Nintendo’s Wii U console is currently flying off the shelves, but outspoken Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter doesn’t believe the system is ultimately capable of competing against Sony’s PS4 or Microsoft’s Xbox 720.
“I think you’re going to see now with the Wii U, notwithstanding its early launch support, nobody’s going to support it. I don’t think we’re going to see every game on the Wii U next year,” Pachter claimed at the Game Monetization Summit in a statement quoted by GameIndustry.
“I think when next-gen consoles come out they’re going to be better than the Wii U. I think Nintendo becomes completely irrelevant. They have their niche, Nintendo’s first-party content is great content, and hardcore people will keep buying their consoles, but they’re not going to only play with Nintendo consoles.”
In sharp contrast, the analyst was fairly positive about the PS4 and Xbox 720.
“Next-generation consoles are going to have big hard drives, they’re also going to have disc drives,” said Pachter.
“I would guess that the PS4 and the Xbox 720 will have 2 TB hard drives. That pretty much means you can download anything you want and never get rid of anything. You’ll have room for a couple of hundred games, no problem.”
Pachter also weighed in on the future of DLCs, or downloadable content.
“Everybody loves DLC, but it’s tied to packaged goods sales. You can’t download something unless you’ve bought the underlying game. It’s between 10-15 percent supplement of revenues to packaged goods, for the games that have it,.
“That’s all well and good; it’s an extra $150 million if you sell a billion dollars worth of Call of Duty, but that’s not enough to make up for a number of console titles that don’t make a profit,” he added.
