'You’ll never beat Nintendo' by Joe Booth, Senor Producer for EA Montreal

[Demotruk]

theprof00 said:
HA VGC references! WRDABEST!

anyway, the article was great and follows all the things about Malstrom that I agree with.

One question I had is that on one of the last slides it shows a picture of the market movement, and ps360 and wii both move down along the Y axis (features) and it says "Wii UPSCALING"

what does that mean?

I mean, I understand the part about how wiimotion+ represents moving upstream in the same context of the Japanese steel industry, but what is this "upscaling" besides that? Or is it actually that? Because in terms of the move and natal, sony and MS are moving downstream, which impedes disruption according to Christensen. Sustained disruption comes from moving up the market with the demand, but the move upwards cannot continue where there is red ocean strategy, right?
Christensen said himself that no company is capable of sustained disruption, so I'm trying to figure out why this guy predicts them to upscale. He is correct in the aspect though that ps360 are now much nearer to the normal demand and so will start outselling the wii pretty consistently.
ANyone care to help me figure this out?

In the context since he said "upscaling to PS3 and 360", he presumably means processing power etc. Which will happen eventually, with the normal progression of technology. Disruption isn't individual products, it could happen over many console generations. This one has started off as a very fast disruption but it slowed down in 2009, pretty much due to Nintendo's own fuck ups.

 

Blue Ocean Strategy is not necessary for disruption. Wii happens to be both, right now, but if they compete over motion controls they can continue to disrupt even in a red ocean. The asymmetries of skill and motivation will help them achieve this.

 

I think what you're thinking of is that disruption happens in cycles, it can't be sustained permanently unless they disrupt themselves continually, in a "wheel of disruption".