Famed and outspoken Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has made yet another prediction that is sure to earn him the ire of a lot of gaming fans and enthusiasts- Pachter believes that Nintendo’s upcoming console, the still enigmatic NX that is due for release some time next year, will not see much in the way of western third party support.
Nevertheless, in his latest assessment on the Japanese giant, which was made in the latest episode of Pachter Factor (via My Nintendo News), Pachter revealed his softest stance and take on the company and its future yet.
“When last I looked, which was in the last three months, Nintendo has something like $10 billion in cash. I think that the worst case if the NX is a bust, they will lose half a billion,” he said. “Every time I have ever criticized that company and its management, including its late president, it wasn’t because they were running the company into the ground and about to go bankrupt. It was because I didn’t think they were generating enough profit on the phenomenal assets that they have. I’m not critical of these guys in the way that you should be worried.”
Pachter went on to add that Nintendo isn’t going anywhere in the long run- especially as long as they continue making great games, which is something that they have never failed at doing.
“As long as they keep producing great content – and they have never wavered – they’ll be fine. I just don’t think they are going to maximize their profits without having a good hardware strategy and a good software strategy.”
The problem, then, is not in their games- it is in how they approach the development of their hardware, which is too isolated from the rest of the industry, meaning they never can get any meaningful industry wide third party support.
“And, I frankly think that handhelds are challenged because mobile has become the way that most people play games, and console is challenged because they have been underpowered the last couple of generations and they are trying to be cute with these different kind of hybrid devices. Like, a GamePad instead of a controller, and nobody really liked it so the Wii U didn’t work. Their failure in hardware has cost them third-party support, because third-parties can’t afford to make a game for a 10 million install base Wii U that could be discontinued at any time.”
All of this means that with the NX, Pachter simply does not expect Nintendo to get much third party support- at least not in the west. There is, according to him, too much inertia against him.
“[With] the NX, I think you are going to see very low third-party support outside of Japan unless the thing is a hit. And so, I mean my criticism of them is just that they have squandered a big lead that they had in hardware and gone from first-to-worst, quickly, on the console side.”
Nintendo fans may be tempted to dismiss this assessment, but it is extremely fair and valid; more importantly, Pachter has been right in his scathing assessments of Nintendo of late, including when he called the Wii U flopping, or the NX launching in March 2017.
