| Squilliam said: I have to agree with you Prof. Microsoft and Sony are both tackling the Wii an ways which match their core busines strategies. Microsoft is attempting to turn the Xbox 360 into an appliance, which is their core market, utility software. Sony is attempting to tackle the Wii's advance from the perspective of a high end media company. They want to use high fidelity and expensive games in a sort of blockbuster mindset taken from the movie/music industry. Both of these strategies have worked very well for both Sony and Microsoft in their respective fields. Microsoft doesn't care if they sell people a single game so long as they can sell an Xbox Live subscription. They don't even need to approach Kinect from a purely game perspective. This is the reason why they have been focusing on high value partnerships such as Netflix and ESPN in the U.S. and Sky TV in the U.K. This is completely different from Nintendo whom makes money from games, consoles and peripherals. They can just as easily sell Kinect to a 'not gamer' as they can to someone whom barely plays at all given they are approaching from angles outside of simply whether they wish to or don't wish to play games. Sony on the other hand want to go for the best customers first. They make expensive games, more expensive than third parties typically dare to make them even. They rely on technical fidelity to draw in the people who buy 5-10 or more games per year, the hardcore because on a per person basis they are the best people to sell to. This is the reason why the PS3 sells so many games relative to the Wii with a far lower userbase, its a function of their strategy which they have already applied. The strength of this strategy is that they can build a userbase which can support a wide variety of release. Its not the less keen gamers who tend to pick up the games in the 0.5-1.5M range. The more 'casual' a gamer is, the more likely they are simply going to pick up the big titles whatever they are. Their strategy deliberately supports the 3rd party publishers because it makes the market for games a lot more predictable. |
What I think is most impactful isn't either strategy on its own. It's the combination of the two strategies which chip away at wii marketshare from either side. I'm not sure which one will be more viable in the long run, but I am more certain that this will serve to "contain" the wii expansion and movement upstream. Nintendo has never done well against the other two when it comes to core vs core (before this gen) and Nintendo pretty much confirmed their desire to re-enter the traditional core market (traditional gameplay ala platforming style) and Sony will be there now with Move and several traditional core games.
At the same time MS is going to start taking away expanded market customers such as the aerobics/dance/movement type games. I disagree with smashchu about what he refers to as the casual fallacy in relation to kinect. The games look like they have quality, and we have to keep in mind that they are launch games. Wii's only really polished quality game on release was wii sports. Kinect has a similar game launching, but with a new way to play. So, for those people that have their acupuncture yoga mats and those that want to be able to hold weights and have accurate body readings, as well as those people who simply want a more compact,elegant solution to having several peripherals laying around and some of the cool functionality such as gesture controlled tv, movies, and stuff like ESPN and video chat for a price that rivals the wii price, it SEEMS like a perfect match. To me, Kinect represents the freedom that I feel the average consumer is not only ready for, but desires. Look at the consumer move to multifunction devices. The move isn't about how cool multifunction is, but how nice it is to have fewer things, to have a combination between minimal substance and maximum capability.
The only one small, probably insignificant, problem is that with kinect people will want to hold something and I just really hope that kids don't start picking up an actual bat to play baseball.
