He knows and sees all, or so the Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, Michael Pachter Believes.
The visionary twice guesstimated the price of Natal, stating it would cost around $50 at launch, he now believes it’ll be more expensive. Pachter also feels that Nintendo’s DSi XL will be a failure from its inception, considering it only costs $10 less than the company’s flagship console, Wii.
Speaking to Industry Gamers, Pachter said this:
“I probably aimed too low with my $50 Natal comment, as I’m sure that consumers will come to believe that the product and software has a lot of value,” he said. “That means to me that Microsoft may try to price higher than I guessed on the Pach Attack segment.
“Regardless, if consumers think that Microsoft is providing a lot of value with Natal, it could be priced higher. The more they and Sony charge, the lower unit sales of the competing controllers will be, and the less they charge, the higher.
“I don’t see either expanding the GAMING audience, but do see them expanding the user base beyond the core gamer in the household. I do not expect the multi-user household to buy a significantly higher number of games, but think that once these other household members are introduced to the PS3 and 360, they may begin to enjoy the many features of each, and are more likely to justify movie downloads, joining Netflix, or whatever is planned in the future, as the consoles are more approachable with motion controls.”
“I think that the price point of all DS products are too high, and think that a price increase for the DSi XL is not going to sit well with consumers,” he said. “The difference in price between the DS Lite and the XL is $60, and I’m not sure that bigger screens provide the value that Nintendo thinks.
“The difference between the DSi and the XL makes sense, but all three models are due for a cut, the DS to around $99, the DSi to $129, and the XL would then make more sense at $149. I don’t think it will be a success at launch, since it costs only $10 less than a Wii.”
At Nintendo’s Media Summit in San Fransisco Yesterday, it revealed that DSi XL would be released with three pre-installed games and come in three different colors, all for the price of $189.99, $10 cheaper than the Wii on March 28th, 2010.
