Note: The title and opening have both been changed as to clear up any confusion. Also, while language is not really a fucking issue for us, we do try to keep it out of our titles. For the children.

One day, seemingly out of nowhere, Michael Pachter descended from the heavens and we were told that his word was gospel. We were told that this man was a genius of the gaming industry, and that his predictions were as good as gold. Sadly, that isn’t the case at all.

While ol’ Michael has indeed been right about a great many things, he’s also gotten some of his predictions dead wrong — and as of late, he seems to have gone off the analyst equivalent of the “deep end”.

Now, before we get to Pachter’s recent madness, let’s take a quick look back at some of his more “colorful” predictions — which would up being off-the-mark.

Two of Pachter’s biggest swing-and-misses are also two of his earliest. In 2005, Pachter made the call that Sony would decimate all competition in this round of consoles:

In 2010, Sony’s going to have 55%, Microsoft’s going to have 35% and Nintendo 10%, with all three of those having plus or minus 5%.

Now, I’m willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt on this one. At the time the Wii (then Revolution) had yet to be unveiled to the public and Nintendo was getting kicked square in the GameCubes by the PS2 and Xbox.

The second big “whoopsie” came a few months later when Pachter told the New York Times that he didn’t “think there [were] four million people” who would play online games.

I don’t think there are four million people in the world who really want to play online games every month. World of Warcraft is such an exception. I frankly think it’s the buzz factor, and eventually it will come back to the mean, maybe a million subscribers.

World of Warcraft has surpassed eleven million monthly subscribers. Last I checked, that’s eleven-times “maybe a million subscribers”.

I should be fair to Pachter, though. For every call he’s gotten dead wrong, he’s also gotten one spot-on: Netflix on 360 and Grand Theft Auto IV being delayed come immediately to mind. It should also be noted that when it comes to actual stocks and business dealings, Pachter is pretty damn accurate.

We remain convinced that EA will prevail in its bid for Take-Two. We envision a scenario whereby EA receives FTC approval for the combination some time in the next two months, and expect EA to make a last ditch effort to complete a deal by September.

…oh.

The problem with when he tries to comment on gaming trends and gamers buying habits. 2009 has already been a particularly rough year for the guy, who has left us gems like this:

I don’t think (online multiplayer games) get impacted at all, because people who play them are addicts, Losing their jobs makes them more likely to play because they have more time to play.

Take-Two largely remains a one-hit wonder… The company’s one hit, Grand Theft Auto, is relatively predictable and immensely profitable.

The Wii audience isn’t sophisticated enough to know whether the game they’re buying compares favorably to, say, Gears of War or LittleBigPlanet, because they probably don’t own an Xbox 360 or a PS3.

…

I mean, who sells more food — McDonald’s or Ruth’s Chris Steak House, which certainly serves better meat? Nintendo has become the fast food machine. Sony is very much the high-end restaurant. And Microsoft is somewhere in between.

However, it is his most recent comments regarding the future of consoles that has really sent the public into a tizzy. You see, Pachter says that this is the last generation of game consoles:

I think we’ve seen the last generation of consoles… [Third party publishers] are not going to support a PS4 or Xbox 720.

Frighteningly enough, that isn’t the most absurd statement from that piece. But, this is about Pachter so I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which one I’m talking about.

Odds are this comment was spawned by the announcement of OnLive, a digital-distribution service that basically works as “Steam for consoles”. I’ll get into why OnLive won’t replace consoles more later in the week, but suffice to say Pachter is dead wrong. Thankfully both Colin Sebastian and David Cole also think this, both saying that there will be at least one more generation around 2012.

The beautiful thing about these kinds of predictions is that nobody can really prove you wrong. At least, not when it matters. Sure, Pachter said that Final Fantasy XIII will forever remain a Sony exclusive. Of course, he was wrong, but by the time the announcement was made at E3 2008 hardly anybody remembered that he had made this “prediction”. In fact, I think more than anything else, the word “prediction” is the source of Pachter’s troubles with gamers.

You see, because Michael Pachter is an analyst for Wedbush Morgan, when he says something it’s a “prediction” and therefore automatically demands the attention of everyone in the industry. Meanwhile, if you or I said the exact same thing, it would be considered a “wild ass guess” and would probably result in you being mocked endlessly for sounding like a doofus.

In the end, though, this is what analysts tend to do. They look at a given situation and basically guess as to what is going to happen. Usually they’re wrong, but they miss by just a little bit.

Pachter, for whatever reason, is different.

When he gets it right, which is more than he’s given credit for (around 60% in total), he’s dead-on. But when he gets it wrong, which he isn’t held to enough, it’s so wrong that you almost think he’s not being serious.

Let it be known that we don’t hate Michael Pachter around here… well, okay, Mike hates the guy. But, besides Mike, there is no ill will for the man. All that I am saying is that people are giving this man entirely too much clout.

*Yes, I know he’s an analyst for Wedbush Morgan

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