@Squilliam

Well he saw arriving the huge success of Wii ( with huge I mean "fastest selling system" ) before its launch, not only that but he has described with a good precision WHY the Wii will be an "avalanche".
I know because I read his articles in 2006.

Like a said previously Malstrom writing is eccentric and tend to polarize ( hope this is the right term ).
But some arguments he has touch are undeniably at the base of Nintendo success.
His bright move wasn't to discover the plan of Nintendo ( because that plan was exposed to anyone who care listen ) but only to be one of the few to really listen to what Nintendo manager said before the launch of Wii ( they referenced the 2 books Blue Ocean Strategy and Innovator Dilemma quite often ) and study it.

BTW Squillam have you seen coming the "Revolution" ? What do you think about the Wii ?

Oh and on point 2 ( the point that matter for that blog entry ) well I think that the diffuse myopia in the Industry is quite clear

Tag taken

Yes, there still is a bit of a "magical market" excuse, funnily even among Wii-fans, as I had to experience myself yesterday, but I think that Malstrom portraits himself as the great Wizard shows he is a bit too self-important. He should have given someone else that role in my opinion.

I'm curious, too. Curious why the comments section is closed on his blog. Could it possibly be because he doesn't want people to refute his feeble analysis?

Isn't it ironic that he compares analysts to the scarecrow, when he relies on a straw man argument against them? Why is it that he uses an analyst's prediction taken from a year before the Wii was unveiled to prove them wrong? Why doesn't he refer to the prediction made by Michael Pachter when the Wii released: that it would dominate sales due to its low price point and novelty factor, but that it would peak earlier than the competition and sales would taper off in 2009? Is it because that could still be true?

Another irony is that his Wizard of Oz analogy actually works against him. Remember that the Wizard turns out to be a charlatan, and the scarecrow, tinman and lion realise they had a brain, heart and courage all along? Come to think of it, maybe the analogy works pretty well!

His entire argument is predicated on the notion that two different strategies cannot both be successful. This is obviously not true, but even if it were, the facts in this case would prove the exact opposite of what Malstrom claims! Even if you exclude PC gaming (which you shouldn't), the demand for "next-gen" gaming is still evidently higher than for "new-gen" gaming (53% vs. 47% by VGC reckoning).

I really need to send some flying monkeys in Malstrom's direction.

PS: I dare you to post this at NeoGAF and see how long it takes for the thread to get locked.

This analysis is brillant. He proved his point with facts, you can disagree but he has stated great arguments.

Wow.

Could he not beat a dead horse anymore?

We all know that everyone was wrong about the Wii, TWO YEARS AGO!

Now he wants to rub it in our faces, yet again.

Get a life Malestrom.

He acts like such an elitist prick, and I agree with squilliam, what drugs is he smoking, or what disorder does he have?

You have some valid points, Malstrom's writing style is, IMO, working against him. But where I disagree with you is the lack of hard data: Malstrom is analyzing business strategy, and for that purpose his articles have plenty of hard data. He also uses the theory of disruption to explain Nintendo's success and the relative failure of the more hardcore industry players in a sound way. His problem is he's labeled people in a disrespectful manner (for example his continuous use of "birdmen"), which inevitably causes a defensive reaction if the reader happens to be one of those people.

About his bias, and this is where I take his word: he's not biased towards Nintendo or against Sony/MS/hardcore, his bias is towards the theory of disruption. While it may be a sound theory, it's not the only one, and I'd hazard a guess that even Nintendo is not following it 100%. Also, I don't think he's understood how digital distribution is disturbing the traditional distribution channels, and what Apple is doing on that front, or how Nintendo's and Sony's and Microsoft's digital distribution models really differ from each other, if there really is a meaningful difference. Actually, there I sense a bias towards Nintendo, but it may be that he thinks it complements the overall strategy of Nintendo whereas Sony and MS have it for another reasons, I don't know. At least with Sony, it's very clear they have a long-reaching strategy in place for digital distribution.

TAG thread updated!

He may have data, but he doesn't have the hard data, the paid for kind. How does he know if his "disruption" theory is true if he doesn't even know who are buying the Wii? Hell, how does he know if ANY of it is true, when recent data shows that a large majority of U.S Wii owners were PS2 owners anyway.

Furthermore hes not even applying disruption theory properly. Market disruption is when Cell phones replaced pay phones.

There are two disruption factors at work. "Low-end disruption" occurs when the rate at which products improve exceeds the rate at which customers can adopt the new performance. Therefore, at some point the performance of the product overshoots the needs of certain customer segments. At this point, a disruptive technology may enter the market and provide a product which has lower performance than the incumbent but which exceeds the requirements of certain segments, thereby gaining a foothold in the market"

There is no more low level disruption in this market. The Xbox 360 is approaching the price of the Wii.

""New market disruption" occurs when a product fits a new or emerging market segment that is not being served by existing incumbents in the industry" - That fits into his theory except that recent data shows that most Wii owners owned a PS2, which shows that while its an effect, its not a significant reason why the Wii is selling as it is.

Could it be that Nintendo Wii is just serving existing customers better than either the PS3/Xbox 360, not creating new markets here there and everywhere?

It could be... except data (the historical type) shows that revenue is up. If underserved markets aren't being tapped then where is the growth coming from?