 55-55-10 (.500)