Topic: That Michael Pachter Thread

Mr Patcher is the Oracle of the game business.

I thought this thread was about the movie Michael..

I don't feel like investors and analysts do enough to consider the social context (both non-tech and tech based) and the companies' goal with respect to the social context in addition to determining just the markets.

_{P.S. this thread's name should change to The Michael Pachter Thread already to prevent any more "I thought this was going to be a thread about Michael whoever" posts D:}

That's completely different, and I think you're just assuming. It's easy to want to discredit Iwata because of everyone's perception of him saving Nintendo skyrocketing them to success, but if you look at what was going on in the company around the time he was promoted, you can clearly see his influence. He officially became CEO in 2002, while Nintendo was investing in the GameBoy Advance and GameCube, then two years later in 2004 he clearly decided to change direction by taking the GBA infrastructure, cutting off support only 3 years in, and making the Nintendo DS in order to broaden the audience using the casual approach.

So what you're assuming is that Hiroshi Yamauchi and the R&D department planned to make the GBA run for only 3-4 years only to be taken over by the Nintendo DS, and eventually release the Wii? I think it's more realistic to assume that Iwata stepped in and reinvigorated the handheld market by asking the new hardware team to make something innovative, as his goal was and has been since, to make video games appeal to a broader audience. Maybe the numbers don't stack up, but I think Pachter is wrong, Satoru Iwata is a great CEO and has contributed to the expansion of video games immensely.

Analysts look at data, and base theories and projections based on historical trends - that data does take into context the social environment since a popular product is a product that society clearly wants.

At times stuff happens that cannot be predicted by data. The Wii was an example of that, really. If you looked at Nintendo's product strategy and sales data leading up to the Wii you would never have guessed (assuming you were being rational) that the Wii was going to be a success.

If you took a gamble and invested in Nintendo at that point, congratulations you made a lot of money. Assuming you were also able to take into account the crash that Nintendo has experienced post DS and Wii.

And Pachter did call it right with Nintendo. Aside from the unexpected success of the Wii and DS, Nintendo is right back to where it was before the Wii and DS now - an unwise investment.

Once again, Nintendo fans need to understand that Pachter is not speaking to them. He is speaking to the people who are putting their money and livilhoods on the line in investing in companies. His predictions, framed in that context, are accurate far more often than the poor reporting of his predictions would suggest.

It was originally called The Michael Pachter Thread, I then changed it to The Michael Pachter "Fan Club", Then I wanted it back as The Michael Pachter Thread, but accidentally deleted "Pachter". It didn't matter too much for me. After all, "The Michael Pachter Thread" sounds boring.
Now the Thread is called "Michael Pachter Says the Darndest Things".

Everyone put stocks on Netflix

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100529767

I used to be annoyed by Michael Pachter, now I just find him cute. "Who's making Nintendo fanboys angry? YOU ARE! YOU ARE! Have a cookie! Good boy!"

This week on Pach Attack, Pachter says The Vita is a joke, and Nintendo owns the handhe...

You're misreading that article. He states that the 3DS will do better than the Vita in the first pargraph. What he says is that some of Nintendo's market share in the portable gaming market will be taken by the Vita (which is indisputable. Over 4 million Vita's have been sold. If there was no Vita, Nintendo's market share would be higher).

Also, for the record, that article was made before the 3DS had its price drop. So he was making that assumption with the Vita costing the same amount as the 3DS and without the prices of the system's memory cards revealed. And even then he simply said that the Vita would take some of Nintendo's market share.

It's really hard to take Pachter-haters seriously when they get the facts wrong more than they claim he gets them wrong.

It was very immature for me to say that and I do apologize for me saying that. Sorry moomoo

If he's speaking to investors, why does he always word his arguments with condescension? Most of us wouldn't say he's biased if he worded his argument better. To directly call someone a bad CEO isn't advising crap.

@rayword considering that the CEO makes the executive decisions of the company and bad CEO's will definitely make a company a poor investment choice, I'd say it is indeed advising crap. His condescension though, I assume that's just his style - like Gordon Ramsay or Simon Cowell.

@Whirlpool No sweat, man. It's more than anything else the simple fact that I get really annoyed by all the haters. I mean, it's one thing to not like a guy; it's another to just constantly spit venom at a guy everytime you see something he says (which I see all the time on GoNintendo).

Even if we don't like someone, we should never be so negative. That does not build a healthy fan-base in any way, shape, or form.

I feel like this guy is more of a troller then anything else and just wants attention.

I'm not a complete hater. I mostly put these articles to make sure we're not cluttered with more hate articles. Its why you'll never see me post my opinions on this thread.

Then you and a lot of fanboys have no idea what his job actually is. See Waltz/Chocobo/wutever his name is now's posts

This has already been said, but it's important to reinforce: investors want, badly, to know if a CEO of a company is a bad one.

If you honestly believe that Iwata is a genius and Nintendo is going to survive for ever and longer, raise a million dollars an invest it in Nintendo. It's a sure bet, right?

I suspect, however, if you really were about to throw a million at the stock market, you might take what Pachter and others say a little more serioisly.

Even though I never said anything remotely close to that, I get what you're saying.

However, that was a bad example of mine. Here are some other quotes taken from Pachter with my best attempt to keep them in context.

I don’t think Nintendo fans are so stupid they would buy a piece of cardboard. A box on the other hand, that says Nintendo on it, they probably would.

If you don’t like that answer, Nintendo fans, deal with it.

And (especially the first one) I don't think any of this qualifies as stock market predictions/probabilities. And then there's the fact that he ignores former Nintendo trends such as building back up from huge mistakes like the 3DS launch, or even the N64/GameCube drought. Would that make it a good investment? No, probably not. Does that mean he should say "Nintendo is doomed/won't recover/will drop out of hardware" every single generation? I don't believe so, it would be as much as saying "don't invest now"

With regard to the box comment, he's not all-that wrong, in the sense that Nintendo has built up a fanatically loyal userbase and they will buy almost anything Nintendo produces. It's a good thing, really, though when it comes to new consoles it doesn't represent the mass-market appetite for the device so well; every Nintendo fan goes out and preorders (happened with the Wii U) and no one aside from the Nintendo fan base buys it, leading to an underperforming console a few months later (again, the Wii U).

That said I do agree with you. Pachter has two problems here:

1) He's a business analyst, and really shouldn't be spending time commenting at NeoGAF and on consumer game sites. That would be like a CEO of a bank doing an exclusive interview with Playboy; he's not going to be able to say anything that most of the readers are going to understand.

2) He has a serious articulation problem. I get what he's talking about, but I know how analysts work and I have access to most of the same data he does. Unless you actually know what he's talking about and understand an analyst's job, Pachter's not going to make much sense. He'll even sound silly.

So, while I agree with most Nintendo fans that Pachter should STFU, it's actually because I believe he is a very good analyst and is wasting his time on a bunch of people who talk big, but would never dream of actually investing real money in Nintendo.

Yes, but that is equally as true for Sony/Microsoft/Apple and any others you'd care to name. It's a fairly unnecessary direct statement.