Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter is back at it again. He recently appeared on the 1099 Podcast and discussed what could possibly happen with Sony. The topic of discussion was the PlayStation 4, the PS4 Pro and the not-quite-revealed-but-inevitably-coming PlayStation 5.

Pachter noted that there will be a time when the PS4 Pro becomes the default PS4 model. He didn’t specify when this would happen exactly though.

“If I had to bet I’d say 2020. Sony is making so much money on PS4 that I think that they’ll continue to make as long as they can milk it. I think that the natural extension of that is that the PS4 Pro just becomes the default PS4 and they just knock that price down to $250 if they can.”

There’s been quite a bit of contention since the PS4 Pro was announced since it played host to a number of different 4K options with only a few games really offering native 4K. This is especially conspicuous when you look at the upcoming Xbox One X which boasts more power and seems to be capable of delivering on its 4K promises.

Pachter does believe that the PS5 could be Sony’s true 4K device when it eventually arrives. “PS5 is probably going to be their real 4K device, it feels to me like they are not going to launch the PS5 until sales momentum for the PS4 slows and it just hasn’t yet. Certainly get through 2017 and 2018, I just don’t see it slowing in 2018 which would prompt them to release something in 2019. If it slows in 2019 then they will probably launch it in 2020.

“You can very safely trade in your Xbox One and buy an Xbox One X and start saving $10 a month, you’ll have some time before you need to trade it in for a PS5.”

While we wait for the PS4 Pro to become standard and the PS5 to release, the Xbox One X will arrive on November 7th worldwide for $499.

Everyone’s favourite video game analyst, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter, is back to chime in with his thoughts on The Game Awards, Geoff Keighley’s recent awards show that replaced Spike VGX and featured several world premieres. According to VentureBeat, Pachter was impressed with Nintendo including president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime. He also noted that it was a mistake for Microsoft to not be at the awards ceremony.

“Microsoft made a mistake skipping The Game Awards altogether. The awards show was an opportunity to steal a little thunder from PSX, and Nintendo and Reggie seized the opportunity. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to compliment Reggie, as I haven’t had many chances to say what a good job he has done in an otherwise dismal year. Nintendo really stood out with that Zelda announcement.”

The Legend of Zelda Wii U was arguably the reveal of the weekend next to Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End but what are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.

The NPD Report for September is yet to come in but Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is already weighing in with his estimates. Speaking to investors (via Venture Beat), Pachter believes that the Xbox One may have actually outsold the PS4 in September with 325,000 units at retail in the United States versus the PS4’s 250,000 units.

“We expect Xbox One sales to exceed those of the PS4 for only the second month since launch. From Sept. 7 through [Sept.] 13, Microsoft offered a free game with the purchase of a new Xbox One at participating retailers.

“I kind of think that free Destiny [on Xbox One] was better than [paying] for Destiny on PS4, that’s pretty compelling.” This is in reference to an initiative Microsoft introduced where consumers could choose one free Xbox One title on purchasing the console.

What are your thoughts on the overall success of the Xbox One, especially compared to the rest of the world? Let us know below.

Managing Director of Equity Research at Wedbush Securities Michael Pachter is a man of many opinions, many based in analytic reasoning but controversial for some all the same. Pachter is most recently famous for saying that PlayStation Now was a joke. What are his thoughts on other current fads in gaming such as virtual reality, especially with technologies like Oculus Rift and PS4 VR Headset hogging headlines these days?

GamingBolt spoke to Pachter about the potential of VR gaming going forward and whether it would be a mainstay in the industry or fad away like 3D gaming.

“Yes, I think it’s going to be a fad. I think that no one solved the vesticular motion problem which is where you get disoriented because your eyes are seeing something that the rest of your body isn’t experiencing. I think it’s an interesting concept, don’t get me wrong, and I think Facebook is right, there is potential for it beyond gaming…

“I mean, gaming is a fun reason to buy something, especially a device like Oculus Rift, but the truth is that maybe virtual surgery, or something like Ender’s Game or actually doing anything that way, there’s huge potential beyond gaming, but nothing as far as gaming goes.”

