Its an argument that virtually every analyst has made already. Regardless if you like it or not, every major publisher pays analysts six-figure incomes to predict and project ROIs for titles in order to greenlight them. That goes for every platform, every title. As a consumer, you may not like this, but its a reality inside the industry, because a failed title can cost a publisher tens of millions of dollars in losses.

The analysts have no choice but to factor in likely sales figures for the Wii U before it comes out. They're going to base that on citations by other analysts, and whatever types of metrics they can find in order to base their assumptions on.

Not every analyst will assume the WiiU will "Fail". Failure is even a subjective term, as some publishers are likely to greenlight titles for the platform if there are any scenarios in which they can make money on the WiiU. There are many scenarios where it may be profitable. However, if you looked at the entirety of analyst opinions on the WiiU, its negative, which means its likely to have unfavorable projections when compared to the next Xbox or Playstation.

Like people who invest in game companies, analysts in this industry seem to know jack shit, or be talking out the sides of their mouths in order to influence the industry rather than provide actual analysis.

THese don't actually follow into each other, though.

Like anything else in life, there's a big gap between analysts like Pachter, who work for guys like Wedbush Morgan, who are there to advise investment firms on who to put money into, and nameless, faceless guys at EA, Activision, Bethesda and the like that actually influence and effect the decisions of the higher ups.

Most people only see one side of the coin - the guys that make buffonish statements. Pachter does it simply as a fanservice to gamnig enthusiasts. He makes his real cash on other things, which he's a lot better at. To get into the real heavy and deep analysis, you're going to talk to people you've never heard of with titles you never knew existed.

@Khuutra - That is true, but they are heavily correlated. Problems in one area can cascade into others. It doesn't entirely imply a direct causitive relationship, but they do influence them. Since they influence them, it may become problematic for Nintendo. It may not be in 2012. It may not even be in 2013. But if Nintendo doesn't play this generation very intelligently, they may see a huge dropoff in hardware sales when compared to the beast that was the Wii.

You can say "This is primarily based on my gut," here.

I will respect that, and it doesn't leave much else to argue about.

I will say, though, that Gamecube didn't rely primarily on Nintendo's first-party software, at least relative to other platforms. It had multiplatform parity throughout the first three years of its life cycle.

The Wii relied on Nintendo's first-party efforts to a much, much greater degree, and only faltered when Nintendo's support did.

I think that makes the argument well enough on its own.

You may want to go back and look at the Gamecube data available on VGC before making that kind of statement.

Look at the following charts:

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/4/playstation-2/

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/29/gamecube/

Of the top 20 Gamecube games, 16 were first party.

Additionally, if you look at the entire list of best-selling 3rd party Playstation 2 titles, how many of them were available on the Gamecube? By my count, 11 of the top 20 best-selling 3rd party games on the PS2 than half weren't available on teh Gamecube. I wouldn't call that parity when more than half of the titles weren't available.

Comparatively, the Wii saw 15 first party titles in the top 20 for best-selling titles. Therefore, the Wii had slightly less bias towards 1st party games. Additionally, the 3rd party games on the Wii were much higher up the list of best selling games, so again, your argument doesn't pass muster in regards to VGC data.

Your argument relies on the narrowing of one's perspective. Nintendo's games always sell best on Nintendo systems, it is known.

But I said "multiplatform parity". Multiplatform games did not appear on Xbox and the PS2 but not the Gamecube, save for a couple of notable like GTA, which was a matter of space as much as anything. Nintendo got the Splinter Cells, the Prince of Persias, the Time Splitters, the Soul Caliburs, the Tales, on and on and on.

Wii did not get those things. It would be difficult to argue that it had multiplatform parity, which is the issue at hand that we're discussing on the Wii U, was one of the things that the Wii had going for it when looking at the totality of its library.

Wii was carried on the strength of Nintendo software; its whole library was built on Nintendo software. If that is the Wii U's only problem, and Nintendo does very well in terms of making software, then the Wii U has relatively little to worry about it.

Again, the Wii had more major 3rd party successes than the Gamecube did in regards to overall chart success. 6 of the top 20 titles for Wii are third party, and 27 of the top 50. Comparatively, the Gamecube was 5 of the top 20, and 21 of the top 50. So even if multi-platform titles were arguably more prevalent on the Gamecube, 3rd parties did better on the Wii, which has arguably extended the life of the console and contributed in some small way to the Wii's success.

Certainly, Nintendo is the master of its own destiny, but 3rd parties are a huge boon to help the WiiU out. And my argument is focused on if they'll push content very long into the WiiU's lifespan if revenues are not as high as they desire.

Of course 3rd parties are a boon. But I thought this discussion was about multiplatform DLC. Wasn't it?

I dont understand the problem here.

I mean seriously If people have eyes they can go and take a look at the wiiu case.
NO SPACE FOR HDD.

Well 8gb internal flash is a little bit small but who cares we all can go and buy 32gb sd cards for like 15 bucks. and then we have 40gb.

And everyone saying CMON HDDS ARE CHEAP has no idea what he/she is talking about.

2010 i bought a 2TB drive for like 80 dollars now 1.5 years later i have to pay 50% more to get the same 2TB harddrive.

Normally i should be able to at least get +50% hdd space (3TB) for 80 bucks and not 2TB for 130 bucks.

I know they say it has something to do with the flood etc but I know for a fact (i work for amazon s.a.r.l) 95% of the problems there are long gone and they keep the price high because they can. (and this has also nothing to do with demand etc because we at amazon always get all the harddrives we want no matter how many we order etc)

Same with the computer graphics etc. the performance "leaps" are smaller because they know they dont need to make the GPUs significantly better. Why? Because consoles slow down the graphics evolution. The best time to buy GPUs is around 1-2 years after the new console generation launched.


So i prefer my WiiU with an okay amount of space and upgrade when the hard drive prices are CHEAP again.