Pachter: Microsoft Has “An Inferiority Complex”

Not so long ago, video gaming industry analyst Michael Pachter controversially compared PC gamers to racists and criticised fans of the platform for indulging in arrogant behaviour. Rightfully, this created a great deal of anger and Pachter quickly responded explaining the rationale behind his comments, before expressing regret. Recently, he spoke to the Daily Star and discussed the notion of the PS4 Pro, Xbox Scorpio and Microsoft’s sales figures compared to the competition:

“I don’t know if it matters to Microsoft if they’re in second place. I think it matters to them if they sell 20 million units fewer than they should. Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose. If the winner and loser was 100 million vs 90 million I don’t think anybody cares. But if its 100 million vs 50 million I think Microsoft cares, because they know if there are 150 million consoles sold, they should at least have made a valiant effort to capture half of that.”

“I think that’s the problem with being second and I think Microsoft has an inferiority complex right now that they’re so far behind. They’re behind in the US, which never happened before, they didn’t expect that at all.”

Not only that, Pachter went on to question Project Scorpio’s release date and predicts it’s going to be launched at a brisk pace:

“We don’t know if [Project Scorpio] is a year. One would think they’re going to move that forward as fast as they can … accelerate Scorpio, I think that’s the only thing they can do.”

Even though it’s certainly the case that Microsoft is on the back foot, I don’t think the inferiority complex description rings true. Under the previous management, Microsoft focused on the multimedia side instead of the core gaming specification. Phil Spencer appears to have reversed the company’s strategy and they probably don’t want to make the same mistakes. Sadly, the Xbox One is still suffering because of weak hardware.