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Pachter poses Manhunt 2 costing Take-Two millions
Industry fortune teller, Wedbush-Morgan's Michael Pachter, says Manhunt 2's freedom of expression will cost publisher Take-Two millions -- good thing Take-Two may have gotten that GTA IV advance money! Pachter believes the game would have generated $25 million in revenues this quarter, along with another $15 million in reorders. He sees three options for Take-Two at this point: Ship the game the way it is. Edit the game, bringing it in line with UK morals and the ESRB's M rating criteria. Cancel the game. Pachter believes canceling isn't a reasonable outcome. The other two options leave Take-Two with either lower sales because of the AO rating and the banning, or increased development costs due to the edit. Pachter guesses that either option costs the company half their potential revenue. He also goes on to say that this incident hurts the longevity of the franchise, which is funny for those who feel Manhunt 2 came out of left field anyway. Take-Two can probably cut their marketing budget by half, look at all this yummy free advertising. We already know FOX News has a story locked and loaded for public consumption closer to the Manhunt 2's July release.
Pachter places prediction on May NPD numbers
No week is complete without a look in Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter's crystal ball. Now channel your chi (qi and ki are proper variants on the same concept as well), open up your chakras and let the Holy Ghost possess you, cause here's what Pachter predicts to be the NPD numbers for May. Humina, humina, humina, ding! May software sales will be up by $333 million or 16% due to the combined sales of last-gen and current gen hardware and software sales. And for the fanboys? The Wii will outsell the PS3 4 to 1. Pachter expects sales of 400,000 for the Wii and 100,000 for the PS3. The Xbox 360? It'll safely chug along at 225,000 according to the ball of crystal. The official NPD data will be released late this Thursday. We'll see how Michael did then, but expect the data to be similar to last month, and the month before that, and the month before that. Wanna see my Pokemans?[Via Press Release]
Pachter: Hey Activision, watch out for Rock Band
Unfortunately, we can't attribute Michael Pachter's warning to Activision as a direct quote, as analysts are forbidden from saying "Hey" and are forced to substitute the informal greeting with "pardon me" or "pay attention to me, please." In commenting on Activision's glowing fiscal report and strong NPD presence to GameDaily BIZ, Pachter draws attention to several challenges Activision faces in the coming months. "All things are not perfect in Activision's world," he says.Pachter predicts that the glaring imperfections (to put it mildly) highlighted by reviewers in the Spider-Man 3 games will curtail sales, and that Call of Duty 4's proposed Iraq setting may prove to leave an equally bad taste in the consumer's mouth. More interestingly, the analyst notes that if Harmonix's EA-published Rock Band is fully playable with just a guitar controller, it will "compete quite favorably with Activision's [Guitar Hero]." He suspects the instrument protagonist genre will remain kind to RedOctane's owner, but adds that "new entrants will impact future growth of the band." Or did he mean brand? Once the dust settles in the battle of the fake bands, will Pachter still stand by his belief that Activision was right to buy RedOctane over Harmonix?
Negative forecast for Take-Two earnings call
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter's Magic 8-Ball is just full of gloom and doom today. Not only does he believe that Halo 3 is going to cause a couple weeks of delay for GTAIV, but that some bad stuff is going to go down during Take-Two's June 11 earnings call. Pachter says to expect studio closures, lease terminations, game cancellations and just general un-good things.Pachter says, "We believe that new management understands what is required to turn the company's fortunes around, and believe that they will take prudent steps to return the company to profitability. However, we believe that there are significant structural changes required in order to control costs ... new management is saddled with the decisions made by the prior management for at least another year, and we do not expect new games such as The Bigs, All-Pro Football, Fantastic Four, or The Darkness to be wildly profitable."Pachter says that Take-Two is currently overvalued and advises shareholders to sell. Pachter concludes in a fantastically geeky/cerebral way saying that loyal shareholders are stuck in a prisoner's dilemma. They can stay and hope the company turns it around a year from now, or they can drop the shares and then everyone loses ... once again, Pachter says to cut and run.
