Michael Pachter Predicting The Future Again!

Games analyst at Wedbush Morgan, Michael Pachter, has been gazing into his crystal ball again to see what fortunes await Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft bring this year. He’s estimating that PS3 and Xbox 360 will eat into the Wii’s market share by the end of the year and that Nintendo’s poor release schedule up until April has not helped boost flagging Wii console sales.

Other than that, he agrees with most people that the announcement of the 3DS was “ill-timed”. We agree!

“Nintendo’s overall performance has fallen short of our expectations, with software down over 30% and Wii hardware units down almost 50%. The company may have faced supply constraints for its hardware, but staple titles like Wii Fit with Balance Board and Wii Play were also well below historical levels”

Continued inside…

“We are hopeful that the supply situation for hardware and for these key titles will correct in March; if not, we think that weak sales may suggest waning consumer support. We expect continued momentum for the PS3 due in part to its list of exclusives in early 2010 (Heavy Rain, God of War III, MLB the Show 10, et al) and Blu-ray compatibility. We are less sanguine about a March or April catalyst for the Wii, as there are no exciting first party exclusives until May (Super Mario Galaxy 2). Over the last several years, the Wii has benefited from being the cheapest console, but a consistently declining tie ratio causes us some pause. We believe that the PS3, with multiple high-profile exclusives and the newly-announced Move Controller, and the Xbox 360, with Project Natal, may begin to cut into Nintendo’s market share later this year, and think that it is possible that the three consoles divide the market more evenly at holiday. The DS continues to sell at an amazing pace, and we expect solid sales in March with the end-of-month introduction of the DSi XL. We also expect solid software contribution in March from the release of the Pokémon games, which we project will sell 5 million units combined world wide. We found the company’s announcement of the 3DS somewhat ill-timed, coming the week before the launch of the DSi XL. In our view, the company’s announcement warned consumers that the DSi XL would be obsolete within a year, and we were surprised at the timing.” – Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter

Thanks Industrygamers