Pachter has released his February 2015 USA NPD predictions.
Please read the Q&A before posting. Thanks.
Q&A:
Q: "LOL so Pachter gets paid to make stupid video game predictions? Where can I sign up?
A: Actually, Pachter's job is to release complex, thorough, and intelligent company analyses and evaluate whether or not they are a good buy for investors. Pachter primarily focuses around companies in the digital entertainment and retail entertainment sectors, like AMC, Netflix, Amazon, and Nintendo.
Pachter does an amazing job with his frequent, lengthy reports to clients and definitely, 100% deserves every penny Wedbush Securities pays him. Wedbush Securities isn't idiotic. They wouldn't have kept Pachter around for decades if he wasn't really good at what he does.
Pachter frequently discusses video game predictions in mainstream media and he releases USA NPD predictions to clients. However, these predictions are only made because Pachter likes to go the extra mile and it's fun to predict video game sales. Please remember that these NPD predictions are
NOT Pachter's job, and the amount of work he performs in his real job is extraordinary enough to warrant his high salary. He works really, really hard for Wedbush, and that is chronically underappreciated.
Q: "Should we trust Pachter?"
A: Pachter subscribes to NPD (so he has the full spectrum of historical data available to him), and he conducts a variety of small-scale channel checks in the market. Basically, Pachter calls up various store managers and asks how the retail market has been doing. He is
IN NO WAY an authoritative source of video game sales or an "insider."
GAF insiders in the physical retail market have the following checkmark as their tag:
These GAFfers (like Abdiel, The Shogun, and Cornbread78) frequently provide us with sell-through trends for the USA market that are generally at a larger scale than what Pachter analyses. Therefore, there is no reason to trust Pachter over any other intelligent GAFfer's prediction. He is essentially another NeoGAF poster in terms of credibility.
Q: "Should I create a new thread about this where we make fun of Pachter ad nauseam?"
A: Unless you're comfortable making an "Aquamarine's JPMorgan Chase NPD Predictions" thread, you shouldn't be comfortable making a "Pachter's NPD Predictions" thread. If an ignorant website picks up his predictions, please don't parrot them into a new thread.
The level of discourse in new threads diminishes greatly from propagation of Pachter misinformation and mockery. Anything intelligent that could be said about Pachter is going to be said here by Sales-Age regulars.
Here is a fantastic example of the low-quality nonsense that rises to the surface when we make dedicated threads:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=911723
Without further ado, here are Pachter's USA NPD predictions for February 2015:
PS4: 200K
XB1: 168K
WIU: 100K