This is not news. Let’s be clear about that. While Michael Pachter is a very clever industry analyst who has, at times, given great advice to investors, he also clearly revels in his role as fanboy fire-starter.
So while his latest predictions – made at this year’s South by South West event in Austin – are an interesting talking point, they are by no means “news” in the sense that half of what Pachter says these days seems solely aimed at raising his profile among those of us who like to point and laugh. But we do enjoy discussing his bold, attention-grabbing assertions and we thought you’d like the chance to have your say too.
With that rather obvious disclaimer out of the way, let’s get to the pointing and the laughing.
[drop2]Michael Pachter has said that Microsoft will “win” the next generation. He thinks that the TV Tuner and Skype will be “killer apps” and that potential deals with MSOs (that’s basically cable operators in the US) and ISP (the people who charge you for internet access) lend themselves to subsidies. Actually, I’ve postulated around that last point myself with regards to the next generation so please don’t point and laugh too much at that one…Although Pachter thinks Microsoft will win the next gen, he sees Sony – who’s home console actually seems to have globally outsold Microsoft’s this generation as being primed to “thrive” although they’ll still be playing “catch up” to someone. Nintendo, presumably.
On Nintendo, he thinks they’ll have strong software sales but that their hardware sales “will be challenged.” Which is basically just stating what has happened in the months since the Wii U’s launch. He also thinks their handhelds will lose share to smartphones and tablets. Welcome to 2010, Mikey.
Pulling some good news out of his ars… hat, Pachter thinks we’ve seen the last publisher bankruptcy for a while. He does give himself a bit of wiggle room with that claim though – predicting the possibility of some “consolidation.”
Finally, it’s good news for the millions of you who have been enjoying some of those high-selling PC games over the past few years – “the PC as gaming device will make a comeback,” apparently. Nobody tell Blizzard.
Image Source: StickSkills
CR8ZYH0RSE
Elephant in the room,shush.
Kaminari
“The PC as gaming device will make a comeback.”
I’ve heard that one since 1983.
As for Skype: it exists on Windows, MacOS, Linux and — guess what — Vita. Nothing will prevent it from being released on PS4, although I think Sony would be inspired to find better alternatives like Google Talk. On my droid, I barely use Skype at all. If the PS4 wants to succeed as a social platform, it WILL have to interface itself with Google’s ecosystem. Being based on Linux much like Android, the OS should be perfectly suited for that.
OneShotWook
Pachter reaches 50 comments on this site alone,it’s not hard to see why hes employed.I wonder how many years it’s been that paid analysts particularly in videogaming (although i guess all markets are open now) were considered even worth employing let alone given creedence to on such a large scale.
This is fact,as long as you the individual (1 person) hasn’t bought an item then how can ‘mystic’ Pachter even have a halfway accurate guess as to what 1 or 2,maybe 3 or more people will do.Analysts are overpaid historians.