It's quite a coincidence then that Nintendo shipped basically 2 mil the first quarter and 2 x 4 is 8 mil and surely that would explain him using the term "tracking" too.
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Michael Pachter says Nintendo Switch is tracking to sell 8 million units this Fiscal Year
- Thread starter Andri
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It's quite a coincidence then that Nintendo shipped basically 2 mil the first quarter and 2 x 4 is 8 mil and surely that would explain him using the term "tracking" too.
imo a lot of it has to do with his connections. unless he's full of BS with his anecdotes ("i was on a yacht with the EA CEO last weekend...") he's seems pretty buddy buddy with the who's who
i think with Patcher it's a case of him having a foot in the industry, but he's a financial analyst first and foremost. he's into games and he gets paid to forecast that market but i don't think he has a "passion" for it nor is he paid for some of the off the cuff 'predictions' he'll make, just general market trends.
for us it may seem egregious for him to play nostradamus with dumb hot takes but reality is he's just a dude in his 50s mouthing off most of the time, you can either take it or leave it. but most are interested in what he has to say for better or worse
He's got a computer model. He's got expensive access to monthly hardware and software numbers. He has talked about Nintendo's seasonal cycle in the past (how they sell strongest in Nov/Dec). He has prediction estimates for how well certain games are able to sell, as well as how much they're expected to push hardware sales, based on past performance for games in the series.
But yes, I'm sure that "Q1 x 4" was the only possible math that could've led to 8 million. It actually leads to 7.52 million, but we all know that Pachter rounded that up to 8, because he loves Nintendo that much.
It couldn't possibly be that he has a computer program (of dubious accuracy), and that the last time he looked at it, the needle was pointing to "8".
Care to explain then? You're not saying he's right, but you won't say he's wrong with the vague assertion that he knows more so there must be some truth to it.
It's not even hedging, more like low grade agreement, without committing.
Here's another analyst's prediction.
Thanks for the well considered and lengthy counter-argument there lol. Tracking in this case means "on it's current trajectory" this trajectory is 2 mil a quarter because the 1st quarter was 2 mil. I'm not sure why this is hard to understand? It's literally the only way Pachter would come up with the figure of 8 mil for this.
No it isn't. You don't know what numbers he used. And also it doesn't matter.
If he had access to this then he would know that it will sell more than 8 mil due to the fact that this quarter is looks to be tracking higher than last quarter.
Lmao.
That's a reasonable predictions. More than twice 8 million :p
Pachter rounds almost all of his predictions actually.
But if you would like to believe that he has some advance computer model using exclusive data and came to this sorry conclusion of 8 million which anyone following the industry would tell you is incorrect, by all means, believe that's how he got the number.
Right, I totally forgot how that situation played out. My bad :)
Less software... ok, I mean if Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart and Xenoblade couldn't get it done.. what makes you think Pokémon and smash can at the same price it was last year..
He's absolutely not wrong and he didn't say tank. He was really being sarcastic with his on track for 8 million comment, which makes this whole thing comedy. I don't a crap what comes out on the Switch this year a $200 PS4 with Spider-Man, GOW and RDR2 is wiping the floor with the competition. And that lineup has the potential to surpass Sony's target of 16 million (Sony knows they are gonna sell more than 16 ;). You know, cause it's what they have to offer as well. That was his point.
Hell no... the best they'll do is a $300 bundle with a game. And that shit ain't gonna get em to 20 million and definitely not that laughable 25 million.
A man if they hit 20 million more power to em, I have bought 3 myself, but uh.. his year is stacked to all hell and then people have even more to look forward too the beginning of next year which is even more stacked. Sekiro anyone?
Pachter does have computer models, and he does have better data than Nintendo's quarterly report.
Pachter could be dead wrong, but saying that "Q1 x 4" is "the only mathematical way" to reach 8, or that it's "literally the only way" to reach 8... it's a ridiculous statement.
Look at it another way. Pachter is NOT saying the Switch will sell 8 mil this FY. He is saying that if the Switch continued to sell what it has sold so far (1.88 mil 1st quarter) then it will hit 8 mill this FY. All he is talking about here is a low 1st quarter shipment (not the first time he has done so actually).
Neither.
Yet you haven't come up with another viable solution.
So when analyzing last year's holiday you are including games from March and April.
