First, I would like to know from where Pachter got a, supposedly secret, document where they detail their sales expectations for the Wii U. If this is not the case, then he should state how much he thinks the Wii U will sell and how much he thinks Nintendo expects.

He's a stock market analyst. I know the type, generally they are all concerned with short term profits to their clients and, as thus, they love predictability, such as in sequels, and hate innovation, as they often include high risks that are difficult to access. Usually, they collect a lot of data but their analysis are usually shallow in creative markets, such as the game or movie industry. Also, they love to give bold predictions, as they are often forgotten when they are wrong but make them stars when they got it right.

I mean he could have sold it to the less-educated if he'd have left it at graphics and frame-rate, but only fools that know absolutely nothing about the system will believe anything about the control scheme being similar.

The Wii U does, yes, have the 360's control scheme.

But it also has Wiimotes.

And the Balance Board.

And a RIDICULOUSLY PROMINENT TOUCHSCREEN RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF EVERYTHING HOLY SHIT HOW THE HELL CAN ANYBODY MISS THAT OH MY GOD

1. nintendo isn't a media darling anymore. they have a bit of an uphill battle because they've lost all that free advertising the news used to do for them (and currently does for apple).

2. IF it really does come in (techincally) as just a bit above and xbox then i agree. i'm still waiting to see the real stats on this though. it's got to be able to do more than just get the third-party games already on ps360 or it is waaaaay too late to the party.

If someone said this bull on vgchartz he would get banned for trolling and flamebait! LOL!

@Kitler, Nintendo has its 1st party offerings, they can just live off that, but if they ALSO have true 3rd party support (I'm not talking GC levels here, but PSX/PS2/360/PSP/3DS levels), the we know they are standing on the gold. But good point on the media darling thing that's true! But was so the case also for the Wii early 2006 until word of mouth spread like wildfire.

@theonestarr, OMG for realz!

Mainstream media darling i wouldn't suppose, but the mainstream media is fickle, and Nintendo can easily at least make a fight of it with the right kind of software. You do have to emphasize mainstream there, however. Nintendo hasn't been gaming media darling since 1991, and has not had fair coverage at all since like 2003.

The Dreamcast was a widely respected console that was killed primarily because of Sega's shaky financial position and the brand destruction from releasing several "failed" systems (Sega CD, Sega 32x, Sega Saturn and the GameGear).

Predicting the success or failure of the Wii U is kind-of foolish at this point in time because of how much we simply do not know, but I think that it is pretty telling that the same analysts who predicted the Nintendo DS, Wii and 3DS would be Dreamcast level failures are now saying the same about the Wii U.

i guess i didnt think it needed to be stated explicitly but yeah, that is what i meant.  true nintendo could regain it but the 3DS launch had not mainstream fanfare around it.  not like nintendo used to have.  not like apple has with every stupidedly minor detail of anything they do.  but you're absolutely right, the main stream is fickel. 

that's exactly why i could see the wiiU being a collasal failure.  when you target the mainstream exclusively and ignore the base as nintendo did this last gen, then you have a huge risk/reward factor about whether or not you actually hit with the mainstream.  I'm really curious to see which side of the coin nintendo lands on with this. 

He's right and I'm going to explain why Nintendo is very likely going to have serious problems this year and next with Wii U.

PRICE
The Wii U's price really is a no-win situation for Nintendo because the only way they can compete would be to sell the system at a massive loss (think PS3 type early losses) and we all know Nintendo simply isn't going to do that.  So the system is going to be at least $299 and it will be competing again consoles that could be as low as $99 (the 360 is going to be getting a price cut this year and could be at $89-$99 during Black Friday).

GAMES
Some of the biggest third party games this year won't be on WIi U (I'm sure you're going to ask me for proof but it's really common sense).  Take Grand Theft Auto 5 for example, I'm willing to bet anyone here that it won't be on Wii U in 2012.  When GTA4 came out it was delayed past X'mas and that was for just for two consoles, so it's very likely they're going to be working until the last minute this year just to get the 360 and PS3 versions of the game out. 

Then there's the big HD IPs that will make it out on the system.  The simple fact is that the audience for these games are already on 360 and PS3.  It won't be a simple matter of bringing out a slightly better looking game to make these players move to a new system, the difference would have to be staggering and that's assuming the Wii U's online rivals XBL and PSN.  The problem here is that the Wii U would have to be a lot more powerful than the 360 for that to be the case.  It will be first generation Wii U games competing against 5th and 6th generation 360 and PS3 games in which the developers are wringing every ounce of power out of those systems comparted to the Wii U which they will be just starting to come to grips with.

So that basically leaves Nintendo's first party efforts to carry the system and these will be Nintendo's first HD games which take significantly more resources and effort to produce.  As we've seen with the 3DS it takes time for their major games to come out and if they don't have all their ducks in a row this year it will make the holidays especially tough for them.  Looking at the 3DS it's hard to imagine them having multiple first party AAA HD games ready for launch but who knows, maybe they'll surprise everyone.

NEXT YEAR
The successors to the 360 and PS3 are likely to launch next year and as we've seen consoles that launch later typically have an advantage in terms of technology simply because costs come down.  If the WII U is really the equivalent of 2 360's in power the WII U could be in the same awkward situation the Wii found itself in but instead of 2 Gamecubes duct taped together you can just replace Gamecube with 360.  If the system has only 1 gig of ram (there's even the 768MB of RAM rumor) then it will look pretty bad if the competition has 4-8 gigs of ram on top of large hard drives and significantly more powerful processors.

Anyways that's why I think the system is going to have serious problems and that's probably Pachter's line of reasoning as well.

Being that the DS also heavily targeted the mainstream, the 3DS launched with little fanfare, and the lack of swooning by the media hasn't seemed to have hurt the 3DS, what evidence do we have that this lack of attention will hurt the Wii U ...

One of the core strategies of Nintendo is a focus on local multiplayer which has been abandoned by Sony and Microsoft (and Apple doesn't even try to approach). There are tens of millions of people who will be buying a console to play games with their room-mates, girl-friends, and children in the next generation and by default Nintendo will capture these gamers; because they will be the only company who has decent quality local multiplayer games.

@happysquirrel. Maybe the doomsayers got hypnotized!

And you know what, FUCK Pachter! The Dreamcast was an amazing console. Had they the marketing and financial leverage Sony had, they would have done so well with it.

Lots of great games. They didn't fail for any graphics reason whatsoever. They mostly failed due to much more important business factors.

And that's the list coming from a Nintendo fan. They have tons more a real SEGA fan could probably list out.