mai said:
1) They can, the thing is, they are already way over the high-end market demand with hardware qualities they have to offer, while Nintendo is still below. So they may upgrade and again significantly outpace Nintendo, but it will give them even less results they're getting now. For reference read: Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave //HBR, Jan-Feb 1995, p.46 (it's about HDDs manufacturers throughout 70-80s, look at the chart - we're still in the very beginning of described process). 2) How they can be incumbent while there're no disruptors besides Nintendo? |
1) Nintendo must compete with itself, it's its biggest challenge, making something that's as good or better, for its future times, than Wii is this gen.
2) The existence of a disruptor has never been a prerequisite for the incumbent's existence. Nor another disruptor is necessary for the previous disruptor to become incumbent, it could prevent it, instead, as the previous disruptor wouldn't lower its guard nor relax on its habits. Potential disruption from Apple probably made Nintendo act ahead of time and try to disrupt again the portable market with 3DS early launch, as PSP is a decent competitor, but not a threat for DS by any means.
Edit: aboud HDDs, it's a different situation, in the 70s and 80s they were awfully expensive and really ready for disruption, and their market wasn't comparable at all to current console market, HD consoles still retain some appeal for a good share of users, old tech HDDs had nothing that could save them. In more recent times, HDD market was plagued and heavily influenced by awful reliability downfalls in some of the fastly changing market leaders, and unreliability is a flaw no HDD user can forgive.