And then when looking at this years holiday you're literally just including the two games from November and December?
Maybe he thinks they'll do 5 million over the holidays and the other 3 across the other 3 quarters. I don't know. Neither do you. Guessing how he calculated his numbers is a waste of time.
Compare them in relation to their fiscal year projections then. For Q2 Nintendo don't have anything that's as big as Marvel's Spider-Man. They won't have RDR2 (which will most definitely move PS4s for Sony), etc. on Switch. For Q3 they need to have good holiday deals and hope Smash and Pokémon will move a LOT of units.
Thanks. I'm not familiar with Nintendo's trends, but I expect Pachter to be.
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Both are outlandish at different ends of the spectrum. Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle?
who to believe?
Well please tell me another way to reach that conclusion with the numbers present. Tracking indicates a math model was used and I'm sure Pachter's computer model doesn't do math that the rest of the world doesn't know about. Either way, if this is what his superior mathematics came up with, he should get a new computer model.
Granted, I don't think Pachter put any effort into his prediction here.
I mean it's at least equally as stupid as thinking they'll do 2 million over the holidays.
Which is equally as stupid as thinking it will do 8 million this fiscal year, meaning however he came to his conclusion was stupid.
The term tracking still has implications though, but I wont keep arguing about this. The prediction will be dead wrong which is all that matters.
We're a quarter in, they did nearly 2 in the first quarter.
Would require like 1.15M for two quarters.
But that's not what he is saying...he is just saying that it is tracking right now to do 8 mil and that is because of the 2 mil shipped 1 quarter. He is saying that the shipment for this quarter is too low for them to hit 20 mil regardless of how loaded sales are during the holidays. Again he does not predict that it will only sell 8 mil, he does however think that it will miss the 20 mil mark by some margin.
Yup.
The takeaway is really that Nintendo isn't going to hit its goal of 20 million and is going to miss its sales target by a few million. Even if it ends up selling 15 million, they're still off by 5 million. The particular numbers past that dont really mean anything
Well to start with it shows Nintendo have a far higher climb to reach their guidance for unit sales, and they're counting on a very big number for Q3.
Even if they do 3M each in Q2 & Q4 they'll need to hit 12m+ in Q3 to hit 20m.
Yea which is why if I had to take a stab at it right now, I would say they will get to 17-18M. Which is still a great number! Just below Nintendo's very optimistic projections.
This might be the single dumbest thing to ever come out of Pachter's mouth. Just a ridiculous prediction.
I would argue that there is a difference between selling 8 million and 15 million even if both miss the target. Actually, that's a factual statement. If this is the case, just say Nintendo will miss the target, don't give a number of 8 million and say they'll be way off unless you believe that will be the case.
Personally I think they'll easily pass 15 million.
A bit like Filip.
This doesn't make sense. If that is what he meant, then it's not even worth saying. You can't base Q3 and 4 performance from Q1.
Why would I have to justify Pachter's numbers? I've already said that I would like to hear more about how he came to this dire prediction, and that there could be a massive flaw in his logic. Others have already suggested potential flaws (like that he could be assessing Switch as a console, not a handheld, or a hybrid for whatever that's worth).
I'm saying that "Q1 x 4" is a ridiculous formula, and that it's far beneath Pachter's known ability, and that mocking it for it's simplicity is absurd when that formula was pulled out of Pachter's detractor's asses and was never put forward by Pachter, and the claim that it is mathematically the only possible way Pachter could have reached the number 8 is laughably ridiculous, on a level that would make Pachter's detractors even worse at math than Pachter (if that was indeed the math that he used), especially considering that (strictly speaking) "Q1 x 4" does not equal 8.
based on this he is not to far, 3.2/1.88=1.7 17/1.7=10M, and add PS4s lower price and more attractive SW lineup and he might be onto something
Mario Kart and Zelda came out at launch. They are evergreen games but they wont push holiday sales. As I said, the only holiday titles were Odyssey, Snipperclips + and Xenoblade. Snipperclips and Xenoblade are none factors for moving hardware. It's basically Odyssey vs Pokemon and Smash. Odyssey was massive but Smash is bigger than 3D Mario and Pokemon is pokemon. Even if it underperforms its till going to sell well over 5m units.