Would this be similar to the Kinect which has a multitude of applications beyond gaming? “Right, and just like there aren’t very many compelling Kinect games, other than maybe sports or dancing, that anyone actually says amount to much, similarly I think there will be a few virtual reality games that will be compelling and great, but a hundred?

“I doubt it. It’s hard to develop for, people aren’t going to develop for it unless there’s a large install base, and it’s too much of a niche for a large install base to ever show up without software. So I’d say fad is the right term.

Now Facebook might turn it into something that every household has one of, because, you know, maybe you can shop in a virtual grocery store, so Amazon might use VR so you can subscribe to Amazon Fresh, and shop for your groceries by walking up and down the aisles and picking them out, I mean that kind of stuff makes sense to me.

“But, but I think that’s a much more practical application. And would I buy a VR headset for $10 so I could do something like that? Yes, I probably would. But would I pay $500 to do it? No, and I doubt many will. So, I don’t know what the applications are, but I think it’s a fad.”

It’ll certainly be interesting considering that Oculus Rift has been purchased by Facebook and Sony is making a serious push for VR on consoles with Morpheus. Do you agree with Pachter’s analysis? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

This is just a snippet of our interview with Michael Pachter and we will have more soon.

Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall has been pretty well in terms of sales and reviews since its release on the Xbox One and PC. One interesting little development after the launch of the next gen versions was that the Xbox 360 port, developed by Bluepoint Entertainment, had been further delayed until April 8th/11th in North America/Europe. The reasons given were to allow for further polish.

However, in an article on Barron’s titled “EA’s Calculated Titanfall Slip”, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, along with Nick McKay and Nick Citrin, believed that “the Titanfall delays reflect revenue management and an effort to maximize next-generation console sales, as opposed to any quality issues. We view the game as the first must-have for the Xbox One, and believe that it is in the best interests of Microsoft and Electronic Arts (near- and long-term) to maximize next-gen console sales, particularly with the industry’s current-gen sales below expectations recently.”

Pachter also believed this mean less risk for EA’s fiscal year. “The shift of Titanfall on the Xbox 360 gives us great confidence in Electronic Arts’ ability to deliver upside to first-quarter results, and limits execution risk in fiscal 2015. We believe the delay means that Electronic Arts will deliver significant upside to our current estimates, which are Street-high for the first quarter; we also believe that first-quarter EPS upside to consensus estimates is likely, and will cause many investors to view execution risk as minimal.”

What are your thoughts on the same? Do you think Titanfall was delayed simply to allow for higher revenues on the Xbox One and PC? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

As part of its most recent financial report, Wedbush Morgan discussed the overall possibility of success for Sony’s upcoming PlayStation Now – a Cloud-based streaming service that will allow one to (currently) stream PS3 games to their PS4. Analysts Michael Pachter, Nick McKay and Nick Citrin feel that as it stands, the service won’t have any substantial impact once it releases if it doesn’t have compelling content.

Wedbush also talks about server-based gaming services were the big thing ten years ago with the likes of OnLive but failed to ultimately succeed with consumers. While the analysts believe that compelling content will ultimately decide the success of PlayStation Now – even stating that there is a future for server-based gaming – they believe it unlikely that Sony will attract third party titles that are less than two years old.

Pachter first stated this on the Bonus Round episode for GT, emphasizing how the traditional publishing model will prove more lucrative for third party publishers than offering their titles on PS Now would – unless Sony had a significantly high subscription fee.

“We believe that publishers will seek 70% of PlayStation Now revenues, similar to the iTunes pricing model, and we think that publishers will have little interest in ‘renting’ a $20 game for anything less than $8 – 10. Thus, we think that the pricing of pay-as-you-go rental will be prohibitive, or in the alternative, the quality of the content available on a pay-as-you-go basis will be poor.

