I'm a member of a community filled with industry people (media, developers, publishers, retailers, analysts, etc...) and we all think Pachter is full of excrement.

If developers and publishers don't know a Wii HD is coming within the year, how is it that Pachter knows and no one else (aside from an obscure Italian newspaper)?

The lack of Pachter love is very much warranted when the guys lays claim to stuff that just isn't real, is contradictory to what media, developers, publishers and non-public analusts know and gets paid an inane amount of money for it.

Actually Pachter's "guts" predict quite accurately :

http://russrenshaw.newsvine.com/_news/2007/08/11/891513-how-pachters-predictions-stand-up

That was in 2007 andthey chose just 7 predictions.  Of which one they claimed was true is now false and 2 were flip flops of the same prediction.  Of the 6 actual predictions, 3 were true.   

But it's not so much how accurate his predictions are (especially when some of those were blatantly obvious) but how off he is when he's off.   An HD Wii in 2010 despite Iwata being adamant that the Wii has no need for HD?  His 4 million global online players comment?  Nobody wants to play WoW online?  Claiming this is he last generation of home consoles?  $100 PS3 price cut last April?  GTAIV to sell best on PS3?  2008 would be a great year for Midway?  Ken Kutaragi will replace howard Stringer as president and CEO of Sony.

When he's right, it's usually with very obvious information.  When he's wrong, it's usually an incredible doozy.

Many of Pachter's predictions "Eventually" become true because he "moves the goal posts" by changing the timing or meaning of his prediction in order for it to come true ...

When Pachter has talked about the Wii HD (in the past) it was clear that he was not talking about a system Nintendo would release to render (or upscale) current Wii games at HD resolutions, or a successor for the Wii after a full generation; he was making a claim that consumer demand for High Definition graphics with advanced shader techniques was so great that Nintendo would be forced to release a system a new system that was at least as powerful as the HD systems due to dropping sales of the current Wii. I think it is (fairly) obvious to everyone that his prediction was wrong, and for the next 2 or three years he will just make claims that the continued success of the Wii means that Nintendo has pushed off the release of the Wii HD another year until (eventually) Nintendo releases the Wii's successor and he is finally "right".

Other predictions he makes are simply safe bets ... Take 10 high profile games (HD games in particular, but any game will do) that are more than 1 year from release, predict that they will be delayed by more than a couple months, watch as you have an 80% success rate ...

is Patcher due to retire? He must be getting pretty old now ..

"Take 10 high profile games (HD games in particular, but any game will do) that are more than 1 year from release, predict that they will be delayed by more than a couple months, watch as you have an 80% success rate"


LOL, 30% at most.

Well he picked up the area which I think was the most significant that of real integration into the xbox for the likes of Facebook, Twitter and last.fm. This level of integration into the live system and your avatar is massive but seems to have been swept under the Natal carpet.

In addition the 1080p instant movies for pretty much everyone was also massive along with tighter integratioin into your Netflix account and the introduction of the Sky system for the UK.

All these things are promised very soon all of which are more important than Natal for this year, all of which will have potentially bigger impacts that some of the game announcements.

I am fully expecting another Microsoft attempt at the perfect storm they produced last year and it now looks like they will have the tools. Seeing how they operate the significant price cut going into Xmas is almost a given.

He got the idea of Natal right.

I like the Streaming Last.fm radio though. That'll sound great coming through my home theater speakers. I also like the streaming HD movies from Netflicks. I may have to give that a trial. Cable is getting too expensive. I don't think Natal needs 30 games to launch. It can easily launch with 10-15 games and be a huge success. Microsoft shouldn't release it with just 2-3 games though, like Sony did with the EyeToy.

Claiming that Natal is a response to Wii HD is a great way to pretend that MS is actually ahead of the curve, instead of playing catch up.