...Robin Muncy Nintendo: Maintaining Competitive Advantage Copyright 2011. Gatton Student Research Publication. Volume 3, Number 1.Gatton College of Business & Economics, University of Kentucky MGT 499 Spring 2011 2 Abstract Nintendo has been a major contender in the video game industry for the past several decades, and has faced the challenge of developing and maintaining competitive advantage over the years. With the introduction of the Nintendo Wii console, the company gained a stronghold as a leader in the video gaming industry. However, competitors Sony and Microsoft are quickly gaining on Nintendo’s competitive advantage, forcing the company to monitor and reevaluate its strategies. To maintain a competitive advantage, Nintendo must look toward influencing the customers of Sony and Microsoft, continue developing innovative technologies, and also consider the impact of social networking and mobile devices on the gaming industry. 3 History of Nintendo Nintendo Co. Ltd began its long history at the turn of the twentieth century as a Japanese manufacturer of playing cards. The company went public in the 1960s, and by the 1970s Nintendo had begun directing its focus toward electronic toys and video games. Nintendo became a leader in the video game industry in the ‘80s and ‘90s with its home video game consoles and popular game titles. Competitors began to emerge in the ‘90s; the release of Sony’s PlayStation platform broadened the video game market, and the rising...
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...Robin Muncy Nintendo: Maintaining Competitive Advantage Copyright 2011. Gatton Student Research Publication. Volume 3, Number 1.Gatton College of Business & Economics, University of Kentucky MGT 499 Spring 2011 2 Abstract Nintendo has been a major contender in the video game industry for the past several decades, and has faced the challenge of developing and maintaining competitive advantage over the years. With the introduction of the Nintendo Wii console, the company gained a stronghold as a leader in the video gaming industry. However, competitors Sony and Microsoft are quickly gaining on Nintendo’s competitive advantage, forcing the company to monitor and reevaluate its strategies. To maintain a competitive advantage, Nintendo must look toward influencing the customers of Sony and Microsoft, continue developing innovative technologies, and also consider the impact of social networking and mobile devices on the gaming industry. 3 History of Nintendo Nintendo Co. Ltd began its long history at the turn of the twentieth century as a Japanese manufacturer of playing cards. The company went public in the 1960s, and by the 1970s Nintendo had begun directing its focus toward electronic toys and video games. Nintendo became a leader in the video game industry in the ‘80s and ‘90s with its home video game consoles and popular game titles. Competitors began to emerge in the ‘90s; the release of Sony’s PlayStation platform broadened the video game market, and the rising...
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...Wii Encore Case Analysis Since 1983Nintendo has continued to introduce game consoles to the gaming market starting with Famicon in 1983 and more recently the Nintendo Wii in 2006. They have focused on keeping the platform prices low but also offering the consumer high game quality as well as image quality. Nintendo has been associated with popular games such as Super Mario Brothers (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1987), and Metroid (1987). Since the release of the Nintendo Wii in 2006, famous for the introduction of motion-censoring controllers, Nintendo continued to outsell its two competitors, Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox. It was not until 2010 that both of Nintendo’s competitors launched their version of motion sensing controllers. This was the beginning of Nintendo’s fall in sales compared to Sony and Microsoft. Recently, Nintendo had a press conference about the release of their new console called the Wii U. The Wii U console also features a new controller referred to as the “GamePad” which is embedded with a touch screen. The system will be backwards compatible with the previous console, the Wii. Being that Nintendo has continued to be outsold by its competitors in 2010 and 2011, the Wii U is a smart move for Nintendo. Running another low-end encroachment (Wii U) could be Nintendo’s successor of the Wii. Rather than sustaining their current the technology, the Wii, by just making small incremental improvements, creating a disruptive technology could help Nintendo...
