Is The Wii U Too Little Too Late?

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Considering that the announcement of the Wii U isn’t even a week old yet and already analysts are coming out and saying that it’s two years behind the curve, well, that’s not a good sign, either for the Wii U itself or for the analysts. But who comes out on the wrong side of that particular equation?

Just hours ago, Michael Pachter out at Wedbush Securities came out with a note to investors saying that the Wii U was “two years too late”, considering that no one knew what the price was on it (though early projections put it at higher than the Wii’s initial launch price), and that Nintendo’s main two competitors Sony and Microsoft both had movement-related control schemes. Pachter went on to say that he was assuming that the Wii U could not provide greater power than the current competition, which would leave it in a very bad position and lose “a tremendous first-mover advantage”.

However, Pachter quickly allowed that the console could be a “phenomenal success” if its pricing was kept low in light of future competition from Sony and Microsoft, which isn’t set to hit for years according to some reports. Failure to do so would result in what Pachter termed a “phenomenal failure”.

Pachter’s analysis comes hot on the heels of a pretty aggressive stock drop recently for Nintendo’s Japanese side, as well as some less than pleasant revelations about where Nintendo’s Wii U game footage actually came from.

Naturally, analysts’ statements have to be taken with sufficient grain of salt, but considering the stock drop that happened well before Pachter’s pessimistic forecast, and the reports of disappointment in general, it’s enough to make you think twice. Nintendo’s Wii not only brought in a unique control scheme, but also a unique set of games and did so at what was, at the time, a great price compared to the other two. Can the Wii U compete against what’s coming around the corner, or will it be enough to take advantage of the fact that it will be the only “next-gen” console on the market for a good while?

I’ll open the floor to you guys on that–what do you think about all this? Is too much being made of one analysts’ forward-looking statements that may never actually pan out? Or is this part of a litany of troubles staring Nintendo in the face (many of which I just linked to)? The comments section is waiting for you below, so step up and tell us what you think!