Nintendo Wii U Won’t Be Successful, Analyst Says

The Nintendo Wii U may attract people with its special GamePad and through first-party games but Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter believes that lightning won’t strike twice and the new console isn’t going to follow in the hugely successful footsteps of its predecessor.

Nintendo presented the final version of the Wii U last month at E3 2012 and showed off quite a few different games for it, from first-party titles like New Super Mario Bros. U, to third-party experiences like Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition.

This won’t be enough to guarantee success, however, as well-known industry analyst Michael Pachter believes that the console “isn't going to work," according to his presentation at last week’s Develop conference, via CVG.

What’s more, the analyst quickly points that the Wii U GamePad tablet controller might help draw in those who are interested in the device, but it won’t be enough to actually guarantee sustained sales.

"Essentially this is a solution in search of a problem," he said. "I mean, somebody had an idea - 'let's make the controller a tablet' - and there aren't many games that are going to take advantage of that."

Because of the Wii U GamePad’s special nature, Pachter speculates that big companies put pressure on Nintendo to make the Pro controller, that will resemble the ones from the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.

"Activision never said anything to me, but I know that [for] big games like Call Of Duty they said, 'No, we're not putting it on there if you don't give us a conventional controller'. So they gave in."

In the end, Pachter believes that innovation guaranteed the success of the original Wii but that won’t be the same with the Wii U.

"It worked, they got lucky [but] I don't think they're getting lucky with the Wii U. They really believe that, 'If we're still novel, everything we do will work'. This isn't going to work."

Still, Pachter admits that some success is guaranteed because of the loyal Nintendo fans, even joking that “[Nintendo] could put out a piece of cardboard and say that it'll play Mario and they'll buy it."

As of yet, Nintendo hasn’t talked about the Wii U’s actual price or its release date.