| MrBubbles said: hmmm.... i didnt read the whole thing as i found it annoying and far too long. so perhaps ive missed something due to not reading it all but...it sounds like wii = "casual" ps3/xbox = "hardcore" and due to the fact that the wii has more sales than either system it has won and the others are failures. and the market will become casual and nintendo is god of the universe and microsoft and sony will bow and worship them. so perhaps ive misinterpreted that, and if someone someone can enlighten me as to what it was really about that would be nice... but my thoughts on what i read: when you divide "hardcore" and "casual" like that...the "hardcore" have a larger market - sales of xbox+playstation beat wii by a fair margin. therefore the "hardcore" is beating "casual" and wii is a failure? why would "casual" become THE market rather than part of it. what would become of the majority who chose "hardcore". both those systems are doing well so they are hardly failures. redoing old ideas (however more effectively and successfully they have been implemented) does equate to revolutionary. adding to the market does not destroy the market already there. hardcore and casual are horrible terms. they dont accurately describe anything. |
Those are not his point at all, and he doesn't make the division between casual and hardcore as such, he talks about the new values versus the old values. There is so much stuff in his articles that it's hard to summarize them well, and to be honest, I don't agree with everything he writes, but mostly it is well thought out and researched stuff. Anyway, I'll try to summarize the main points he makes.
Nintendo has, on a fundamental level, different motivations for being in the VG market than Sony or MS. They are not trying to accomplish the same things, and this asymmetry creates a shield for Nintendo against counterattacks from Sony and MS, because even if Sony/MS copied what Nintendo is doing, they would be doing it for a different reason and they would be trying to accomplish a different objective, and this mismatch between the end and the means is what would make them most probably less successfull than Nintendo.
Nintendo is working on to change the whole value system surrounding video games, and it is quite evident that people are buying into this new value system. That, coupled with the fact that Nintendo has the most profitable business model of the three, means that Sony and MS can actually do very little to counter Nintendo. It's quite obvious that they can't change their value system to match the new value system Nintendo is pushing, lest they want to alienate their current user base. So, Nintendo can roam pretty much free and establish the new value system while Sony and MS will try to maintain the old value system, with only some minor changes that won't scare off the "hardcore" and thus, won't really change the situation.
The underlying concepts, or theories if you will, behind Malstrom's thinking are the Blue Ocean Strategy and Disruption. Unless you have a pretty good grasp of those, which I don't claim to possess myself, then you won't be able to understand what is really happening. Anyway, the basic premise is that Sony and MS are overshooting the market, they are offering much more in terms of horsepower and features than what the general consumer is ready to absorb. This is what created the opportunity for Nintendo to disrupt the market. Now, Nintendo is actually offering less than what is the absorption limit, hence the seemingly "crummy product" that is the Wii, but not only is Nintendo offering less, they are offering something that is fundamentally different, and they've aligned their whole strategy around this difference, and that is taking them into the Blue Oceans. And, for those markets, what they are offering is completely satisfactory, and with time they will push the technology and software further as consumers become ready to absorb more.
Anyway, that's my take on the Malstrom articles so far. There's loads of things I didn't even touch, so even though they are a long read and sometimes the writing style is deliberately pushing the buttons of the "hardcore" people, I still recommend reading through them.
