You said that Malstrom didn't think motion controls were vital to the success of the Wii. So we clarified, that's not what he was saying. The analyst thinks that motion controls are all that's needed, but there's more to it than that. And if you look at the success of the DS, the same thing was achieved without motion controls.

He stole that from Clayton M Christensen, the author of 'The Innovators Dilemma' funnily enough..

The book that Nintendo based their DS and Wii strategy around for people who aren't aware :P

So yeah.. It's a good analogy

Do they really believe that motion control schemes were what attracted the Expanded Market in the first place?

That was his statement.  And the answer is yes.  Without motion controls, the Wii is just a GameCube.  The expanded market wasn't looking for the next GameCube.  They were looking for this neat little console that had motion controls.

As for the DS.  It is a nice little touch two screen Gameboy following handheld device.  Innovative and fun.  That is how it got so big.  All massive products have a hook.  DS has innovative gameplay mechanics, as does the Wii with motion controls.

There's a reason Nintendo abandoned their original plan to release the wii remote with the Gamecube and design a brand new console around the new values.

So someone's angry that analysts can be wrong?

@ JaggedSac


he is saying its the different control scheme that made the wii popular, not the fact it was motion motion. The DS has a large casual audience but that doesnt have motion control

@woopah
Actually, I think he's only pointing out that they are both successful with the same market. Despite the DS not using disruptive innovations. Also it is games that tie both successes together.

Actually, I think his position is that both DS and Wii are disruptors as in proposing games, peripherals, control schemes that lead to easy "pick up and play" experiences.

That's why he says that having the motion control hardware doesn't level the field, and that it will take some time for the blue ocean to become red: it will take a certain kind of software. In that, I think he's being very reasonable. On the other hand:

"Disruption says that the Wii would grow to the ‘high market’ as well."

not so much... he sounds like someone who embraced an empirical theory -or his version of it- so much that he's ready to bend factual evidence around its kinks and misses. A bit like he does with his all-encompssing theories about Mario games and their fantasy worlds and settings.

To all of those who enjoyed Christensen's works and might be tempted to see disruption everywhere I also suggest "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, for a radically different point of view on, among other things, economic theories.

It's almost as though the hardware was built around these new games as opposed to just buying some fancy new tech and then throwing game ideas at it.

Yes the DS is a disruptive product. It isn't a sustaining technology as much as the PSP is.

Compare the Gameboy -> DS line and Gameboy -> PSP line and tell me which you think looks more like an evolution in terms of product design and which looks like a step back (weaker, cheaper and focusing on an off the shelf technology to offer new values)

An example of a disruptive product is flash memory. The hardware itself is readily available off the shelf, has less capacity, is cheaper (not per mb but that doesn't matter here) and is slowly moving upmarket to replace hard drives in laptops and PC's. Now the reason why we can say it's cheaper is because the products that use flash memory only need a small amount of memory in general.

Flash memory has different values to HDD's such as being more reliable and small and light. The touch screen and the motion controls are merely ways for Nintendo to offer new values. These are; accessability, social and lifestyle values among others. Instead of the industries values of high power, longer, more engrossing gaming.

In essence while motion control was vital for Wii, would you call the balance board motion control? How about that vitality sensor? It's about the values that motion control delivers that is important. I hope this clears it up a little for you.