Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has stated that his recent remarks regarding Activision essentially demanding Nintendo design a Wii U Pro Controller were purely speculation.
“I am putting two and two together to conclude that Activision put pressure on them,” Pachter clarified. “I do not know this either first-hand or third-hand; nobody told me. I am merely deducing it from what we know, and it’s an educated guess.
“If the Pro Controller is for multiplatform games, that means it is for third-party games. Nintendo has never done anything altruistically for third parties, so I concluded that they added the Pro Controller because of pressure from third parties.
“The pressure could have come from anywhere — EA with sports games, Ubisoft with Assassin’s Creed, or Take-Two with GTA — but it seems to me that the ‘prize’ that would make the Wii U legitimate as a console of choice for multiplatform games is Call of Duty.”
His assertion towards the Wii U Pro Controller becoming more of a necessity for Activision are in relation to Nintendo needing to ensure that, as one of the strongest global franchises, Call of Duty is developed for the console.
He continued, “Add to my logic that [Call of Duty: Black Ops II developer Treyarch studio head] Mark Lamia made a comment at E3 about how the Pro Controller seemed tailored for the game he is working on for release this fall, and you can see how I concluded that Activision put pressure on them.”