He is wrong. The Switch will sell off the appeal of its own library, a library that is better than last year and with better deals being offered.
What Sony sells is irrelevant here. The PS4 will likely lead hardware sales this year. The Switch still has 0 chance being down compared to last year given the current climate.
There will be Switch deals this holiday. $300 with a game is a deal. No one besides one analyst is projecting 25m. There is 0 chance they hit 25m this fiscal year. 20m is up in the air. It'll be tight and require a massive Q3 and a large Q4 to get there though. I think it's doable if they channel stuff. I see them hitting 18m comfortably but anything above that I can't call for sure.
Like I said, I don't know if they hit 20m but Patcher's analysis is horse shit and anyone predicting this fiscal year below last year is not paying attention.
I suck at economics and I even know this is really fucking dumb.
See, there is a reason for this meme is always one of the first replies in every Pachter thread
Nintendo could very well ship over 5 million just in December- in Japan alone Switch will sell over a million in December.
Defending an analyst's bad prediction because he's an analyst despite having been wrong countless times before seems like a weird hill to die on.
2M*4 is the logical way one may have gotten the number especially if it's for "tracking" (meaning based on the data we have, where it's going)
If it's not, it's still kind of dumb since it would require each quarter to sell around 2M or fewer to make up for the holidays
2M*4 is the logical way one may have gotten the number especially if it's for "tracking" (meaning based on the data we have, where it's going)
If it's not, it's still kind of dumb since it would require each quarter to sell around 2M or fewer to make up for the holidays
I don't think he ever gave a prediction. He just said how it was tracking. The only thing he really concretely predicts is that the switch will miss its sales targets by a lot. Which, regardless if they miss it by 12 or 7 million units, is a bad look to investors.
Exactly.
I think he's not wrong to believe they won't reach 20 million, however I can also see them reach it, but people keep misinterpreting his words. I'm glad it only took to the 2nd page for someone to at least try and understand his point of view. I think Pokemon and Smash will move an incredible number of units and this holiday we will see families double dip and get their 2nd Switches. Either for mom or dad or for the brother and sister that want their own. In any case. It's only been 5 months into the current Fiscal year for Nintendo. I think they will realistically sell between 15 million and 20 million switches. Unless they announce something crazy for Jan or February. Reaching 20 million will be rough.
Because you're the one saying there is another way to reach the conclusion that Switch is tracking to 8 million in the fiscal year. Math is not magic, so show me how you can come to that conclusion using the numbers we have.
And if it's so far beneath Pachter, then he'd have a better number than 8 million. If he's doing something so much more advance and still coming up with that number which will be WAY off, how is that any better?
You seem to think this is more complicated than it is, like he has a super computer crunching data that no one else has access to in order to reach some advanced conclusion that no one else can comprehend.
I would say Q1x4 would be generous to him, because if his computer models are saying 8 then thats laughably inaccurate and basically impossible. We're giving him the benefit of the doublt here that he just fucked up and wasnt paying attention.
Mario, Zelda, and Mario Kart are still system sellers this year. All three of those games will sell well for the entire generation. So this year's holiday line-up isn't just Pokemon and Smash. It's Pokemon, Smash, and all of their previous evergreens. That's always been Nintendo's strength in software sales. Also there's Mario Party, but who knows what that will do.
Edit: And yes, even just Pokemon + Smash alone is easily as strong of a holiday line-up as what they had last year.
For a quick comparison here, Mario Kart Wii released in April 2008 and its current shipments are 37.1m worlwide. According to Nintendo's financial report for FY2009, it sold 15.4m in its first fiscal year. That means that 21.7m or 58.5% of its sales came from its sustained sales over the generation. That game is still being tracked at retail today because it's still selling. You can probably expect similar legs for Mario Kart 8 DX.
Zelda typically isn't as leggy as those other two, but Breath of the Wild has been something of an anomaly. It's currently selling better right now than it was this time a year ago. It will probably have a fantastic holiday season this year with millions of new Switch owners wanting to play the game.
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Do we have exact numbers on what Switch sold during the holiday season last year?
I mean I'm still somewhat doubtful of the 20 million but 8 million seems like the lowest expectations you could possibly have.
I mean I'm still somewhat doubtful of the 20 million but 8 million seems like the lowest expectations you could possibly have.
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