“We can agree to disagree about the Wii Vitality Sensor. It looks tremendously stupid to me, but I’m sure I’m not the target market.” – constantly quoted Wedbush “analyst” Michael Pachter.
“We can agree to disagree about the Wii Vitality Sensor. It looks tremendously stupid to me, but I’m sure I’m not the target market.” – constantly quoted Wedbush “analyst” Michael Pachter.
This must mean it will be a resounding success. I mean he’s been wrong on practically every thing else this entire generation. No reason to suspect that trend will change course anytime soon.
Humorously, the one time he’s been right about something this whole generation, denouncing the PSP Go as a ripoff, he retracted it almost immediately.
You’d think, with Pachter’s track record, he’d at least have the sense to wait for *anything* to be announced before opening his jaw.
Michael Pachter is what he is. A buffoon. It’s obvious he isn’t going to change his ways.
Truth be told, the thing I’m actually more pissed about is every video game blog and news org out there still gives him the time of day. He’s good for traffic, I suppose, but at the expense of what?
I think that’s an interesting point: what does Pachter bring to the table that people are so interested in hearing his opinion? He’s been so badly wrong so many times that you’d think nobody would even bother anymore.
This has led to a theory of mine that it isn’t so much readers putting any stock in what he says (who could??), but that the ‘journalists’ *love* that he says the things they wish they could say but, for a variety of reasons, can’t, e.g. fear of backlash; worrying about what little credibility they have; etc.
So, it’s much easier to stick Pachter up there to absorb the flack from fandom, and then, if he ever is correct, to hop on the conventional wisdom bandwagon later (assuring everyone that that’s what they always believed since nobody ever really checks these things), after the dust has cleared–basically it gives them cover to express their views w/o expressing them overtly.
ECM, I think you are correct that it is the journalists that have his ear and that many of them personally agree with him.
His sentiments against Wii, support of HD resolutions and sales projections and speculation of certain hardware mirror that of the majority of the video game press.
Though I don’t believe they use him as a front to absorb the backlash as they tend to be just as wrong and objective in their “news” as he is. They keep him around because they feel his credentials in career field lend credibility to their own opinions and skewed views despite their erroneous basis.
Good point, Jim.
@Jack
Game sites turn to pachter because he has become the equivalent of a news “expert”. When the news needs commentary and can’t get it from the source they turn to the “experts” to have something to talk about. Since the videogame media are the lap dogs of the industry and only get real news when companies decide to give it they have turned to “experts” like pacther for commentary in order to have something to post every day.
The fact that he routinely says sensational things is only icing on the cake for these people. And that’s why they he’s such a go-to guy because if they wanted intelligent sensible opinions they would have stopped interviewing the guy years ago.
Pachter is an insecure attention whore who acts like the teens he argues with on neogaf all the time.
@MG: That he’s even engaged with NeoGAF at all is a huge klaxon of warning for me.
The PSP Go retraction pretty much convinced me that Sideshow Pii Wii is bought and paid for by Sony. You don’t retract something that the evidence shows it’s true unless you have a vested interest in seeing the failure succeed.
The irony is that if we engage him; we makes his ideas legit by bringing them forward. If we don’t engage him, then we make his ideas legit simply because his follower will think we are afraid of them. Heads I win, tails you lose. And Sideshow Pii Wii knows it. Otherwise; he would have shut up a long time ago. Mockery is the only real way to go with him. It doesn’t shut him up; but since nothing will, making him look like the idiot that he is does at least give us a chance of subduing the beast enough to allow for sensible research.
“It looks tremendously stupid to me, but I’m sure I’m not the target market.”
So stupid people are the target market? People who like tremendously stupid things? It’s pretty disgusting. It’s one thing to have one’s own opinion on something, another entirely to try and elevate oneself or devalue and entire group of people by insulting something he doesn’t like.
Why on earth does he get away with saying these things and it being a touchstone of discussion? HE’S AN ANALYST (supposedly) – the only time he should be getting any attention is when he acts like one. When he’s injecting personal bias, opinion, and narrative in hopes to MAKE things happen, rather than analyze WHY they happen, then he’s not doing his job.
I mean hell, if I tried to pull that crap on my job, I could get fired, sued…
@herogear: “So stupid people are the target market?”
Right. Good point. This kind of thinking is what’s broken about gaming right now. Anything that doesn’t have this grand narrative and uber realistic graphics is somehow “casual,” which actually means “stupid” when that person says that.
Which leads to Pachter. He’s saying the SAME EXACT THING. Is he completely bought and paid for, or just inept? Those are really the only two choices left at this point.