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...Evolution of Innovation in the Field of Video Games Zachary Speltz Grand Canyon University: LDR 640 October 12, 2015 Evolution of Innovation in the Field of Video Games The evolution of the video game industry has made it very competitive in terms of having the latest and greatest technology to produce revenue. There are three major companies that are constantly competing for the results which allows for better innovated products. The consumer can see the evolution of in their video game products as well as seeing the Nintendo’s strategic plan of overcoming their competitor’s products, ways of staying number one by making the Wii system, and establish a certain standard for leadership to possess. The evolution of the video game industry in term of competition and technology for Nintendo can be traced back to Japan, where the founder of Nintendo started to make strides in technology in the 1990s (Farhoomand, 2009). Yamauchi, the president of the company, launched a video game system called the Super NES that competed in American against their rival Sony PlayStation. The Super NES’ system used a chip bate technology that allowed for easier access to create video games which permitted software programmers and consumer to benefit tremendously from it because of the amount video game copies it sold in 1985 (Farhoomand, 2009). Nintendo did not want to do with the cheaper software of Sony because it did not allow for more storage and could be easier broken by a consumer which...
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...Marketing Mini Business Marketing Plan - Nintendo Wii® Abstract This final assignment for Marketing Management looks at all of the various marketing strategies and best practices for two companies that I have been studying over the past several weeks. Of the two companies and products that I have studied, Sony’s Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii, I have chosen to complete my final paper in regards to the Wii game console. This paper will focus on one-to-one marketing strategies, customer information file development, information-intensive strategies, and customer personalization based on their best practices. Business Marketing Plan - Nintendo Wii® After completing several marketing assignments involving game system consoles from Sony and Nintendo, I have chosen to focus on the Nintendo Wii game console for the final project in this class. I have chosen Nintendo’s Wii because it is a game console that has gone beyond the traditional gaming platforms and segments. Nintendo has created a product that can be marketed to more than just the typical segment of male gamers between the ages of 13 and 35. Along with attracting families with games that the whole family can enjoy together, the Wii has moved into the health and fitness market with the Wii Fit. Nintendo has received awards for its Wii marketing strategy including the Grand Effie Award in 2008. Successful marketing plans need more than just widely available demographic population data and a hunch that a certain...
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...the 1990s. Gradual Decline Nintendo enjoyed tremendous success as it continuously released new consoles: Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, and more. However, the company faced increasing competition in the early 2000s from Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation consoles and its market share started to decline. In 2003, Nintendo’s share price fell sharply when Sony announced its PlayStation Portable (PSP), threatening the monopoly that Nintendo held on the portable console market (Kendall, 2009). Change in Strategy In an industry that competes based on delivering the latest technology, Nintendo’s newly promoted president, Satoru Iwata, took the company in a new strategic direction to restore the company’s former glory. Challenging the long-time video game market of boys, young men, and “serious gamers,” Nintendo decided to change their strategy and target those outside their traditional demographic: women, seniors, and families (MaRS, 2010). Rather than focus on the latest graphics processors, hardware design, or engine speed, Nintendo took a new “fun and social” approach to gaming and released the Wii console. This new gaming system was based on body motions and was a simpler, less expensive hardware, which allowed it to capture a never-before tapped market of consumers who never thought they could “game.” By...
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...ALI FARHOOMAND NINTENDO’S DISRUPTIVE STRATEGY: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY For some time we have believed the game industry is ready for disruption. Not just from Nintendo, but from all game developers. It is what we all need to expand our audience. It is what we all need to expand our imaginations. - Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo Co. Ltd1 In the 2008 BusinessWeek–Boston Consulting Group ranking of the world’s most innovative companies, Nintendo Co. Ltd (“Nintendo”) was ranked seventh, up from 39th the previous year. 2 This recognised Nintendo’s significant transformation into an innovative design powerhouse that had challenged the prevailing business model of the video game industry. In 2000, when Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo (the “big three” of the video game console manufacturers) released their latest products, Sony's PlayStation 2 (“PS2”) emerged as the clear winner, outselling Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube. In 2006, a new generation of video game consoles was introduced by these players, precipitating a new competitive battle in the industry. Microsoft and Sony continued with their previous strategies of increasing the computing power of their newest products and adding more impressive graphical interfaces. However, Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, believed that the video game industry had been focusing far too much on existing gamers and completely neglecting non-gamers. Armed with this insight, the company repositioned...
