Looks like Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, famously not really impressed with Nintendo, has really come around ever since Nintendo’s showing of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at E3 this year.
He’s already spoken enthusiastically of what he believes the sales prospects for the new game are, as well as the positive influence that he expects it to have on the sales of Nintendo’s upcoming NX platform- and now, in a recent talk on Pachter Factor, he once again was optimistic about Nintendo’s chances with the NX, thanks in large part to the release of Zelda, as well as the release of new hardware by Xbox and PlayStation.
“You will buy a console just to play [Zelda],” said Pachter. “Obviously they are going to have other games coming up behind it. I think that they recognized a year or two ago that the Wii U was kind of over. I think they probably diverted all of their development efforts to support the NX. Zelda is going to be essentially a launch title, it will be the biggest game out.”
He did say, of course, that the success of the NX was ultimately contingent on Nintendo having resolved all the various issues which plagued the Wii U, including third party support, or the complete lack thereof.
“So, I think the NX kind of quickly sells the same install base as the Wii U and, assuming the NX is not as complicated as the Wii U. Assuming that they’ve sold the GamePad problems, whether it’s just a conventional controller or they’ve fixed the battery life, made it more of a tablet, and there’s more to do with the NX. If they can get third-party support, I think they’re going to be competitive again.”
Pachter added that the launch of the Xbox One Scorpio and the PlayStation 4 Neo will probably end up helping Nintendo with the NX by essentially providing a mid generation reboot- something that we have held for the longest time, now.
“I frankly think that they’re benefited by the Xbox One S not being an upgrade over the Xbox [One], it’s just thinner and lighter. I think they’re benefited by the PS4 Neo and the Xbox Scorpio essentially being mid-cycle, modest upgrades intended, I think, to support VR, and all fully backward compatible. Maybe the NX is coming at the right time.”
In the end, I think, the NX is primed for some level of success– but of course, final judgement on that is pending Nintendo actually revealing the damn thing, which is expected to happen some time this year, ahead of its launch in March 2017.
