Case Study : Nintendo's Marketing

Nintendo has dominated the console market with their first handheld gaming device called Gameboy, having sold over 150 million units, and continuing to create more handheld ones. Games have also become easily accessible on smart phones, following the trend of portability. According to research conducted by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), 43% of gamers play games on their smartphones, and 25% play on a wireless device. Video game consoles have drastically improved since the 1970s, having become lighter, faster, and more interactive. All of these improvements were made possible by the advancements in hardware.

The very first ‘Video Game’ was invented by Edward U. Condon in 1940, At first it was a simple game called ‘Nim’. In nim players try to avoid picking up the last match. Thousands of people played it, although the computer won at least 90% of the games. Around ten years later in 1950, a new computer program was created by Claude Shannon for the game of chess. In autumn of 1972 the first gaming console was released by ‘Magnavox’ and they called it the Odyssey. Three years later, the next big gaming console arrived when Sears sold the first ‘Atari Pong.’ This was the beginning of a long partnership between Atari and Sears. This relationship lasted multiple years, and Sears sold several successful games. Multiple years later in 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System. This new gaming console dominated the Gaming Industry and grew Nintendo’s Company. Nintendo created several gaming console legends, such as the Game Boy, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advanced, Nintendo Gamecube, Gameboy Advanced SD, and Nintendo DS, all of which made a huge impact on everybody’s childhood from 1985 to 2005. In the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century Playstation and Xbox also started releasing consoles. They are still to this day making successful Gaming Consoles, and individual games, as well as Xbox and Playstation.

The first console was called the Brown Box and was mad by a TV maker, Ralph Baer. The Brown Box was made in 1967. Nolan Bushaell bounded Atari in 1972. Atari then had its first big hit with the infamous Pong. In 1980 Mattel releases the Intelivision which is the first challenge against Atari’s rule. Nintendo wasn’t always the video game we know, it was originally a Japanese playing card company. In 1985 Nintendo releases the Nintendo releases the Nintendo Entertainment System, Wow what a creative name that is. Then in 1989 they released their second smash hit with the Gameboy, to compete with other companies such as Atari, Who released their Atari 2600. It included the newly released Tetris which would grow to become a massive hit to top off the huge sales of the Gameboy. In 1991 the super Nes is released. Then the original PlayStation is released in 1995 becoming extremely popular. To combat this popularity Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in 1996. It includes favorites such as Mario 64, Zelda, and Metroid. The PS2 is released in 2000 marking the beginning of a new era of game consoles. It is the first console to include 128 bit graphics. A problem with original game consoles such as the Atari 2600 is they had little memory. With such little memory Graphics could only be up to 160 by 228 pixels. The normal today is 1925 by 1080 pixels. Some of the earliest adventure games used text instead of images to create the world you’re in. The first of these “text” games was

In 1985, Nintendo launched their first at-home console, known as the Family Computer (Nintendo Entertainment System in the U.S.). Miyamoto created the two

In 1889, Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a small company in a building in the heart of Kyoto, Japan.(Nintendo History. n.d.) The company's purpose was to create a form of Japanese playing card called Hanafuda. He called this company Nintendo. Over the next century Nintendo grew and expanded, changing its products and services, and attempting new things as the times changed. Then, during the 1970s Nintendo fixed its eyes on a new market, video games. Nintendo showcases how a small card company can become a gaming powerhouse and a legend for companies and gamers alike.

Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro Yamauchi near the end of 1889 as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. In 1956, Nintendo’s president Hiroshi Yamauchi began to realize the limitation of playing cards business because it was viewed as a mere tool of gambling. In order to overcome the limitation, Nintendo struck a deal with Disney in 1959 which allowed them to put Disney characters on their playing cards. This opens up new markets where both children and homemakers started purchasing playing cards.5 Due to this success; Nintendo went public in 1962 and became a listed company in Osaka Stock Exchange. Soon after, Nintendo started to venture in

