Pachter: All games cloud-based by 2030, Japanese developers losing relevancy
After playing his cards conservatively for a few weeks, Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter has once more let forth some delightfully debatable predictions.
The Cloud
"I think it'll take probably 20 years, and I think it'll be very, very gradual," Pachter said, speaking in the latest Pach Attack.
"It's here now. I think it gets big in the next three or four years. By 2015, the cloud will be pretty significant, by 2020 the cloud could be half of all games and by 2030 the cloud will be 100 percent of all games."
The analyst commented that nearly everyone wins if gaming does shift to streaming services.
"Everybody involved in the value chain except retail has a vested interest in cloud gaming.
" ... The only guys who really lose are retailers and people who can't afford games … who need used games in order to access games."
He added that he expected another round of consoles from Microsoft and Sony by 2015, but that neither platform holder has a strong enough first-party line up to resist for successive generations - although Nintendo might.
Nobody else has any reason to back packaged games, Pachter said.
"If you're looking at EA's line up or Activision's line up, those guys actually make more money selling you a digital copy," he explained.
Japanese development.
Asked about the future of Japanese development, Pachter was blunt.
"My opinion is, the Japanese publishers get smaller and smaller and smaller and become less and less relevant," he said, adding that Western publishers would likely push for a greater share of Asian markets.
The analyst explained that failed attempts to break into Western territories may make Japanes epublishers shy of trying again.
"Everybody's tried to Westernize Japanese content. … Those games haven't worked as well as these publishers would have liked them to.
"What we've seen is a lesser investment in Western development ... They seem to me to be shifting back to japanese-only development."
Pachter gave Platinum's Vanquish as an example - a highly-praised game that sold extremely poorly outside Japan - of failed attempts to break through.
"The Japanese development community is supremely talented … but they aren't raised in Western culture, they don't think like Westerners, so we aren't seeing the same type of games produced by them.
" ... They're gonna be more and more reluctant to chase the Western market, the Japanese market is not growing," he concluded.
See the full episode below.
Thanks, GoNintendo.