Ubergeek’s predictions for 2025

I’ve been rather quiet here during December. It was a difficult month with the loss of my wife’s Mom Celina and my Sister Judy. I’d classify this as perhaps the saddest December in my life.

Irene and I had our usual quiet Christmas, short a few decorations. We did put up a tree, and I made a turkey dinner for Christmas day- but other than that it was just quiet times together for us. That’s perfectly fine and more or less normal, but both of us are struggling with emotions which casts a shadow on things.

I’m starting to think about what comes next, and that includes thinking about the upcoming year in general. I looked back through my blog and found that, as far as I can determine, I have only given ‘New Year’ predictions once since I started writing here. Back in 2007 I prognosticated about what 2008 would bring and, skimming through that post, I think my guesses were largely correct. I was even right about Google, shares of which dropped about 50% during 2008- but over the longer term I was very wrong on that one.

Predictions for 2025 might be fun: I see that Wilhelm over on The Ancient Gaming Noob has been doing this kind of thing consistently for quite a few years. I don’t have any intent to reach that level of ludicrous detail, but maybe I can make this into an annual tradition of my own. Certainly I should be able to do better than once every 17 years.

Divinations for 2025

Rivers of blood, infestations of frogs, lice throughout the land… hang on, that whole shtick has been done already. I expect 2025 will be a mess of a year, the beginning of a dark period that may outlive me. I’ve already shared some of my thoughts on what I think the near-term future likely holds. I’ll try to limit repeating all of those thoughts, but some will undoubtedly make an appearance.

Inflation in the U.S. will go up significantly

The new administration in the U.S. will implement significant tariffs against their largest trading partners. Goods imported from China in particular will be see consumer price increases of thirty percent or more on products sourced from the targeted countries. Accompanying this will be the deportation of ‘illegal’ immigrants reducing the cheap labour force in the U.S. and increasing the cost of food production.

I expect prices and thus inflation to go up quite rapidly as these measures are implemented. I would count an annualized U.S. inflation rate of anywhere over 8% by the end of 2025 to mean this prediction was correct.

Apple will announce a ‘folding screen’ device

There have been rumours for years of Apple working on some kind of folding or rolling screen device. I don’t think any such device will ship in 2025, but I do feel like this is the year for an announcement. Although I would prefer an expanding display on a phone, I feel like this is not the direction Apple is heading. Instead I feel like a tablet (iPad) or portable computer (macBook) with some kind of screen expansion mechanism will be announced. But I’ll count a folding screen phone as an extra plus bonus win.

Russia will be ‘granted’ a significant part of the Ukraine

The incoming U.S. leadership loves bully-boy dictators, and they adore Putin most of all. I expect the Russian expansionist war in the Ukraine will be resolved via the withdrawal of U.S. aid to the victims. A ‘peace’ will be achieved when the U.S. requires the invaded country to transfer significant tracts of territory to Russia in order to receive further aid.

I also expect that the Ukraine will be blocked from joining NATO as part of this ‘peace’ agreement, setting them up for further incursions from Russia in the coming years.

Microsoft will announce a portable Xbox device

Xbox console sales have been steadily declining this generation, with the Series X/S not even achieving 50% of the sales that the Sony PS5 has managed. I feel that a portable Xbox device is a good next step for Microsoft: something that can natively play the Xbox console library via the Microsoft Games services. I don’t expect Microsoft to ship such a device in 2025, but I feel they will announce one.

I would count a partnership for a mobile device with Xbox branding as a successful prediction. However, a device that merely ‘streams’ Xbox console games but does not natively play them or which only plays PC games would be a failed prediction.

Nvidia stock will drop

Nvidia stock has grown from around $14 a share in early 2023 to almost $140 a share today. This has largely been driven by rapidly increasing revenue from the broad adoption of Nvidia’s CUDA technology for AI server farms.

I feel that 2025 is the year when the champagne wishes and caviar dreams of the AI market begin to rationalize as companies like OpenAI start being required to generate profit. This will have a chilling effect on Nvidia’s revenues.

My prediction here is that Nvidia stock will peak at some point in 2025 and drop at least 20% from that peak by the end of the year. Note that I’m not making any kind of prediction about the stock market at a whole, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it acts irrationally and goes up despite the average consumer’s ever-degrading purchasing power.

Avowed will release and get predominantly good reviews

I’m really looking forward to Obsidian’s upcoming RPG Avowed, currently scheduled for February of 2025. I expect it will release during 2025 as planned (although I’m not making predictions about the exact release date), and that it will receive generally positive reviews.

A Metacritic score of over 75% will count as ‘success’ for this prediction.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows will release and get predominantly bad reviews

Assassin’s Creed Shadows was delayed from its original November 2024 release date to February of 2025. It is already being attacked before release as ‘woke’ and more generally for being by published by Ubisoft.

I expect this negativity to carry over post-release regardless of the quality of the action RPG game. This will result in generally negative reviews tracking below 70% on Metacritic.

Conclusion

I expect 2025 will be a difficult year in many ways. I am very fortunate to be a financially secure citizen of one of the safer places on Earth, but I doubt I will be completely untouched by the changes that are coming.

My plan is to review this post in late December next year and see how I did. I don’t know if I’ll score myself some how, or just laugh at how bad my guesses were.