Force Field Analysis: Nintendo

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.

Nintendo’s strategy for pricing of consoles and games was to lock-in the network effects consoles offered by pricing them at- or below- cost and reaping profits by pricing video games at significant margin. Nintendo took these actions because it knew that if consumers used the NES/ Famicom console, they would be a captive audience for its higher-margin video games which were necessarily more perishable from a consumer taste perspective. This affected the value created by

Reviewing school data provides information to teachers to address the areas where students are in most need. After identifying the students’ needs, teachers can identify factors that promote the students achievement and factors that prevent students from performing and reaching the standards. This force field analysis will identify the areas my students are struggling in physical education, the desire change, the factors that are driving and restraining the forces, and ways these barriers are restraining the students’ achievement.

Shopping, for example, has now become as simple as going online and selecting what you need from a list, and the company delivers your purchases to your front door. We are now able to go on virtual tours through existing buildings as well as those that are yet to be built. The most common and accessible of these interactive replacements is the Nintendo Wii. The Wii is a gaming console that has reached the point where is has wireless operation and reacts to and with human motion. Its games range from common play station gaming like world of warcrafts and tactical gaming, to fitness and sport orientated games and programs with which you can play virtual matches or have simple workouts.

After seeing how the Nintendo Gamecube was doing many 3rd party developers did not want to work with Nintendo. Developers wanted to make mature games for the Play Station 2 and the soon to be released Xbox. Another reason developers shied away from developing on the Gamecube was for the lack of power and storage space with the discs (Thomas, L). Sony was using standard sized discs which meant that bigger games would be able to be played and developed, because of all the storage. Nintendo decided to try using smaller discs that had minimal storage and games would not be as big. This turned developers away and as of 2017 this decision Nintendo made back in 2001 still affects Nintendo.

To attempt counteract this cyclical slowdown, EB games have introduced an ever-growing variety of accessories with games to increase the revenue raising capacity of their respective consoles, as well as maintaining the loyalty and attention of a fickle gaming public. Some types of games have been released, with specialty controllers to great success, mitigating the expected lull in sales in the lead-up to new consoles. Recently however, the competition has become slightly skewed. Nintendo’s newfound dominance of the market is causing some headaches for Sony and Microsoft.

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.

Threat of Substitutes: The main substitute for a video game console would be a personal computer. They can both be used for playing different types of video games and be used for entertainment. The threat of this substitute edging out video game consoles is very low, because they are not completely similar. If anything, video game consoles are edging out personal computers in the gaming industry. The threat of substitutes in the video game is not very high. In 2008, this was not a very strong force in the video game industry.

However, analysts expect growing consumer incomes, the late-2012 release of the Wii U and the 2013 release of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 to lead to a 4.3% revenue growth in 2014.

Both Sony and Microsoft focused their efforts on hard-core gamers and offering processing power and cutting-edge features to attract them. On the other hand, Nintendo has been trying to attract new customers that traditionally are non-gamers. The

Nintendo Company, Ltd is based in Kyoto Japan. They are recognized as being the "worldwide leader in the creation of interactive entertainment" (Nintendo, 2002, PG). Some of the world's best selling video gaming has come from the Nintendo Company, including Game Boy and Nintendo 64. In America Nintendo is based in Redmond, Washington. It is interesting to note that in American households nearly 40% have a Nintendo product.

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).

* Quality of graphics and the power of processors has lost its importance Wii more successful than PS3 despite its underpowered processor and comparatively basic graphics

Nintendo however is not present in this new market and therefore it is very important to take in consideration to enter this new area because at the moment the company does not have products that satisfy those new needs resulting in the loose of sales and consequently revenues.

The main obstacle facing a start-up video game console company from entering the industry is saturation of the market from the larger video game console makers or the “big three” Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. The big three tend to release new game consoles around the same time frame and compete head to head for sales. During the time frame it is impossible for a new entry to jump into the fray. 2010 was a banner year for video console sales Sony’s PS3 sold 14 million units followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 13 million and surprisingly Nintendo’s Wii led the big three selling 17 million units. After the 2010 release of all three consoles sales started to decline for each company. Nintendo took the largest sales loss at 72% in 2013 only 747,000 were sold compared