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mai said: [...] 1) I'm not sure I get what you meant. Sustained innovation is a challenge for Nintendo, right? 2) What you describied isn't an incumbent, it's merely a company that overshoots it's customer, thus creating conditions for disruption, but incumbent (hence original meaning of the word in latin) born when there's a disruptor and vice-versa. In other words, when company aware of a competitive company (though may underestimate it), it acts accordingly (fight or flight), thus became incumbent merely due to it's behaviour/business decisions. In layman's terms, you can't define black without white and vice-versa. Back to initial point - Nintendo isn't an incumbent right now. You probably misused the term, rightfully implying that there're some threats to Nintendo as a business.
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1) Not sustaining innovation, that's totally feasible, the challenge is living up to Wii's might too. It's analogous to Sony trying to live up to PS2 with PS3, like it did successfully from PSOne to PS2, failing (although in PSOne -> PS2 -> PS3 case the scenario was evolutive, not disruptive) or like MS trying to repeat XP success with Vista (OK, we are both sure Nintendo will do a lot better with Zii than MS with Vista, and that, unlike Sony, it will keep costs under control, the analogy is only in PS2, XP and Wii's immense success and reputation).
2) The incumbent may cause the rise of a disruptor, but is not defined by it, while OTOH the disruptor rise when the incumbent exists. The concept of incumbent was already defined before Christrensen's theories and is used also in antitrust issues, for example. And the incumbent doesn't become so when it acknowledges the beginning of a disruptor's rise, it becomes so before, as you said also just reacting to competitors, that aren't necessarily disruptors. Incumbent's concept is wider than the particular meaning Christensen uses. Nintendo currently is still disruptive with 3DS and its portable market strategies, but has become more conservative in the home console market: yes I'm exaggerating saying it has already switched from simple leader to incumbent, but the risk is there, Nintendo already switched to incumbent behaviour in the past, before becoming again disruptive with DS and Wii.