When the NES came out Nintendo started a licensing company for third party games to produce their games in Nintendo factories. After the NES was created Nintendo redesigned the Famicom (the game cartridge) to look like a VHS tape to help grip the system grip it better. Also, the rarest game in NES history is the boxed version of Stadium Events, “but only a handful of boxed, complete copies have ever been seen in the wild, and they can fetch anywhere from $35,000-45,000 at auction” (www.usgamer.net). The best selling game in NES history was Super Mario Bros as it sold a total of 40 million copies (www.usgamer.net). Before the NES came along, Donkey Kong was the king of gaming. The reason for this is because arcades were the only way to play at the time. Luckily, NES games were playable in the arcades. Games like Ninja Gaiden and Super Mario Bros were stretched into the arcades by a system called Play-Choice10. In conclusion, the NES was part of a revolution in

Released in 1996 it was not the first 3D game in the market, but it did everything right. “It also took Mario's existing framework -- running, jumping, swimming, and flying -- and evolved those mechanics to a staggering degree” (Sliva). The game was revolutionary, one could control the camera angle, the 3D graphics were different, and had a great plot. The game was a staple to the success of the console Nintendo 64(Welshman). The game still had the same formula that Mario games had, but the game had managed to still improve and surpass its predecessor. All of it combined helped to push the game and change the gaming industry once

For those who do not know about the Smash Bros. franchise, here is a brief history. Roughly 16 years ago Smash Bros. was released for a console called the Nintendo 64 by a company known as Nintendo. Smash Bros. was an instant success and it revolutionized the fighting game franchise. Seeing such success

In 1977, when Nintendo began shifting its focus to video games, Shigeru Miyamoto was hired as an in-house artist. Four years later, he was asked to design an arcade game that would eventually become Donkey Kong. Since then, he has produced games that have captured the hearts of children all over the world. These games include Super Mario Bros, The Legend of

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have been competing for a decade with Sony dominating the market throughout most of the years because of their superior technological products. The video games industry faces an entirely new rivalry situation. In 2008, Sony lost its strong position on the market, because of Nintendo’s success with their dynamic Wii over Sony’s high-tech PlayStation 3 and Windows’ Xbox 360. Although the Wii was technologically much less advanced than PS3 and Xbox 360, the Wii's cheaper price, ease of use, innovative motion-sensitive controller, and simple but fun games, made the console a hit all demographics from 9 to 65 years old, male and female. All these factors resulted in Nintendo’s Wii dominating sales and surpassing Sony’s by an impressive ratio of 2:1.

The main competitor of Nintendo in the 90’s was SEGA, with the most notable systems being the SEGA Master and the SEGA Genesis. An interesting note for the SEGA Master (Also called Mark 3) was that the system was compatible with 2 types of game cartridges. The ROM cartridges were able to hold up to 4MB whereas the SEGA cartridges would only provide 256KB. The main motivation for this was to save money, and SEGA was able to find quite some games (e.g. Super Tennis) that were able to use the SEGA cartridges. An interesting note is that a different game with the same name is available for the Super

The latest product launched by Nintendo has been the Game Cube, a video game console which will undoubtedly prove to be yet another bestseller.

Credibility: Who remembers Super Mario brothers? According to Guinness Record, Super Mario Bros is Nintendo’s best-selling game. My experience with video games growing up is that I remember playing Super Mario and Tetris with my cousins. Every time I played, I felt an adrenaline rush due to the excitement, so, I became competitive, and was always looking for a challenge. We would stay up late whenever we get can our gaming in, while our parents were asleep. I even fought with my cousins for hogging up the controllers, but in the long run, I learned to be patient and strategize against other players such as my cousins.

The role of technology is vital in this industry as it focuses on technological efforts for competitive advantage. Every new development uses new technology. Though there are restricted innovations in the gaming industry, the speed of technological transfer is very high. Nintendo’s role from playing cards to toys to video games and then with each console introduced, included many technological changes. Technological up gradation increased hardware costs and discouraged innovation. The online capability of Nintendo Wii was a major change in the technology of the video game industry though they were not able to do as well as their competitors (Sony, Microsoft).