Pachter: Nintendo Pressured By Activision To Make Wii U Pro Controller For Call of Duty

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has been pretty down on the Wii U lately, unconvinced that the tablet-based controller will resonate with the mass market. Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton last week, Pachter shared his thoughts on the Wii U and why the company opted to create a more traditional "Pro" controller in addition to the Wii U GamePad.

"I don’t get it. I think that essentially this is a solution in search of a problem. 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," Pachter explained.

According to the analyst, Nintendo was essentially cornered into making the Pro Controller in order to secure Call of Duty's presence on the console. "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," he said.

Pachter went on to express his lack of faith in the future of the Nintendo's new console by adding: “I don’t think they suck – I just think that they really believe that, ‘If we’re still novel, everything we do will work’. This isn’t going to work," he said. “Hardcore gamers will buy them; hardcore Nintendo fanboys will buy it. They could put out a piece of cardboard and say that it’ll play Mario and they’ll buy it.”

Ouch, Mr. Pachter, you just crushed the spirits of the twelve year-old Nintendo fanboy within me. Not cool.

[Source]