You guys rely far too much on disruption like it's a perfect strategy that higher ups are just too old to understand. In terms of disruption, Kinect is completely disruptive in several areas, but it won't have the same effect the wii had.
Disruption is an imperfect art, and yes it is an art, not a science. Nobody has perfected disruption, and especially continued disruption.
Smash, I'm curious why you think the only solution is to either buy Nintendo or disrupt them. In just a few short months, the wii will be in red ocean, and with their announcements at e3 of classic titles and re-envisionings, they made it clear that they are re-entering red ocean, and Nintendo has not done well in red ocean when the competition is just as strong.
Nintendo is at the disadvantage here. Consider the stream of disruption. The competition is supposed to abandon markets and move upwards as the disrupter moves upwards. However, the competition is moving downstream to meet the wii. Additionally, consider the competition. Kinect is moving directly at the wii with the type of gaming and control style, and Move is aimed at gamers but with the expanded control style. So not only did the competition move downstream, but they ocupy several levels. Kinect is directly in the wii market, and Move is just above them in a smaller, nicher market composed of the traditional core.
Nintendo is looking at some obstacles. Look at their history with the wii. They used a crappy controller that didn't do what everyone thought it would do. Then they expanded with the board. Then, they moved upstream with the motion . Now the competition is expanding downstream. Nintendo has the vitality sensor for some more expansion, but they currently have no means of moving upstream.
They have the 3DS, but it has no additional functionality. Think about this: Apple is dominating the handheld market, and their product is even crappier than the 3DS. Crappy games, but expanded functionality. The fact of the matter is, Apple really does push more games than any other console out there all because the expanded consumer is satisfied with crappy games. Additionally, Apple has a network and social interaction, something Nintendo doesn't even acknowledge. How many people do you think are interested in 3D, but only on a 4 inch screen? As far as disruption goes, it makes sense. It's a much smaller screen, a small crappy screen for a crappy consumer. That's disruption. However, what expansion is it making? That's the whole point of disrupting. Why did wii succeed? It is because it expanded the market to people who were into gaming, but not the geek image of gaming. How does 3DS replicate this? The answer is that it does not. In fact, it is even geekier than before.
Now I'm not saying 3DS is going to fail. It is a DS. It will be impossible to fail. However, don't think for a minute that Nintendo is some agile, fresh, cutting edge-strategy kind of company and that Sony and MS are lumberingly slow Goliaths who are stuck in the old ways of doing things.
Nintendo is in for "interesting times".
