Wedbush declares Wii U "two years late"
Analysts say Nintendo has conceded advantage to competitors
Nintendo's Wii U is arriving on the market at least two years late, according to influential analyst firm Wedbush Morgan.
In a note to investors, authored by Michael Pachter, Edward Woo and Nick McKay, the company pointed out that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 footage was used to demonstrate third-party Wii U games - likely evidence that the system's high definition visuals will not surpass those of the current consoles.
"We think that Wii U is arriving two years late, given that the other HD consoles already have peripherals for movement," said the firm.
"As Nintendo did not provide any specifics around the new console's power or pricing (Nintendo used PS3 and Xbox 360 game footage in the Wii U presentation), we are assuming that the Wii U is unlikely to provide greater power than the current HD consoles," continued the report.
"If that is the case, we believe Nintendo has conceded a tremendous first mover advantage to Microsoft and Sony, which launched Kinect and Move control schemes, respectively, in late 2010."
The new tablet controller also failed to impress, largely due to it's role in multiplayer gaming.
"We were also disappointed by the recent announcement that each console can support only one of the new controllers, with the controllers for additional players coming from the original Wii."
The report also notes that the Wii U announcement "lost some impact" as a result of the limited information available about the new product. So far Nintendo has refused to offer detail on the console's performance, such as the type of graphic chip or more details on the IBM CPU.
Details of the PlayStation Vita received a better reception, with Wedbush calling Sony "smart to focus on power and core" but warning that success was dependent on strong launch games and the service provided to American 3G users by telecommunications partner AT&T.