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Pachter on Wii U, Next-gen, CoD, Activision and more.

For once I think Pachter is actually saying some things that make sense. The 2TB drive quote is crazy, but a lot of his other points have merit. I think people are quickly writing him off than carefully reading what he said.
 
There is no fucking need for more than a TB in consoles. None at all. Honestly I don't think I could fill 500GB. 500 GB will probably be the model they start off with and stay with for a long time.

Can easily get up to 500gb if you grab all the PS Plus freebies
 
Call of Duty, I'm calling it a failure,” said Pachter; a surprising statement.
“I know the game sells billions of dollars. Activision did a bad thing with Call of Duty from a profit perspective. They trained gamers that you can buy a game and play it all year, ten hours a week, forever, and you never have to pay again. You just wait for the next Call of Duty. I promise you there are plenty of people, numbering in the millions, who play one game, which is Call of Duty, and they never stop. That's just like the people who play World of Warcraft and never stop, yet the World of Warcraft guys are paying $180 a year, and the Call of Duty guys are paying $60. So who's got a better model? This multiplayer thing being free was a mistake. I don't think anybody ever envisioned it would be this big. It's a mistake because it keeps those people from buying and playing other games.

I'm not sure I understand this.

First of all, World of Warcraft is an adventure game, an MMORPG with loads of content updates and far, far, far, far more content than CoD multiplayer. CoD Multiplayer is just a few maps with FPS mechanics.

People play Cod MP for the competition/competitive nature, exactly like real world sports.

Is he saying that they made a mistake by making CoD MP free, cause then people would only play that game? And by adding a subcription fee to it, those gamers would instead buy other games? Or that they should cut all multiplayer content to make gamers buy other games?
 
I'm not sure I understand this.

First of all, World of Warcraft is an adventure game, an MMORPG with loads of content updates and far, far, far, far more content than CoD multiplayer. CoD Multiplayer is just a few maps with FPS mechanics.

People play Cod MP for the competition/competitive nature, exactly like real world sports.

Is he saying that they made a mistake by making CoD MP free, cause then people would only play that game? And by adding a subcription fee to it, those gamers would instead buy other games? Or that they should cut all multiplayer content to make gamers buy other games?

He's saying Activision built something where someone pays once, and has no continued revenue. Since their time is all stuck there, they aren't spending money on other things to use that time. So yes, he's saying the mistake is that the MP is free and now there time is so consumed that they're not spending money elsewhere on other goods. His point is not a consumer friendly one, but from a pure business model. Activision has built something that limits the money that they can make off of it, and not only that in theory hurts the industry overall because those people are buying other things. Now I know there's DLC, but I don't know how the numbers play with the amount of DLC sold for CoD. This is purely from a business perspective that what is in place now limits the potential money that could be coming in.
 
Patcher doesn't understand how irrelevant the his and industry opinion is to Nintendo and Nintendo fans.

Nintendo will still be Nintendo is a good thing, for me, 3rd-parties are irrelevant.
 
Patcher doesn't understand how irrelevant the his and industry opinion is to Nintendo and Nintendo fans.

Nintendo will still be Nintendo is a good thing, for me, 3rd-parties are irrelevant.

Patcher isn't editorializing his opinion of video games. He's looking at these companies from a business view. He's not a fortune teller either. None of this is what will happen 100% for sure. He is looking at the current state what will probably happen. And if companies don't like what they hear, they make changes. Then a different result happens and people call Patcher a hack.
 
He's saying Activision built something where someone pays once, and has no continued revenue. Since their time is all stuck there, they aren't spending money on other things to use that time. So yes, he's saying the mistake is that the MP is free and now there time is so consumed that they're not spending money elsewhere on other goods. His point is not a consumer friendly one, but from a pure business model. Activision has built something that limits the money that they can make off of it, and not only that in theory hurts the industry overall because those people are buying other things. Now I know there's DLC, but I don't know how the numbers play with the amount of DLC sold for CoD. This is purely from a business perspective that what is in place now limits the potential money that could be coming in.

True. I sort of agree as well, to the point about CoD players not buying anything else, but setting a precedent for pay-for-multiplay is no good for the industry either. And I'm not so sure all those "CoD only" players would consider buying anything else -- they'd probably just not play.

If CoD started with a subscription fee for multiplayer, all/majority of other FPS games would do it as well. And if the "CoD players" didn't pay for CoD, they probably wouldn't pay for any other game. So, the point returns to CoD enforcing a subscription fee just to make more money, but that would be very, very greedy on top of those sales.

And then Xbox Live might get into trouble -- I don't think many casual CoD players would pay for both Xbox Live and the hypothethical CoD multi. They might go over to PS3, or just not play/only play the free MP games.

Just guessing, though.
 
Patcher isn't editorializing his opinion of video games. He's looking at these companies from a business view. He's not a fortune teller either. None of this is what will happen 100% for sure. He is looking at the current state what will probably happen. And if companies don't like what they hear, they make changes. Then a different result happens and people call Patcher a hack.

But hasn't he been wrong like 95% of time when talking about video games? He really seems to be out of his depth when talking about video games.
 
But hasn't he been wrong like 95% of time when talking about video games? He really seems to be out of his depth when talking about video games.