Analyst Michael Pachter says PS3 price drop this summer
Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan is one hell starter of an analyst when he's saying MTV bought the wrong company or Gamestop is a good stock, but he can also admit when he's wrong -- like he did with Bully. Well, now Pachter adds his voice to the choir that a PS3 price drop is possible as early as this summer.Speaking with GI.biz, Pachter says, "It is possible that Sony's cost of production for the PS3 has declined to the point that the company may consider a hardware price cut some time this summer, and we may see a price cut for the PS2 before the holidays."So, now Pachter has thrown his voice into the price drop echo chamber. Estimates for a PS3 price drop range in the $100 region. It hasn't been a pretty day for Sony, so anything that could drive sales would be worth considering.[Via PS3Fanboy]
Analyst predicts price cut for the PS3 this summer
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/playstation_3/Analyst_predicts_price_cut_for_the_PS3_this_summer'; Videogame analyst superstar Michael Pachter expects there to be a price cut for the PlayStation 3 by the end of the year, and says that it might even come as early as this summer. GI.biz quotes Pachter, "It is possible that Sony's cost of production for the PS3 has declined to the point that the company may consider a hardware price cut some time this summer, and we may see a price cut for the PS2 before the holidays."As long as Sony's manufacturing costs have dropped to a reasonable rate, I'd heartily encourage Sony to drop the price of the PS3 as soon as possible. It's very clear that people desperately WANT a PS3, but just can't afford it. Dropping it to $500US and then marketing the hell out of the price drop would do wonders for their sales. Just look at what a 30 dollar price drop did for the PSP.
Analyst: Blu-ray, and therefore PS3, will win
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has drawn a parallel between the success of a high-definition format and its related game console, believing that Sony will gain an "insurmountable advantage" over Microsoft if movie studios embrace Blu-ray, and vice-versa for Microsoft to "maintain its first mover advantage.""Notwithstanding the efforts of the three console manufacturers to deliver compelling exclusive content, we expect the ultimate outcome of the console wars to be decided by the motion picture studios," he said.Pachter ultimately predicts a close, three-way tie in the market share for this generation of consoles: Sony at 36%, Nintendo at 34% and Microsoft at 30%. In Japan, he said, Ninendo will have a 51% share through 2011 (is Pachter also a time traveler?), Sony with 44% and Microsoft presumably with the remaining 5%.Remember, for every conclusion you may draw from Pachter's report, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other analysts with contradictory conclusions. Should either high-definition format come out on top, it still has to contend with its big brother, DVD, for some time now, and therefore its impact on the console wars is minimal at best compared to the system's relative price and software.[Via PS3 Fanboy]
Analyst fight ensues over whether or not Wii is bad for gaming industry
Here we go again, again. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has been running his own sophisticated computerative thinkonometrics regarding the effect of Nintendo's massive success on third parties, and he disagrees with Todd Mitchell's negative assessment.Basically, Mitchell said that because Nintendo titles dominate Nintendo consoles, that a market with a Nintendo console in the lead would lead to smaller market percentages for third parties. Pachter called the prediction "naive," noting that part of third parties' relative failure on previous Nintendo platform was the fact that they didn't do much publishing. He cited EA and Ubisoft specifically, both of whom are showing more activity on the Wii and DS. If publishers release more games-- and non-games-- they'll sell more!
Take Two shareholders oust CEO
Did you catch the Take Two shareholders meeting yesterday? Don't worry if you missed it, the event turned out to be much less dramatic than we had hoped. However, it was not without some ruffled feathers, as now-former CEO Paul Eibeler was shown the door. Taking his place is Ben Feder, a former executive at News Corp, as acting CEO. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities expresses disappointment that the new management is giving themselves a three- to six-month window. Also, Pachter said of Feder, "he appears to have no meaningful experience managing a large organization, nor does his resume suggest that he has any practical experience in the video game industry."Game Politics has a roundup of more opinions regarding this executive shuffle. Our take, however limited in scope, is that Eibeler was a beacon for bad news. His ousting can only spell an upward trend.
Analyst apologizes for Bully sequel statement
Wedbush-Morgan analyst Michael Pachter decided to kiss and make up with Take-Two interactive about previous statements that there would be no Bully sequel. Seriously, props to Pachter for eating crow and admitting his crystal ball was on the fritz."I have been consistently wrong about this title," said Pachter. He admits to being wrong about all his negative predictions about the game relating to fun factor, reviews and sales. Bully received solid reviews and rallied in the fourth quarter selling over a million copies. But, because he is an analyst, Pachter gazed back into the crystal ball and said, "It's premature to guess how much a sequel [to Bully] would cost, but if the compnay thinks it can sell two million units of Bully 2, it will probably produce a sequel." Oh Pachter, you had us at I'm sorry, don't ruin the moment.
