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Acti forced Nintendo to create Wii U Pro Controller with CoD threat: Pachter

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has claimed that Wii U's Pro Controller was only created after Activision threatened to leave Call of Duty off the machine unless it has a traditional input method.

"I think that essentially this is a solution in search of a problem," Pachter said, speaking at Develop in the UK last week, as reported by Edge.

"I mean, somebody had an idea - 'let's make the controller a tablet' - and there aren't many games that are going to take advantage of that. Activision never said anything to me, but I know that [for] big games like Call Of Duty they said, 'No, we're not putting it on there if you don't give us a conventional controller'. So they gave in."

Nintendo confirmed the Pro Controller - a traditional format controller in the model of 360's pad - at E3 this year.

Pachter went on to say that Wii U as a concept is likely to fail.

"I don't think they suck - I just think that they really believe that, 'If we're still novel, everything we do will work'. This isn't going to work," he said.

"Hardcore gamers will buy them; hardcore Nintendo fanboys will buy it. They could put out a piece of cardboard and say that it'll play Mario and they'll buy it."

Wii U releases this year.

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Patrick Garratt

Founder & Publisher (Former)

Patrick Garratt is a games media legend - and not just by reputation. He was named as such in the UK's 'Games Media Awards', the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. After garnering experience on countless gaming magazines, he joined Eurogamer and later split from that brand to create VG247, putting the site on the map with fast, 24-hour a day coverage, and assembling the site's earliest editorial teams. He retired from VG247, and the games industry, in 2017.

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