Pachter On Next-Gen. NeXbox and Sony will be a success, WiiU crappy product

[DanneSandin]

RolStoppable said:

DanneSandin said:

I do agree that his statement that Nintendo should have sold the 3DS for $299 was really, really stupid - but that doesn't make all of his statements stupid.

You're basically saying that the tablet controller was a bad idea, right? "A tablet controller wouldn't have caught on regardless of the timing." In that sense you and Pachter actually shares the same opinion. He also thinks it's a bad idea. And when he's talking about catching up to MS and Sony it's clearly in regards of online services, which the Wii was severely lacking. And they might have caught up now, but when PS720 is released they might be left in the dust again, and people therefore wouldn't buy Wii U since the online (might) be much better on PS720. I think Pachter does have a point here; had Wii had a better online function they would have been in a better spot now.

So, basically, Nintendo could be a good investment in the short term? Before the 8th gen truly gets rolling?

Games are still more important than any online functions. Pachter can go on and on about Nintendo having to match Sony and Microsoft in terms of features, but he never mentions the most important thing: That Nintendo should expand their first party studios greatly to become a company that can sustain their platforms on their own. But Pachter has never really been interested in taking games into consideration, he still talks up features as if that is what sells consoles. Yes, if Nintendo had had better online, they might be in a better spot now. But if Nintendo had been able to produce more games on their own, that surely would have been much more important than any online features.

I think Nintendo's stock just went up 10% this week, so short term investments are probably not a bad idea. Animal Crossing and Pokémon for the 3DS, plus various big first party games for the Wii U in the next twelve months are guarantees to make Nintendo see some good hardware and software sales, at least in the short term. If the yen stays where it is now or weakens even further, there's more potential for gains, because the required price cut for Wii U hardware later this year won't have as much of a negative impact on the company's bottom line. Nintendo might not be a great company to invest in at the moment, but they are from being a terrible investment. We are about to enter a period of time where games roll out at a higher rate and that's always beneficial for a video game company.

I see 2 flaws with your first paragraph:

1) Some games actually needs a good online infrastructure to sell, like CoD and other popular multiplayer games, so by not having a good online capability Wii lost out on quite a few games and wasn't capable of building an online-following of sorts (like PS360 managed to do). Therefore; better online support=more games. Now, this probably wouldn't have made a whole lot of difference since Wii was so severely handicapped by its specs this might not have mattered too much... But still, it's a valid argument.

2) Nintendo tends to make the same kind of games, they tend to target the same kind of people. I like Nintendo's games, mind you, so it's not criticism as such. BUT, expanding and making more games doesn't necessarily equal more consoles sold since the games might cater to the same core audience. Why do you think PS360 ( and even more so PS1 and PS2) were so successful? They catered to a wide range of gamers, and that is something Nintendo's 1st party probably won't be able to replicate on a larger scale.

By and large, I agree with your second paragraph, and would like to add that Pachter is unnecessary anti-Nintendo many times, but he's not always wrong about their business practices.