While Nintendo VP Cammie Dunaway recently suggested that Rockstar should pour more resources into marketing to perk up sales of DS effort Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, analyst Michael Pacher believes the root cause of the game's relatively dismal retail performance lies elsewhere. Speaking to Industry Gamers in a recent column, Pachter voiced the opinion that Chinatown Wars missed its mark for a simple reason: the platform audience. Releasing an M rated title on a platform where a vast majority of its owners are below the age of 17 is a recipe for disaster, says Pachter:

I don't think that Chinatown Wars failed because of poor marketing. I think that an M-rated game will have difficulty selling on the DS, since the majority of DS owners are under 17 and can't buy it.  Those who are over 17 typically have a 360 or PS3 (if they are interested in M-rated content), and have already had ample opportunity to buy GTA IV on their home consoles.

Makes perfect sense and we're inclined to agree, but you have to remember that sales of the PSP port weren't exactly chart-topping either. Perhaps the top-down gameplay style turned all but the most hardcore of fans off from picking it up after all.

Pachter Says Marketing Not To Blame For Less Than Stellar GTA DS Sales [eXophase.com]

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has already voiced his concerns over the need of a Wii price cut, and there’s good reason to believe that Nintendo will be taking that advice to heart if U.S. sales predictions for September are on the mark.

With total unit sales 50 percent lower than last year, Pachter expects Wii sales to take another hit in September, which would translate to a sixth consecutive month of decline. How significant of a dropoff that may be is anyone’s guess – and it may not happen in the unlikely event that sales pick up. However, with August NPD figures inching closer to the sub-250K mark, Nintendo may want to take proactive action on this one.

US Wii sales set for sixth month of decline [GI.biz]

Pachter: Wii September Performance Not Looking Up, Price Cut Needed To Stay Competitive - [eXophase.com]

No matter how you shake it, the asking price of $249 for the recently announced PSPgo is a wee bit on the high side. Outspoken analyst Michael Pachter agrees, going as far to label the device as a rip-off. Pachter surmises that despite the inclusion of built-in 16GB flash storage, doing away with an expensive UMD drive means Sony will be making a healthy profit on each unit sold.

$249 is too much. Period… The [current] $169 PSP-3000 is a profitable device – the disc assembly, for a UMD, costs more than 16 gigs of flash does. So this new device doesn’t cost them as much to make as the PSP-3000 and they jack the price up $80…

I’m sorry to say it. I don’t want to get bad fan mail from the Sony fanboys, but… They’re ripping off the consumer until they sell a couple million and if consumers don’t buy it then the price is going to come down… they’re making a lot more money on the PSP Go than the PSP-3000. And the PSP Go helps them because there’s no piracy…

Pachter brings up a fair point. Although we were extremely impressed with the PSPgo at E3, both from an aesthetic and functional standpoint, dropping down what amounts to more than half the price of a PS3 is a hard pill to swallow. Regardless, it’s hard to complain, as Sony is giving consumers a choice between the 3000 and go. Being an early adopter is never easy.

Pachter says Sony is ‘ripping off’ consumers with PSP Go [Joystiq]