DAILY MANIFESTO

Revolutionary Rant: Pachter

Posted on Monday, December 6 @ 22:52:31 Eastern by Daniel Bischoff

As much as Sony would like us to accept their denials of a PSP2 politely, it's out there. The second generation Sony handheld is coming. We all know it. Why fight it?

~~Morgan-Wedbush securities analyst~~ Gametrailers.com's Michael Pachter seems to have gathered enough for him to declare the PSP2 "dead on arrival".

In the latest Pach-Attack (God, help us), Pachter had this to say on the upcoming handheld:

I think the PSP was dead on arrival and I think the PSP2 is going to be dead on arrival.

We're approaching saturation in the handheld market. We're starting to see DS hardware sales crack, the iPod Touch is cutting into the handheld market. It looks to me like young kids are just as happy playing with the iPod Touch.

The 3DS will prolong the handheld market for manufacturers, but ultimately I think handhelds are in trouble. What's the difference if you play Tetris on an iPod Touch or on a DS? Well, you pay a buck on the iPod Touch and you pay $20 on the DS.

After the 3DS has had its little rush I think the handhelds will continue to decline.

If the PSP has sold tens of millions of units worldwide, does that still make it a "dead on arrival" console? I guess people love Pachter, or at least they love to hate him, but the only reason I'm starting to miss the NPDs is because it makes this kind of commentary worthy of attention. People love numbers and predictions based off of numbers and Pachter has that market cornered.

It's not as if his argument doesn't hold any water. If you're a parent and you have two younger children, an iPod Touch with 20 games that you bought once and licensed to both handhelds will more than suffice for the 3-day car trip you have planned. Hell, slap some SpongeBob SquarePants on there and you'll have me entertained for quite some time. But when kids hit middle school, they're going to get a little bored with Angry Birds.

The 3DS and the PSP2 will be there to pick up all those gamers who have grown too old, too bored, or too cool (for school) to carry around an iPod Touch. PFFFTTTT Kiddy games? No thanks, mom and dad, I want that $300 machine I can brag to my friends about and eventually lose on an airplane!

Pachter, seriously, you've got the business angle handled, but you don't know shit about kids. Once the 3DS lands we'll all be talking about that Kid Icarus joint, that hot new Mario Bros. game, or Nintendo-powered Dogs and Cats.

Do not underestimate Nintendo's ability to appeal to children. They'll crush you with stacks of poorly rubber-banded $5 bills and all the change kids have collected and scrimped from under-couches to buy Game Boys, Advances, or Nintendo DS units over decades of children raised on the house Miyamoto built.

The same can be said of Sony. At the same time PSP2 rumors are swirling into some kind of hot, undeniable mess, PSP phone rumors are as strong as ever too. What OS does that thing run? Android. What does Android have? A marketplace. What can you buy there? Angry... Fucking... Birds. I can't imagine the PSP2 won't have access to that content as well.

I get it. Apple has this neat, easy-to-use machine that's got a high cost to entry, but a bunch of cheap, disposable, unimportant games. Have you noticed how nobody gives a shit about Farmville anymore? It's because all those games are fads. They don't have the staying power of a Mario or Solid Snake or Kirby or ~~Crash Bandicoot~~.

Don't worry though, Pach'. It's not like you haven't gotten anything else wrong recently.**

**Borderlands, Red Dead Redemption, Splinter Cell: Conviction exclusivity, Steam trade-ins, want more?

[Source]

Tags: Sony, psp2, Michael Pachter, revolutionary rant

Comments

Rinnon
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Dec 7th, 2010 at 11:14 am
I suppose this is what you get when you ask a man who does not play video games for advise on video games. I mean seriously, it seems very very clear to me that this man does not actually play Video Games. I mean sure, he's probably picked up a few, I'm sure he's played a lot of different games at different times... but he's not a gamer, probably never will be, and ergo, will never truly be able to think the way a gamer does.

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213EDD
Joined: Sep 2007

Posted: Dec 7th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
He was not the only one who said PSP was DOA.... Why make such a big deal out of it just because the PSP2 might be because of dumb ***** buy nintendos overrated garbage

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