At the press conference today, Nintendo had basically 4 major items that will be big news.

1. Animal Crossing City Folk. Complete with mic that sits on senser bar, online multiplayer and user created content sharing.

2. Wii Sports Resort. A bunch of new sports, including frisbee, jet ski and fencing, which use the 1:1 motion attachment.

3. Wii Music. 50 instruments, basically lets you button mash and waggle and it plays music to match. Could be fun in groups, or could feel lame if you've played Rock Band or GHIV.

4. GTA has moved from exclusive to PSP to exclusive to DS among handheld systems, starting with "China town wars." This doesn't have to do with Nintendo's own strategy, so let's forget about it in this discussion.

Likely to be missed among the bragging about sales numbers and talking about a paradigm shift is how Reggie, at the end of the conference, talked about Nintendo disrupting itself.

Some of us already knew Nintendo would eventually need to disrupt itself, but it seems really odd to mention it after these 3 games were the big news from the conference.

Animal Crossing Wii could be a HUGE hit due to the online play and sharing. Most games focusing on these things are far more intense than AC. AC Wii will let players meet up with friends, show off their towns, chat and play mini-games together in about the least threatening environment possible, with no headgear, from their couch. Even for people who play intense online games, this may perform a different job very, very well.

Wii Sports Resort could sell 5 or 10M copies, but it merely builds on what Wii Sports and Play established in a very linear way.

Wii Music, similarly, could sell a ton of copies, but doesn't look half as revolutionary as Wii Sports or Wii Fit.

The question is, how do any of these games represent Nintendo disrupting itself? They look like Nintendo following linearly the new path they've established; following the sustaining innovations of earlier disruptive games. Not that these games are merely "more of the same." They could be more vital and important than the sustaining innovation games of older genres. But to disrupt themselves, they have to create games with different values than Wii Sports and Fit, and convert those established IPs to the new values. These three key Wii games to not represent that.

Nintendo has been very open about talking about it's strategy over the last several years. But hopefully in this case, they've merely hinting at the future, and not hinting that they think these sustaining innovations are somehow "the next disruption."

It is difficult to say ...

I suspect that the conference didn't demonstrate anything that was supposed to disrupt their current strategy, but deep down inside Nintendo they're probably already working on titles that are very different from what they established with the "Wii" line of games.

Bump.

Just going back over this...

1. AC City Folk. The thing that hurts this is that the microphone isn't included. It sells seperately for $30. Other than that, I think this is a home run. I really think the online aspect is positioned to perform a job that no other game is currently performing, and that may help it outsell the DS version.

2. Wii Sports Resort/MotionPlus. This is the one in particular which is just a sustaining innovation. While this game may be very successful, selling 10M+ copies, observe how the reactions to the series change. At E3 2006, Wii Sports creates a mad rush like E3 had never seen. At E3 2008, MotionPlus really excites people and is "one of the major announcements." But if Nintendo pushes Wii Sports 3, even more improved, at E3 2010, people will just roll their eyes and scoff.

3. Wii Music. I'm getting more and more convinced this is a bust. I don't think GH and Rock Band are too difficult for people, and I think they perform both potential jobs (getting the thrill of music performance; entertainment in a social setting) better than Wii Music will. I suppose the game could entertain very little children for hours, but if so, it's going to bother parents like Casio keyboard presets. So this is the only one of the three I don't think will sell 10M copies.


All of these games fall squarely in the first two stages of Blue Ocean strategy, or in the second stage of disruption strategy. Only after all three stages of the strategies have played out would Nintendo move onto the next blue ocean or the next disruption.

In Blue Ocean terms, these games focus on first and second tier non-customers: fringe gamers and non-gamers, respectively. But the third tier moves on to non-gaming industries, which these games don't appear to represent.

In disruptive terms, Nintendo are in the second phase, asymmetric war, where they always win due to their unique values, motivations and processes. But MS and Sony are only now making their responces to the initial Wii disruption, and these games fall squarely in the role of building the new market--from the low to the fairly high-end--for the new market values.

So why on earth did Reggie jump ahead to talk of Nintendo disrupting themselves? I suppose I shouldn't overanalyze those comments, but nonetheless, I don't see anything from this year's E3 that represents the next phase of Nintendo's strategy. Why not talk about the success of MK Wii and Wii Fit, and bill these three games as the continuation of that part of the strategy, which is what they appear to be.

You know too much change can scare people.

Rule #1 of business school if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Rule #2 Be ahead of the curve.

Yes, I know they are contradictory. That is part of the talent required to run a successful mega-corp - figuring out that balance.

Most companies forget rule #2.
Nintendo is forgetting rule #1.

I see it more simply than that:

The initial Wii Remote was designed to capture the imagination of non-gamers who want to play videogames...but I think Nintendo probably knew internally that it wasn't good enough in terms of control for traditional gamers long term.

So the Wii Remote was for non-gamers.

But the 1:1 accessory had unbelievable applications for the so called "epic games" that we hear so much about from people who think Nintendo has gone bat shit insane in ignoring its audience. Swordfights. Great FPS Controls. Great Boxing Games (new Punch Out?). Wave Race/1080? All these things for core gamers are possible with 1:1 control that weren't with the limitations of the Wii remote.

Can't say I expected to see 1:1 this generation (I was thinking Wii 2) but it does make sense and I think its the secret to the ongoing success of Wii, as Iwata as early as E3 2004 sounded like he knew Nintendo's current innovations would eventually become standard fare and copied.

I'm curious if anyone saw the actual presentation live. Malstrom claimed in one of his blog postings that Reggie announced that Nintendo was starting a new company designed to disrupt Nintendo itself. He claimed this was at the end of the conference, and interestingly every copy of the E3 conference I can find has a sudden glitch just when it sounds like Reggie is about to say something really juicy - like so:

"The fact is that Mr. Iwata and Mr. Miyamoto have built a company in that perpetual pursuit of that one thing: the next advantage. Not just the evolution in look, but the revolution in feel..." *belch* "...thanks for your attention, and we'll see you over the next few days."

Edit: Oh, wait, I get it...Malstrom interpreted that comment to mean they had built a new company, but I think the company Reggie is referring to is Nintendo.  Ho-hum?!

As for the rest of the conference (finally took the time to watch tonight), there was nothing as interesting as Wii Fit shown from a disruption perspective, but I'd say Nintendo is now in the sustaining phase anyway.  Interestingly, I'd say Malstrom's thought of starting a new company could be a huge secret weapon for Nintendo.  Imagine if Sony and Microsoft not only had to compete with Nintendo, but with a company headed by top Nintendo talent whose sole purpose was to disrupt Nintendo?

This might also be a good opportunity to find successors for Miyamoto.  He would have work for one company or the other, not both.

He didn't say a new company, just Nintendo continually pushing themselves to do something new and not get comfortable.

Not litterally.

There was another post about Nintendo being sued in 2007, someone did some research and found several possible patent infringments on the Wiimote/Wii, but from the dates I skimmed it seems that it was after the fact... but I'm begining to wonder what would happen if Nintendo left the US market... as in the case lost by Nintendo and no more Wii's allowed on US soil as per the article, at that point they would probably have to release the next console and hope to no get sued.