You would think Nintendo would have invested some of their massive earnings from the Wii into more 1st party studios but I guess not. Just look at how many studios Sony has acquired over the last generation. Even Microsoft has bought a few talented teams. Nintendo needs to step their game up this gen.

He was positive about the launch lineup, not the hardware.

Here we go, Pachter shortly after US launch:

http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1690945/wii_u_sold_out_until_march_3_million_sales_by_christmas_pachter.html

If you've not got a Wii U yet, you may be lucky if you get one at all before Christmas, claims Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

While it's easy to spot a sense of negativity towards the Wii U, Pachter doesn't believe this has impacted on Nintendo's launch in anyway.

"I don't think this has much impact on the launch," Pachter tells us, "and continue to expect launch quantities to be sold out, and reorders to remain sold out through March."

"Negativity overall will never go away," Pachter beileves, "so I expect the negativity to continue through holiday. I think Wii U will sell out its production through March, which is 5.5 million hardware units. The company probably will ship 3 million by Christmas, and all will be sold out."

3 million sales by Christmas - little more than a month after the Wii U's release - that sounds like a healthy launch to us.

Despite the numerous hardware issues and general negativity towards the hardware, Pachter claims he doesn't see any "impact on the European or Japanese launches."

I agree with the sentiment in this thread that Nintendo should've invested in expanding its development capabilities. When a company sees years of rapid growth (like Nintendo from 2005-2008) it needs to invest that money into expanding its capabilities as well. Another EAD studio, some additional 2nd parties, another western developer... yeah, they certainly failed to realize the potential there.

All you did was prove what mutantclown said. Patcher predicted it would sell through the first shipment, but tread water afterwards.

The reality is that Wii U started to tread water far sooner than even the most negative outlooks expected.

Yeah, you're completely right, I did misread that information. It is onle the Hardware division. But the use of assets for both Home Console and Handheld still applies. :) 

Nintendo is a very smart company, they have a business/production plan and it's air tight. Whats going on with the competitors is none of their concern. They produce what they need to sustain the company, and try to keep their consumers happy. PS3 and 360 have an abundance of games coming out each week, the market is not big enough to support them all, look at how many developers have shut their doors over the last few years trying to compete.

TLDR, Don't worry about Nintendo, because Nintendo is not worried about Nintendo.

The WiiU is competing against two consoles that are at a lower price and for the time being have more games and a lot of major releases still on their way. When PS4 and Xbox720 come out it'll be a similar probelm. The next generation you'll see a total of 5 consoles competing for at least the first 2 years. 

Nintendo should definitely acquire more studios like Sony does. It wouldn't kill them to have more variety then the their original franchises, they need more new ips. The lack of third party support is really bad especially in the wii gen. The wii-u seems a bit better though.

I actually think the reason for Nintendo's lack of investment has been due to non gaming related factors such as the very high value of the Yen in recent years. They also suffered quite badly from property losses did they not at the same time the 3DS was struggling in it's initial year.

Nintendo really have their eggs in 1 basket for the most part. They're the last pure gaming company left. They can't rely on other divisions to prop them up and tide them over. I think had they invested loads in additional studios, they may well have killed themselves off in the 3DS launch. A company relying purely on gaming, if they bet the bank all in one go, only needs 1 bad year to wipe them out.

I do think Nintendo have been a bit overly-cautious though. But taking on the likes of Bayonetta 2 is a step in the right direction. They've completed screwed the Wii U launch up. Mine has barely been touched as I realised (having bought them) that Nintendo Land and NSMB:U don't really interest me that much. The latter just being a bit too over familiar now. However I will play the crap out of Pikmin when that comes out. It just really bugs me that the 2 Wii U titles I really wanted at launch, have now both disappeared out to the best part of a year after launch (Rayman Legends and Pikmin 3). I have to say though, Lego City looks incredible so I will be buying that soon!