I love hearing rumors and predictions, especially when it comes to products, gadgets and other consumer news. What will happen this year? Your guess is as good as mine. I do have some ideas of what I think will happen. Here are a few of my Tech and gadget predictions for 2008.

HDDVD vrs BluRay

Ok this has been going on for a couple years now. I don’t think anyone thought that 2 formats would still exist after the first year, but it does, and they are really battling it out. Will this year be any different? I don’t think so, HDDVD and BluRay will still have this barnburner of a battle going on throughout the year. But there will be some changes. I think next holiday season sales of these products will pick up. I’m expecting HDDVD players to be $99 and BluRay $199 by years end. Thats not all. Dual format players will come down in price also, expect about a $349 price tag by years end for a entry level dual format set top player. On the PC side of things, dual format drives will start to become more commonplace as the price of those drives will be in about the $99-$150 range. Theres no end to the format war this year.

Console War

This year was great for consoles, all except the PS3. The PS3 did pretty poorly all year and has a pretty comfortable seat in third place, about a block or 2 away from the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360. The PS3 will see better times this year, but will still slump most of the year. E3, or around that time will be a big pickup for the PS3, as games people have been waiting for will be shown and are about to hit the stores. Next holiday season will fair well for the PS3. In the end, the PS3 will still hold the third seat, trailing by far, while gaining on Nintendo in Japan.

The Xbox 360 has a good thing going. They are in second place, and have a good lead over the PS3. Many think the 360 doesn’t have much in store for the new year, and will start to slide. I don’t think this will be the case, a few games that we all know about already (but may be overlooking) will release throughout the year to keep unit sale numbers stable. E3 will be all about Grand Theft Auto 4, which is multi platform but Microsoft will be pimping the exclusive downloadable content. Also, Gears of War 2 will be shown at E3 and will bring a lot of excitement. By years end, Microsoft will be in a position to benefit a little more than the PS3 with the release of GTA4, due to a late 2008 pricecut, probably bringing the 360 premium skew to about $279, while the core (or arcade) will hit either $199 or $229.

Nintendo will continue to dominate on a month to month basis for the whole year. However, sales will taper off a little. Japan has already seen somewhat of a tapering off, which will make way for the PS3 to gain a little in Japan. As far as the platform. Theres still no surprises, you will still have your Nintendo releases that everyone are always excited for, then a load of ports and sub par gaming stinking up the shelves. As unit sales start to flatten and Microsoft hint at dropping prices, Nintendo will also drop the price to about $199. Causing the Wii to be impossible to find for a third holiday season.

Apple

Sorry Mac fans, the honeymoon is over. The Intel Macs are all released, Leopard has released. nothing special is going to be happening in the world of Mac PCs, we may see a new Mac mini but all of Apple’s hype will be back to their leading product, iPods. We will see higher capacity iPod touches. We will see a second generation iPhone, that will be just like the first generation iPhone. We will also see a smaller iPhone

Microsoft

Speaking of Apple’s leading product, Microsoft’s Zune will be taken a little more seriously as an iPod competitor. The Zune is a really good product and people are going to start paying attention to it a little more. Of coarse it isn’t going to get close to overtaking the iPod but it will be a legitimate alternative.

 Head over to JonesPC.com to find out more of my 2008 Predictions