I recently saw an episode of Pachter Factor(https://youtu.be/6abmXivp-AI), where Michael Pachter answers questions from people about the gaming industry.
In it he talks about things like the sales difference between this gen and last gen(mostly attributing it to Wii vs WiiU, not mentioning the decline from XB360 to XB1 for some reason) and then also drops the following line:
"Their former CEO commited to 20 million switches this year, they are tracking to sell 8 million this year"
To my knowledge Pachter is an Gaming Industry Analyst, so my question to the people of Era is if this assessment is sound ?
As of Nintendos latest Financials switch sold 1.88 million units in the first Quarter of the FY, so does that mean Pachter expects every Quarter to be about the same for Switch this FY ?
I am under the impression that Consoles, especially Nintendo ones tend to have the majority of their sales in Q3, since that is the Holiday quarter. Is that Impression wrong ?
Edit1:
Some common things people have brought up and others have answered in the thread that Newcomers might find good to know:
1. He did not say 18 Million instead of 8 Million.
2.He is referring to WW numbers, since he said the 8m number in reference to Nintendos official WW Guidance numbers.
Edit2:
For the people who dont want to watch the video:
Credit to Kilrogg for the transcription.
In it he talks about things like the sales difference between this gen and last gen(mostly attributing it to Wii vs WiiU, not mentioning the decline from XB360 to XB1 for some reason) and then also drops the following line:
"Their former CEO commited to 20 million switches this year, they are tracking to sell 8 million this year"
To my knowledge Pachter is an Gaming Industry Analyst, so my question to the people of Era is if this assessment is sound ?
As of Nintendos latest Financials switch sold 1.88 million units in the first Quarter of the FY, so does that mean Pachter expects every Quarter to be about the same for Switch this FY ?
I am under the impression that Consoles, especially Nintendo ones tend to have the majority of their sales in Q3, since that is the Holiday quarter. Is that Impression wrong ?
Edit1:
Some common things people have brought up and others have answered in the thread that Newcomers might find good to know:
1. He did not say 18 Million instead of 8 Million.
2.He is referring to WW numbers, since he said the 8m number in reference to Nintendos official WW Guidance numbers.
Edit2:
For the people who dont want to watch the video:
Michael Pachter said:Look, I think Nintendo is just out to lunch. I mean, I think they have no idea what they're doing. The software is great, and the marketing people are really great at doing what they can with the product they have. The Switch is way too late. What really happened is, they completely whiffed on Wii U and, had the Switch come out when the Wii U came out, I think they would have been in the lead this cycle. It didn't. They launched the Switch way late, and it's priced too high, so the Switch costs the same as a PS4, and if you, really, you're only gonna get one console, why would you get a Switch over a PS4? Answer: you love Nintendo first-party titles. But short of that? No, you won't. I think you get it in addition to a PS4. But I don't think you get it instead of a PS4. You're not gonna get to play all the games that you can [on the PS4]. So I think they already blew it in this cycle.
So, when you talk about what's gonna change, Nintendo is a backward-looking company. They manage by looking in the rear-view mirror at their past success. Their immediately past CEO Kimishima committed to 20 million Switches this year; they're tracking to 8 million. They're missing by a mile. Their new CEO, starting at the end of May, Furukawa, I've never met the guy. We'll see what he says. But the fact is, it's priced too high to sell 20 million a year; the Wii sold 20 million a year and was priced at 199, and then 149 [not a typo, his words]. This thing needs to drop to 199 to have a [???? didn't get the word] of selling this kind of numbers.
And what's the strategy gonna be? This is the company with the Blue Ocean, okay? Blue Ocean means "we're in our own ocean, there are no sharks. We can swim along! No one will attack us. We don't compete." This is a company that genuinely believes they don't compete with the other companies. And so, as long as they think that, they don't care about Playstation 5 and Xbox Two, "those aren't competitive, those are different". If they believe that, and they're right, then they're not gonna change their strategy. If they believe that and they're wrong, they'll figure out way too late that they're wrong, as they did with Wii U, and they'll come up with some new console around three years after the Xbox Two and Playstation 5 launch, just like they did with Switch. So Switch came out four y- three and a half years after Xbox One and PS4. They'll figure it out way too late. I think they are just out to lunch, I do not think they have a strategy that works. Their software is great, and if you want it, you're gonna play it on their hardware, but they're gonna stay in the hardware business for a while because they are convinced that they're absolutely right. So, no, I don't think that their strategy is gonna work when more powerful hardware is available, not at 300 bucks, they're gonna have to drop the price a lot.
Credit to Kilrogg for the transcription.
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