Onyxmeth said:
The whole point of Nintendo's strategy is that they acquire markets that aren't being catered to. That's why it's the Blue Ocean Strategy. You're talking about fighting over this audience, which is the red ocean(blood in the water attracting the sharks), and is exactly what Nintendo purposely got themselves out of. Microsoft and Sony I feel only have the capacity to try and fight over the audience Nintendo has acquired. I don't think they can utilize the mentality Nintendo has to seek out new markets unattended to. I derive this from their PR statements and executive interviews, which have never shown an inkling that either company really gets it. Iwata was talking about market expansion before the Wii hit. It wasn't some roll the dice thing. They are now talking about how to acquire new markets. He spoke about it candidly during the the E3 conference. At the same time, Sony and Microsoft showed us silly tech demos like paint splashing minigames and shooting cartoon guns around a room full of toys. You tell me who looks more poised to expand the market again. If Sony and Microsoft manage to tap into Nintendo's current expanded audience, I believe Nintendo will have moved into catering to a much larger group of formely disgruntled or non-gamers. They will still put an effort into their old strategy, same as how we still get our upstream games like Mario RPG, Fire Emblem and Disaster Day of Crisis to give this traditionalist audience what they want also. Nintendo does fight in the red ocean, and puts up a decent effort, but the eyes are always on the real prize. Sony and Microsoft are basically now trying to go down the path Nintendo laid out, and as long as they do that, they'll never get further than Nintendo does. |
Let's not underestimate Sony and Microsoft . I appreciate what your saying with the blue-ocean strategy but that principle could apply to any business of any size , I don't think that it is exclusive to Nintendo. Now that the Wii is in 1st place you think that Sony and MS is unable to discover and attain new markets in the same way Nintendo has , well if...
(A) Sony hadn't have won the last two generations.
(B) This wasn't Microsofts second generation.
Then you might have had a point . I'll admit I was only thinking about the new demoghraphic that Nintendo created but the fact that I didn't consider demographics beyond this isn't important , this is considerations that employees at Microsoft and Sony are paid to make . The thing is , gaming has changed for good it isn't following historicaly trends as closley as it was in previous generations , I don't know why you can expect the same kind of blue-ocean mentality from Nintendo next gen but completley disregard Sony's and Microsofts ability to do the same.
But this is understandable , people usualy can't envision market underdogs achieving market dominance 5-10 years in the future , that's why the value of Nintendo is significantly much more than it was 5 years ago , that is why Sony lost marketshare wise this generation. And that is exactly why I have every confidence that Sony and Microsoft will discover and capitalise any on new opportunities.
Another point I want to make is does the blue ocean strategy make considerations for the the size of new markets. Example
[___TRADITIONAL_MARKET___][_______________WII MARKET__________][__NEW MARKET__]
As you can see the Wii Market is larger than the hardcore market and fortunatley for Ninendo the targeted the "Wii Market" arguably at the risk of loosing significance in the traditional market . If Nintendo were to attack the "NEW MARKET" then they may risk loosing significance in both the TRADITIONAL MARKET and the Wii MARKET , but you see the size of the NEW MARKET is lesser than that of the other two . My point is Microsoft and Sony may not neccaserily need to capture new markets , if Nintendo lost sigificance in either one of the existing markets then they risk loosing significance even when the discover a new demographic
NEW MARKET doesn't neccaserily mean more profit unless your able to retain existing markets , but the more markets you compete in the more the specs of your device have to conform to the needs of all markets , the less capable the device is at apealing massivley to all markets. This is already evident in the Wii , the traditional developers don't want anything to do with it , we're in a situation where the underdogs in the market are receving the bulk of 3rd party budgets /quality.
I think there's alot of question marks , everyone seems to think next gen will be pretty much the same (I think this is naive) . What I am certain of is that Sony (if they decide to compete) and Microsoft will not simply release the PS4 and XBOX 720 , we're going to see entirely different beasts.
