E3 Industry Insight
Posted by: kmikeym | From: May 18, 2004
The E3 news continues...check out what this earnings forecaster has to say about this year's convention.
Rather than a new entry or a long comment, here is some thoughts Mikey had:
Michael Pachter, senior vice president of research for investment banking and brokerage firm Wedbush Morgan Securities, is a total wanker. Forbes may have called him a number one forecaster but he don't know jack about games.
In his E3 Recap interview he seemed in over his head:
When asked what he recalled most, Pachter said, "Sequels, sequels, and more sequels. People just aren’t taking any risk on new intellectual property (IP). Obviously there are some new games but very few." This I agree with. Too many sequels. This is the first thing he said and the last thing I agreed with.
"Microsoft [games] suck! I guess their tennis game was good--Top Spin. Microsoft should can all games that they developed and should have bought somebody who knows how to do it." Ugh, Microsoft did buy them. Hello? Bungie? Rare? This guy is an industry expert? He actually does mention Rare, "The Rare guys were great developers for the N64, but they didn’t do anything for these guys."
Then after ripping into the sameness, "Did you count how many racing games there were? And how many Vietnam games there were? Come on? Military subversion? Racing games? Give me a break. Come up with something different!" he says, "... a game called Inuits. It’s an Eskimo game. Good for them!’ They’re trying something different. It was interesting. It’s not going to do well, but it’s nice to see developers pushing the envelope with something different." Uh, mixed messages...
And the award for Most Obvious Trend Spotter goes to Michael with this one, "Hip-hop. I’ll bet next year there are 50 hip-hop games. I think that Def Jam Vendetta was the first, so give EA credit for actually pioneering something different. And you can tell that San Andreas is going to be a hip-hop game, as is Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition. I must have seen four or five games with hip-hop soundtracks. Next year there’ll be 20." Sorry, was that 50 or 20 for next year?
When asked if E3 still has significance to the industry, Pachter replied, "I think so." Well, whatever. This guy may be great at watching the stocks, but he really doesn't seem to know much about gaming. There just isn't any depth in his answers.
I'm glad you noticed that Curt. I was going to say something about the contradictions when I posted it, but I figured it would be better not to skew the interpretation of his comments. He is supposed to be some big analyst and he can't make any sense out of the industry! Basically I wanted to see if anyone else was as annoyed by him as I was--sorry to subject you to it.
Posted by: J_John at May 19, 2004 2:23 PM
I stopped reading here, " I would never ever look at my own taste and decide that’s what consumer tastes are going to be. For the life of me, I will never understand Tony Hawk. Nor will I understand WWE. And, frankly, I have Madden Football 2001, am perfectly happy with it, and don’t know why anybody would buy a version after that."
He just lost all credibility.
Posted by: Mikey at May 19, 2004 5:49 PM
After reading this Q&A, I can't say I learned anything. I wanted the interviewer to delve deeper into the issues he raised, not change the subject. But what bothered me most was the guy's self-contradiction: "I think you still need to introduce new content to get people excited. I’m afraid that the [software] companies are being a bit too conservative." Then he says, "Good for them!’ They’re trying something different. It was interesting. It’s not going to do well, but it’s nice to see developers pushing the envelope with something different."
Posted by: curt at May 18, 2004 11:23 PM