Yes, he's been wrong a lot but the problem is people discredit what he says because of that without reading and thinking about he content of what is being said. I usually think he's crazy with his statements, but a lot of things he said here is valid. That's not to say it all is, but there are plenty of valid points here.
 
But they won't though. They should have destroyed the Wii, but Nintendo made so much goddamn profit off the thing.
You can't compare the two. Lifetime sales of the Wii have zero to do with WiiU market share.
Nintendo will continue to have very poor 3rd party support and this will be a detriment to the WiiU's adoption rate. Nintendo has their niche, the Wii was an anomaly.
 
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Now I want a Pachter bobble head doll.
 
Yes, he's been wrong a lot but the problem is people discredit what he says because of that without reading and thinking about he content of what is being said. I usually think he's crazy with his statements, but a lot of things he said here is valid. That's not to say it all is, but there are plenty of valid points here.

I disagree. I think people read what he says and then come to the conclusion that he is doing the same old, same old. Throwing enough darts at the board that one or two captain obvious statements will come true and then talking those up later with some spin.

He does an analysis of trends and tries to use them to predict the next five years or so. The only difference he has over anyone here is he probably has a lot more access to relevant data and his knowledge of the videogame industry. It's the latter, I think, most people are saying where he falls short.
 
Yesterday I didn't want to write a comment, but it seems like Pachter still gets a few nods here and there. While the basic analysis is somewhat allright, his conclusions are as terrible as always.

2TB is crazy not because you wouldn't need it (I think you could), but because of the disadvantage of the HDD. Unless MS or Sony wants to bleed money and have headaches because of the heat causing HDD, flash and external HDD is the way to go. The only way I can see to work is the offer of basic (with flash) and premium (with HDD) model, though such a model has some throwbacks.
 
He's saying Activision built something where someone pays once, and has no continued revenue. Since their time is all stuck there, they aren't spending money on other things to use that time. So yes, he's saying the mistake is that the MP is free and now there time is so consumed that they're not spending money elsewhere on other goods. His point is not a consumer friendly one, but from a pure business model. Activision has built something that limits the money that they can make off of it, and not only that in theory hurts the industry overall because those people are buying other things. Now I know there's DLC, but I don't know how the numbers play with the amount of DLC sold for CoD. This is purely from a business perspective that what is in place now limits the potential money that could be coming in.
Pachter is essentially criticizing activision for not foreseeing their monumental success with COD and not capitalizing on it from the outset. Poor logic he has going on there.

Problem is if activision originally released call of duty with a subscription people would of just stuck to Halo or another FPS with a decent multiplayer. If CoD had switched early in its life to a subscription model, the probability of consumer demand for the product falling heavily also increased given that none of the other major players would of followed suit and gamers are fickle(where such a switch may be successful now or in the future is Madden).

What Pachter suggests isn't really feasible unless collusion existed from the onset or began now and all developers agreed upon the same model for multiplayer. Which is why his Halo suggestion is idiotic. If Halo is the only game with a subscription model, consumers will likely move on in large numbers.

What Pachter fails to realize is Activision had no other choice then to offer a free multiplayer experience. You couldnt penetrate that particular market any other way. Nor sustain it. Had they offered a subscription based model they would have never penetrated the market and been worse off then they are currently. Sure in retrospect it would have been great from a business standpoint to of introduced a recurring revenue model, problem is I can't think how it would of been successfully implemented given the competition and the enviorenment at the time.
 
2TB HDD for next gen is ridiculous, I'll be happy if there is even 500GB.

On the other hand, I've been wondering for some time why COD isn't MMOFPS. Free to play with, of course, microtransactions would probably be a lucrative business model.

With BO2 failing to outsell MW3, I'm starting to wonder is COD bubble finally ready to burst? How will Activision counter this? Next gen engine, added physics&destruction could revitalise the franchise in case gamers are tired of same old visuals, however if fans are tired of the franchise in general, even updated presentation won't be enough.

My guess is that Activision is going to have to transform COD in some way to keep the cash flow. However, I doubt that the franchise will remain as lucrative as it was until now and that Activision is going to have to start relying on other games and new IPs more than ever.
 
I know many just seem to love saying lol Pachter and leaving it at that but I think a lot of what he says here is actually pretty reasonable.

There are plenty of people who buy Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games and that's it. The. Wii was an anomaly and I don't really see them repeating that success. So if all the various hardware rumors and WiiU specs pan out we could easily see a repeat of this gen as far as third parties goes. The 2TB hard drive isn't that out there either. I had to upgrade my ps3 drive from all the people plus goodies and that started late. Thinking about plus at the beginning of the general and I could easily see needing a TB+ drive. The CoD comments aren't that out of whack either if you actually read further than the CoD is a failure part.

It's easy to dismiss the guy but I think he frequently says some interesting stuff and quite like reading what he thinks.
 
Great article. I think he is really close to the money on a lot of this stuff.

Call of duty is a terrible model (from a monetary stand point) but I think the people who only play COD buy the DLC. So they are spending over 100 bucks a year.

I think we will see 2tb drive options in next-gen systems, but only on premium models.

Nintendo is a niche market, but that niche market is very large. And sometimes people outside that market buy in to the hype.

Contradiction Sir!
 
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