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...Gruden (2009), “The Nintendo has evolved over the years from the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Nintendo 64, all the way to the Nintendo Wii”. Nintendo of Europe (2010) points out, “Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.4 billion video games and more than 420 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario™, Donkey Kong®, Metroid®, Zelda™ and Pokémon®”. Nintendo Co. Ltd. headquarters is located in Kyoto Japan. It also has a US base in Redmond, Washington as well as regional offices in a number of other countries throughout the world. Complication According to Townes (2011),”The biggest problem with Nintendo is the (relatively) strong yen against the weak dollar and a euro which just broke the Y100 level. Foreign exchange weighs far heavier than any concerns ahead of the Wii U launch, previously over slow post-launch 3DS sales and the price cut to the 3DS, or a lack of games. The average Y/US$ exchange rate in Nintendo's fiscal year ended March 2011, was 85.72; it was as high as 92 in Q1. Compare that to a recent 77, which matches its full year forecast (which was 80 prior to revision when it announced FQ2 results). The yen/euro's average in Nintendo's last fiscal year was 113.12 and was as high as 117 in Q1; compare that to the recent breaking of the 100 level. This may prove problematic since Nintendo's...
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...offer the highest quality products and services while treating their customers with attention and respect. Since 1983, Nintendo has focused on video game consoles and with the introduction of the Nintendo Wii console the company gained a strong hold as a leader in this industry. In 2008, Nintendo experienced various production and legal issues. However, their most significant challenge during this time was identifying and investing in innovative products that would allow the firm to continue to expand in the video game industry; while defending itself from rivals (Sony and Microsoft). Our analysis is based on various analytical tools, including SWOT (Appendix A), segment analysis (Appendix B), competitive strength assessment (Appendix C) and financial ratios (Appendix D). Overall, Nintendo has several opportunities and strengths of which they can take advantage to stay competitive in the market. However, their competitive threats and weakness pose significant financial challenges for the firm. Based on our analysis, we considered the following alternatives: 1. Continue to focus on the existing marketing strategy by differentiating itself from the competition; 2. Expand the video game product line to include games with improved graphics and functions for the current Wii in an effort to expand their customer base; 3. Invest aggressively in research and development to create a new video game console that takes into account the requirements for both the non-gamer and...
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...COMPANY NAME: Nintendo Co.,Ltd WEBSITE: www.nintendo.com INDUSTRY: Video game industry BACKGROUND/HISTORY/TIMELINE: “Nintendo Company Ltd .was founded in 1889 as a producer of Japanese playing cards, but by the 1980’s the corporation had turned its attention towards the production of video game hardware and software”. “Since then, Nintendo has gone on to become the third most valuable company in Japan selling more than 470 million home game consoles and handhelds as of 2009”. Nintendo was founded by Fusejiro Yamauchi the great grandfather of the current president of Nintendo.” Nintendo's products arose in the mid-1980s from the relative obscurity of the amusement arcade to change the concept of home entertainment in both Japan and the United States”. SWOT ANALYSIS: Strengths: Nintendo “strongly established brands”, “robust revenue growth”, “strong cash flow from operations, and “Nintendo derived most of its revenue from the video game business, Nintendo was in the lead in video console” (pg.C269). Weakness: Nintendo weakness is “Inventory shortages”.”Nintendo was unable to meet demand during 2007 and also struggled throughout 2008”.”In an interview on the website Game Theory, Perrin Kaplin, Nintendo vice president of marketing and corporate affairs, suggested that shortages were expected some time”. “We are at absolute maximum production and doing everything we can…but demand continues to be really high” (pg.C273). Also Opportunities: “Rising demand for company’s...
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...P1 Marketing is perhaps the most important activity in a business because it has a direct effect on profitability and sales. Larger businesses will dedicate specific staff and departments for the purpose of marketing. It is important to realise that marketing cannot be carried out in isolation from the rest of the business. For example, the marketing section of a business needs to work closely with operations, research and development, finance and human resources to check their plans are possible. Operations will need to use sales forecasts produced by the marketing department to plan their production schedules. Sales forecasts will also be an important part of the budgets produced by the finance department, as well as the deployment of labour for the human resources department and then finally a research and development department will need to work very closely with the marketing department to understand the needs of the customers and to test outputs of the R&D section. The basic concept of marketing is that it enabled the company to identify the needs of their customers and produce products and services to satisfy those needs. By doing this, the customer is the most focus of the business when decision making is in process. A business that does this is marketing-orientated. The production concept is where a business mainly focuses on creating economies of scale in production and distribution of a product or service. This assumes that customers will purchase lower-priced items...
