14 DAY TRIAL // Michael Pachter, who is an analyst watching the video game industry for Wedbush Morgan, has said that the potential market share for the upcoming Wii U home console from Nintendo will be half of what the original Wii was able to capture.
The actual performance of the new gaming platform will be decided by how Nintendo prices it and how much of the audience is interested in using the new home-based device rather than the mobile titles offered by smartphones.
Pachter stated, “I believe that a large portion of the Wii audience comprised casual gamers – those who bought one or two games a year the first two years, then put the Wii aside – and that those casual gamers moved on to another platform.
“The “other” platform may have been Facebook games, smart phone games, tablet games, or one of the other consoles, but once they moved on, they are not likely to come back.”
The analyst also believes that, “Nintendo is in disarray because they waited too long to launch the Wii U. I know that this sounds like sour grapes because they didn’t launch the Wii HD in 2009 or 2010 as I ‘predicted’ - they should have, and because they didn’t, the decline in Wii and DS hardware and software sales drove them into generating losses.”
At the moment the Wii U lacks a clear launch date, although Nintendo says that it will be out on all major markets before Christmas of this year, or a price, but most analysts believe that it will be priced round 250 dollars (188 Euro) for its first few months on store shelves.
The main innovation of the Wii U is a new controller which incorporates a touch-powered screen as well as motion-tracking capabilities.
The device will be re-unveiled at the E3 2012 edition and Nintendo is also expected to talk about the launch video game line-up.