Analysts Debate Wii and Third Party Publishers

Industry analysts are debating whether Nintendo's continued and strong sales success will, in fact, hamper the performance of third party publisers, Gamesindustry.biz reported today.

Kaufman Bros. Equity Research analysis Todd Mitchell commented, "Nintendo's success with the DS and Wii bodes poorly for the publishers ... Nintendo is dominating software sales on its popular hardware platforms, leaving the publishers with a smaller slice of an only somewhat incrementally larger pie."

But Michael Pachter, an analyst with another organization, Wedbush Morgan, disputed that assessment, labeling it "naive."

"Going forward, the publishers are all trying to be largely platform agnostic. The success of the Wii and DS means that virtually every mainstream title will appear on both platforms," he said in comments to the news organization.

"If consumers have a choice of all games on the Wii and DS, and Nintendo's offering remains constant, Nintendo must lose share. That is a good thing for the third party publishers," Pachter added.

Wedbush was originally founded as a securities firm in 1955 and Kaufman was created in 1995 to specialize in investment industry analysis.

A number of publishers and developers have publicly commented on the newly diversified and stratified nature of gaming platforms, including Capcom and Gas Powered Games.