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...Management Mid Term Project Nintendo Wii Introduction: The video game industry started in 1970 & by time it became a big business worth more than 10 Billion dollars annually (1). In 2006, Nintendo Co. evolved the market with it is new innovation “Wii” game console. Wii lunch changed the roles in the business industry & brought back Nintendo's ranking in the market to the top. In the following lines we will provide a brief analysis of the company, stakeholders & product in light of the marketing management models. 4 C’s Stakeholders Analysis: 1. Consumers: With strong & innovative vision from Saturo Iwata, President & CEO of Nintendo, the company deputed it is new product targeting all customers irrespective of age, gender & gaming experience (2). The new game has been used all over the world by every member of the family. In addition to the traditional segment of consumers composed of video gamers, Wii attracted women and elderly people as well to enable a whole family of all ages to enjoy the game together and jointly. It is a success story of transgenerational design (3). By introducing Wii as new way for keeping the physical competency, the game entered the health & fitness sector to find new customers. The business of diet related products in the United States exceeds 40 billion dollars annually (4), Wii eventually shared part of the pie. Diet specialized web sites provided special reviews to show how Wii can be used for loosing weight (5). ...
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...same titled company Nintendo Co. Ltd. That was the start of a new generation. The company already released distinctly consoles such as the „Gameboy“ where everybody is already supposed to know “Nintendo” all over the world, if this is not the case, now everybody does due to the Innovation of Nintendo DS. An innovation during the period due to the touch screen function who Nintendo has been the first corporation to use this technology in his line. Nintendo DS is able to utilize by both younger generation and elder because of the attached software which for example helped to train the memories of one’s brain. Shortly after 2004 a successful console was released on the market. Nearly each household were storing a Wii console. Also at our homes we used to have that „Wii“. During those periods Nintendo was market leader in the gaming industry. Nintendo has had an appearance on the Media since the beginning of 2011. They released a follower of Nintendo DS which is called Nintendo 3DS in Japan, Europe and the USA. The followers shined out benefits...
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...Mission Statement Nintendo’s mission statement is to produce the highest quality products, providing the best support services possible by paying careful attention to their customers and continuous improvement with their product lines. At Nintendo we are proud to be working for the leading company in our industry. We are strongly committed to producing and marketing the best products and support services available. We believe it is essential not only to treat every customer with attention, consideration and respect. By listening closely to our customers, we constantly improve our products and services. Vision Statement Nintendo we are proud to be working for the leading company in our industry. We are strongly committed to producing and marketing the best products and support services available. We believe it is essential not only to provide products of the highest quality, but to treat every customer with attention, consideration and respect. By listening closely to our customers, we constantly improve our products and services. Nintendo Corporation feels an equal commitment toward our employees. The Company wants to maintain an atmosphere in which talented individuals can work together as a team. Commitment and enthusiasm are crucial to the high quality of our products and support services. We believe in treating our employees with the same consideration and respect that we, as a company, show our customers. History Nintendo started as a small Japanese business by Fusajiro...
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...Nintendo’s Wii U Marketing Case Study Wii U launch: make or break for Nintendo Three years ago, Nintendo was king of the $78 billion videogame industry. The Wii was a smash hit and Nintendo's DS hand-held was the best-selling portable gaming device. But a series of stumbles—a lukewarm debut for Nintendo's 3DS hand-held game player and a sharp decline in Wii sales—raised questions about whether the company is on the wrong side of a generational divide. Nintendo has refused to veer from its tried-and-tested formula of creating dedicated videogame machines, passing up a potentially lucrative opportunity to apply its game-making prowess to billions of smartphone and tablet users. In packing more technological muscle, Nintendo aims to win over the core gamers who never fully embraced the motion-sensing games of the original Wii. Nintendo started dabbling with the concept of a game machine with a second-screen controller in 2009. At the time, the Wii was still selling well, but Nintendo executives saw its broader reach as a living room hub limited because it required the Wii to monopolize the family's TV when it was in use. The wireless controller can function separately from the television, so a person can continue playing a game on the GamePad when someone else is using the TV. It only works within close proximity to the console, so the controller isn't meant to be a portable device outside the home. To push the idea of making the controller a key device in...
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