If you are referring to this article, it was the emailer who grouped Americas and Japan together, as well as used VGChartz for numbers, not Malstrom.

Replace "Malstrom" with "emailer", then, though he's implicated if he expresses agreement with the e-mails.

You guys need to work on clarity of communication in here

this is not how disuption works

The 3DS can't disrupt the 3D TV business because TV's and the 3DS don't compete over the same audience. As I said the Movie player in the 3DS is to get distant customers not to stop people from buying TV's - or did the PSP compete with normal TVs? No it didn't But it can disrupt 3D gaming. You can only disrupt something if you are in the same market / try to sell to the same potential audience. This is like the iPod vs DS argument. The iPod can't disrupt the DS because it is primarily a music player And the 3DS can't disrupt 3DTV because we are talking about TV's and a gaming machine here which serve different pruposes.

Retreating upmarket has nothing to do with price at this point - the console is overshooting because so many games revolve around violence, the games are not family friendly and are complicated and highly competitive. This is why Sony is overshooting the market not because of the price (adults are able to throw out 300$ if they want to). Price is only an issue if it is really high. The PS2 sold buckloads at 300$ and the Wii at 250$. So the price isn't the big reason anymore. But I agree at 600$ they were surely overshooting most of the market.

And they are retreating upmarket they just introduced 3D play! This is like a textbook example of retreating upmarket, really You need to shell out like 10,000$ to play your games in 3D. Now this is a point where price really matters when we're talking overshooting here

And 3D gaming is overshooting. You are a hardcore gamer, right? Do you have a 3D TV? See, that's overshooting Of course you can still play your PS3 without the need to buy a 3DTV. That's not the point. Christensen never argued that the incumbent would suddenly only sell to the highest tier in the market or anything. But Sony is so obviously moving upmarket I bet if you emailed Christensen about this he wouldn't have a doubt. In fact he already talked about Nintendo disrupting Sony.

See the thing here is that you are seeing things from a Sony perspective. This is exactly why disruption is so dangerous to a lot of businesses. They can't see it and when they move upmarket they think "they can't disrupt me here, harharhar". Precisely because you think they are save is why disruption is so dangerous

Yes, about disruption, I was nt precise, my thought could be more correctly expressed as "it won't disrupt home consoles or even just the sole 3D gaming on them for the reasons I listed, but instead it could not disrupt, but just heavily damage 3D TVs with glasses showing how much more comfortable glassesless is".

Anyhow, I'm moderately hardcore, but not a graphic whore, I'm a PC gamer, and I don't own either a PS3 or a 3D TV.

About overshooting: no, I don't agree, 3D is a totally optional additional feature for the user, it was implemented using the same GPU, without adding costs and users can just ignore it, the conditions for true overshooting aren't met.

About Sony, MS, Nintendo and disruption, IMVHO the necessary conditions Christensen lists for disruption to be possible aren't met anymore, because both MS and Sony don't find the new market unattractive anymore, to begin with, and also because since the beginning going upmarket wasn't easy and automatic for Nintendo, and the scarce success of hardcore games, except some Nintendo ones, on Wii shows it. 3DS can go upmarket in portables, but it doesn't offer the features needed in home consoles, even the most wonderful and affordable 3D won't trasform it in a home console replacement, and BTW Nintendo is the incumbent in portables, so it can innovate, not disrupt there.

 All those logical sideways jumps and rolls to make 3DS fit in home consoles, and particularly Sony disruption aren't Christensen's but Malstrom's work.

But time will tell, we won't really know what 3DS can do to the market until its WW launch will be completed and its sales will go full steam. And disruption or not, if 3DS will finally manage to really launch 3D in the mass market, maximum respect for it, after more than 170 years of unsuccessful previous attempts by countless inventors and enterprises (including also a previous attempt by Nintendo itself ).

I think it's not about disrupting 3D TV as it's disrupting Sony's ability to capitalize on the PS3 to push 3D TV's.  The biggest problem with 3D TV is a lack of content, 99% of all movies are in 2D, and 99.99% of all TV programming is in 2D; 3D TV will never penetrate the masses unless there is 3D content that utilizes it.  Sony knows that the PS3 is basically ready-made 3D content, and are going to use gamers as a major push towards 3D TVs.

What concerns Nintendo most about this is that it gives new life to the PS3.  It lost a lot of money as a game console, but it has helped them by getting BluRay off the ground, and now it's going to help Sony sell 3D TVs.  If it wasn't for this, the executive and/or investors would be getting angsty over the whole PlayStation division, and while they probably wouldn't kill the PS3, they certainly wouldn't approve a PS4 or PSP2 at this point.

Nintendo doesn't care about 3D TV itself, but they see Sony tying the PS3 to their 3D TVs, which require glasses, and are trying to break that link by showing people 3D can be done without glasses, making Sony's 3D TVs look silly, which cuts the value of the PS3.  Not the value of the PS3 to gamers, but the value to Sony's executives and investors; possibly cutting it enough to cause a loss of confidence and the eventual closing of the whole division.

"the necessary conditions Christensen lists for disruption to be possible aren't met anymore, because both MS and Sony don't find the new market unattractive anymore"

That actually means disruption is ongoing, since Christensen and others have pointed out that going for that market in that way is a reactionary move.

That was precise and to the point and saved me quite some writing. Thanks.

@Alby: Read the bolded part, this is exactly what Christensen says. According to Christensen this is not only possible but a natural step in disruption. According to him Sony will lose to Nintendo because they cater to the new audience, which they don't understand. But we just came back from dinner and I'm too lazy to do a big post on this one. I'm sure LordtheNightKnight can explain that to you in more detail if you decide to answer his post. We can continue this discussion tomorrow, though, it's fun. (No offense, I just like arguing with the people in this thread)

And 3D is still overshooting Pretty much everything a computer does is optional but they are still overshooting a lot of people

@Veder Juda: "It's not about disrupting 3D TV as it's disrupting Sony's ability to capitalize on the PS3 to push 3D TV's".

I agree it's not about disrupting 3D TV because this should turn out to be impossible Even more it could stop Sony from retreating upmarket with the PS3 which could turn out to be in Nintendo's best interest.

Or I'll just direct him to disruption reading, as I'm more of a passive student of this, not a master.

Christensen writes that initially the incumbent doesn't find the new market attractive, disruption may happen if when it changes its mind it's too late. And Christensen itself also brings the example of Kodak, that despite wasting $2bln in a wrong high-end strategy to face the new digital photo market, finally adopted the correct strategy when it wasn't too late yet, so it survived and thrived again. So the big question is: Did Sony and MS react in time or too late?

Then there is the other part: Wii, as it is, isn't suitable to go upmarket and occupy Sony's and MS' spaces, chasing them in their markets this gen would have meant an undesired Red Ocean scenario for Nintendo, as its competitors bled themselves dry to please hardcore gamers. Next gen Nintendo will be able to go upmarket with very reasonable costs, but then, the other big questions will be: Will Sony and MS let Nintendo catch them unready again? Will they repeat the same errors?

As you can see, there are two or three big question marks, not periods, after Christensen's conditions.

Maybe I'm wrong and surely I wasn't precise stating my points (in the post before this one I'm more precise about what I meant), but I based them on some Christensen articles Smashchu2 suggested to me some weeks or months ago.

But basically, what we don't agree about, regarding the first condition, is whether Sony and MS reacted in time or too late (when it's too late, and if the other conditions are met, the reaction produces what Christensen describes in the cases of successful disruption, and the disruption proceeds, when the reaction is earlier and more proactive, the Kodak scenario instead, that Christensen describes too, becomes possible).