“While we think PlayStation Now has little merit as a standalone service, we think that it is destined to end up part of an expanded service offering. Sony’s purchase of Gaikai suggests to us that the company intends to integrate streaming games into its other entertainment service offerings, such as music subscriptions and pay-as-you-go movie video on demand. We think that Sony may succeed in bundling PlayStation Now with these other entertainment offerings in the future, but we remain pessimistic that the service can succeed as a standalone game service.”

Currently, PS Now is in beta testing and will go live this Summer. Do you agree with Wedbush’s predictions and analysis? Let us know in the comments.

Wedbush Morgan has released a new report predicting sales of consoles and software through 2014. The report was compiled by analyst Michael Pachter, with Nick McKay and Nick Citrin, and predicted that the PlayStation 4 would sell 12 million units by the end of the year. The Xbox One wouldn’t be far behind with 9 million units sold while the Wii U would be stuck at 3 million units.

Wedbush pointed to Nintendo’s inability to exploit multiplayer as a reason for its weak projection. The PS4 on the other hand has seen “phenomenal success right out of the gate” though the Xbox One has also “achieved great success”. In fact, one of the only reasons for Microsoft falling behind is due to the Xbox One’s higher price point compared to the PS4.

As for software saes, Wedbusg predicts $12 billion in sales for 2014. The subsequent years will see $14 billion (2015) and $15 billion (2016) with expected growth to be 9 percent in the next three years.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has criticized Sony’s plans for PlayStation Now before but now he argues that the company won’t be able to afford content streaming on their upcoming Cloud-based service.

As Pachter states on the latest episode of GT’s Bonus Round, publishers won’t offer their content on a subscription-based service so easily since they risk losing out on sales on a per retail copy basis.

“The math doesn’t make sense for the content owners. If the math doesn’t make sense for the content owners, it isn’t gonna happen. So, the lower the subscrition price, the less likely this thing will work. If it’s a thirty dollars subscription price, which the publishers will embrace, then no one’s gonna sign up.”

Pachter also compared Sony’s model to Netflix which has branched out into original content in the past few years. “I don’t think you could make it work. Netflix is the anomaly.The low price subscription plan with tons and tons of content…They did a bunch of really clever deals early on to make that happen, and then they got big enough that they can afford to pay. Sony’s not big enough to afford to pay that kind of dollars. They don’t have that much money.”

Currently, PS Now is in the beta testing stage and will go live in the Summer for PS4.

Though the industry has been relatively upbeat about PlayStation Now, Sony’s Cloud-based game streaming service for delivering PS3 games to the PS4, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is sufficiently less optimistic.

Speaking in the March 2014 issue of Game Informer, Pachter said that, “PlayStation Now is a joke. There is no publisher that is going to license content that’s less than two-years old because they would be concerned that they can’t sell as many copies if they make it available for subscription or rental. This has no prayer of working. None.”

Suffice to say, he’s not a fan.

SCEA marketing VP John Koller feels otherwise and says that “publishers are being exceedingly bullish” about the service. As of now, Sony has only announced first party titles for the platform – no third party games have been confirmed for the service, which launches this Summer. Do you agree with Pachter’s stance? Let us know below.

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If you were following the interwebs yesterday, then you’ve no doubt heard rumours of Microsoft planning a 1 TB Xbox One, one that would be priced at $399 and omit the optical disc drive. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has weighed in on the same in a recent industry note and needless to say, he’s not a believer.

“If this rumor is true, it is one of the dumbest ideas of all time. It would alienate GameStop and other retailers, and it would demonstrate that Microsoft can afford to release a 1TB Xbox One at $399 with essentially the same production cost as the $499 model with a 500GB HDD and a Blu-ray drive.

“That would likely cause gamers to believe that the model with a Blu-ray drive is overpriced, or would cause them to believe that Microsoft is greedy. I have three words for this idea — dumb, dumb, dumb.” Pachter also stated that Microsoft are “far from dumb. I don’t actually believe the rumor.”

Does that make it not true? We’ll find out in the coming months but Pachter does make some interesting points.