| theprof00 said: 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. 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. |
In terms of motivation for Nintendo, the question is whether they actually believed the Wii would disrupt the market or not. They didn't seem to understand the market at launch, they were going to offer the Wii at $199 without Wii Sports and they only increased it to $249 when they found out the launch price of the PS3. Their actions support the concept of going to as of yet uncharted waters 'Blue Ocean' but as for disruption it doesn't seem that they read the market correctly at all. Had they done so ahead of time they would have anticipated demand at their price point better and likely launched at $299 and at the same time produced a console which could go much further up-market within the timescale of a single console generation. If the Nintendo WIi is truly disruptive then it would be impossible for Sony and Microsoft to not only halt but force their market share backwards whilst growing their own.
As an aside, funnily enough Apple seems to be the better disrupter at this point. From what I can tell they are disrupting the portable music market, music distribution, standalone GPS units, traditional handheld gaming and the personal computer with various products from iTunes to iPod to iPhone to iPad and iTouch. To this end the 3DS seems like a retreat up-market against Apple because its focusing on the core customer and focusing on capabilities that cannot be replicated on a phone. Whilst at the same time, Apple can sell games which would normally cost $30 on the DS for between $0 and $15 so not only are they targeting the distribution model, they are also targetting the extreme low end of the handheld games market. So if the 3DS comes with 3G, it will be because Apple forced them to put it there.
Tease.
