Pachter finds a successful Wii U launch ‘difficult to predict’

It seems that the infamous game industry analyst, Michael Pachter, is back. In a recent interview with IndustryGamers, Pacther expressed difficulty predicting that the Wii U would have a “hugely successful launch”. He said that the reason for his questioning is due to the difficulty of transitioning from this generation’s hardware to the next generation’s, as well as the lack of announced exclusives.

Personally, I think Pachter’s prediction is a bit premature. We’ve already heard one developer say that developing games for the Wii U is no more difficult than developing games for the Xbox 360, and there is plenty of time left for third parties to announce their exclusives. What do you think, does Pachter have a point, or is he a few months early?

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Comments, Reactions, and General Hooliganism

  1. zxride64

    I say it is too early, but he has a point there needs to be an exclusive that will make people buy the game.

  2. King Harkinian

    I’m sure it will be fine. It will be easier to make a call in 2010 when Nintendo actually starts talking about the system. Besides Nintendo having a game or two, EA and Ubisoft will have games for it, for sure. I wouldn’t put it past companies like Capcom and Sega to have games ready right away, too. I am also hoping that Dragon Quest X will be available for it right away, as well.

    • King Harkinian

      whoa, 2010? I meant 2012…

    • Slacker

      if its the wright price it will sell on its own but if its any more than 350$ it needs two exclusives one M rated game from Nintendo the other is comeing but it has to be real good and thay need to keep comeing exclusives are important

  3. omg

    He should read more articles before saying it is difficult to port games from other consoles or develop for Wii U.

    But he’s really right about the exlusives..Nintendo is doing some weird stuff recently. This is not the first time Nintendo launch a new Zelda game in the last year of life of their console. Now maybe we’ll have to wait another 2,3 or 4 years for a whole new Zelda game to be ready for the Wii U..I’m not the biggest fan of Zelda but, they know there are a lot of fans that need the game…sometimes it looks like Nintendo is not planning things right. The new Smash bros. too, it’s not even in development yet.
    Anyway I’m really excited about the Wii U and the 3rd party games, this time they have support from the 3rd party developers to help their start! I was waiting for this since the SNES era 😀

  4. Kraw

    He does have a point, but he also is ignoring other facs that are just as if not more important. The Wii U will be the first console of the next generation to hit the market, and will be for at least another one or two years. This, together with HD graphics, a good selection of games at release and the low price compared with new Sony and Microsoft consoles should turn out to be a huge selling point. Also, once Sony and Microsoft launch theit next gen consoles, Nintendo will already be able to lower the Wii U’s price and then it should be a similar situation to 2006 pricewise.

    • Nub Cakes :D!

      Lets just hope they don’t lower to price so low that they don’t make money. (Refering to the 3DS V. Vita situation)

  5. Nub Cakes :D!

    Its none of these reasons. It because 1/2 of the world lost their jobs and cant afford a new gen console.

    • Kcirtap

      You make an excellent point, and I didn’t think about that at all. If next gen pulls out too expensive of consoles, the home gaming industry might be nearing it’s end, or at least one of the companies is gonna pull out of the industry. More or less like Sega back in the Dreamcast days.

  6. John

    Of course it is too early: it is easy to talk about a system’s lack of exclusives before developers and Nintendo have said they were going to announce them. Besides, third-party companies have talked about how it is possible to port other games to the console (and then to the controller) easily, even if those games might not make full use of the console’s capabilities, like others surely will.

  7. Mariomaster1

    Too soon, Pachter, too soon…..many game companies out there have expressed their interest in the Wii U, and with Nintendo already expressing ideas about what big hit tiles they could possibly release at launch the Wii U is nudging closer and closer towards a good start. Games such as Pikmin, Zelda, and whatever they may make out of the multiple ideas they had in mind for a Mario game for the system, the Wii U should launch well if Nintendo keep’s in mind what went wrong with the 3DS launch……that being how they didn’t release any major first party titles, but instead just mostly third party ones and some minor first party ones. So if the Wii U launches with a combination of awesome first party and third party games, all should go well!

  8. intent

    what does dev like x360 hot to do with success at release how did you make that conection ,his talking about public reaction it was flat for 3DS so again could be for wiiu DS/wii like hype is hard to do twice in a row jaws 2 didnt get jaws 1 numbers at the movies did it …

  9. Mukkinese

    Pachter seems to me to be simply hedging his bets, he has no idea what will really happen.

    The Wii U will have the best, proven exclusives in video gaming- Nintendo made games, the rest need only make use of the new controller and give at least as good a game as on other consoles. I personally think the Wii U versions of a lot of multi-platform games could well become the definitive versions. All that does not matter, even if all the Wii U had was the same multi-platform games the others have, as straight ports, Nintendo still has the biggest draw in exclusives of all three companies. This gives them a massive advantage over Sony and MS.

  10. 0003mg

    Dosn’t Nintendo have enough exclusives?

    • omg

      He’s talking about announced exclusives for the Wii U.

      Nintendo has more than enough exclusives, but not for the Wii U launch (or at least they’re not talking too much about it yet) Pachter comment was made too soon, but he’s not entirely wrong about the exclusives, in fact he just said what is obvious xD

  11. Kcirtap

    If the console was coming out in this fiscal year, yeah he makes a great point. But it’s not, it has awhile for the exclusive games to start being announced and developed. Also, not a lot of companies actually have WiiU dev kits, or have even started experimenting with it. If there isn’t a lot more titles announced by Feb/March, then yeah I would be worried.

  12. Sparkymoreno

    I need to see some games. Its great hearing the interest from the developers but we all not that it take at least 2 years to create a new game from the ground up. Tag on more time to work with new technology and 3 maybe 4 years for a AAA game. And a lot of the developers don’t have the kit yet and Ninty wants to launch it by 2012? Hmmm… weak launch possibly and a lot of ports yes, and competitors copying Ninty (points at Sony*) You don’t need to be a fortune teller to see that Pachter. But there needs to be LEAST one game that gives this game exposure and the rest will follow through… And this thing is oozing potential. All it needs is one spark for a big developer – We got Nintendo, Retro studios, Square-Enix, Namco-Bandi, Activision, EA… can’t wait…

  13. RockD79

    Its still way too early to make guesses but this system will definately be structured differently than prior hardware. The developers seem to like it thus far. I’ve learned a long time ago to take Pachter’s opinions with a grain of salt.

  14. RockD79

    I wonder if he predicted the same thing for the Vita launch?

  15. crackkat

    this guy is really unimpressed with this patcher dude, and i totally agree with what this guy has to say in response:

  16. Nintendoftw

    please don’t listen to Pachter…