Nintendo And The Gaming Industry Essay

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

However, as the Wii’s target market is slightly different from that of either the Xbox 360 or the PS3, it is of less concern in the short-term. Nintendo’s dominance of female console gamers, however, is of serious concern. In 2008, the Wii outsold the PS3 and Xbox combined, indicating Nintendo’s strength in the market, as well as the growing eminence of female gamers as a target for game and console developers.

However, the extent to which the hardcore gaming demographic dictates the structural aspects of the gaming industry as a whole is remarkable. Companies are still willing to cater to this audience because it is a profitable enterprise, as it is only the most devoted of fans who will line up days before a system release while generating free publicity on the internet and through word of mouth in the months prior. Thus, and perhaps unexpectedly, an important factor in the Wii's meteoric rise was Nintendo's ability, through the strength of its brand and residual nostalgia effects, to co-opt this hardcore gaming culture with a console that at best, only occasionally acceded to its wishes, while at worst, marginalized them completely. What Nintendo realized, and ultimately capitalized on, was that the hegemonic structure influencing the industry was inherently weak, in that it was essentially a small minority overwhelming the relatively silent masses. Although there are doubts to the sustainability of such an endeavor, the signs are present that the Wii has already altered the video game

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 New Entrants: In 2008, the threat of new entrants was not very high. Sony’s Playstation, Microsoft’s Xbox, and Nintendo’s gaming systems were

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

Strengths: One of the biggest strengths for Nintendo is their completely sensitive human resource issues.

In 1985, Nintendo test-markets it's Nintendo Entertainment System. It's a huge hit and goes nationwide the very next year. Because of its popularity, Sega releases the Sega Master System and Atari releases the 7800 game console. No one is as popular as Nintendo and in 1988; Atari sues Nintendo for having a monopoly. Atari of course lose. The video game war rages on to this day with many companies joining wanting their piece of the market. Atari was a main treat until 1996 when they merged with JTS and never released a game console again. Sega put up a good fight until their Dreamcast bombed in 2000, causing them to

The fifth and final force is that of the intensity of rivalry. This is the strongest force in the video game industry. Nintendo was very strategic in targeting an audience that Microsoft and Sony neglected. While Microsoft and Sony focused on the typical gamers, males ages 18-34, Nintendo focused on a broader audience “everyone” when creating their Wii. In the video game industry rivalry Microsoft and Sony are battling for the same market, while Nintendo has much of its audience all to itself. This is why

By the end of 2006, two game console industry giants, Nintendo and Sony had launched their respective new products; the Wii and PS3. Various marketing strategies were implemented by both rivals and this writing attempt to analyse common and differing elements.

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).

Nintendo enjoyed tremendous popularity and monopoly, it controlled 85 to 90 percent of the market in Japanese and American market (Sheff, 1993), which was the overall best-selling system worldwide of its time. The advantage to be a market leader would be shown in different stages of development of the firm. Nintendo took the advantage of strong path dependence of the market by built good reputation, consumer would not easily switch their choice of product which reinforce by increasing returns in the production or adoption of technologies and products, and positive feedbacks and network externalities (Castaldi, et al. 2011). There is no notable innovation worth mentioned in fourth generation so it would directly skip to next generation.

In 1985, Nintendo launched what would become one of its most successful games in all of video gaming history. Super Mario Brothers; released for the Nintendo NES, became on of the best selling games in the world, and put Nintendo on the map as the “Grandfather of Modern Video Gaming” (Nintendo, 2016). Nintendo has seen a dozen of its products dominate the market—from the Gameboy to the Wii, the company’s products are iconic and unique to the industry and are easily accessible worldwide. Despite Nintendo’s stronghold on the video game market, the company has done more than put games out on the market—over the last decade, Nintendo has inspired millions of amateur developers and gamers to leave their home countries and flock to Japan in hopes of starting a career with big name Japanese gaming companies. For this final report, I will be examining and applying a number of cultural dimensions regarding as assignment to work for the Nintendo Company with a great number of foreign workers. In addition to exploring the cultural dimensions of working for a foreign company, I will then devise a cultural adaptation plan that will address cultural adaptations in order to ensure success not only with the company, but with transitioning and adjusting to the culture as well.

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