Nintendo’s Strategy for the Wii—
Good Enough to Beat Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3? 12 C A S E
ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS
1. What are the defi ning business and economic characteristics of the video game console industry? What is the industry like?
2. What is competition like in the video game console industry? Do a fi ve-forces analysis to support your answer. Which of the fi ve competitive forces is strongest? Which is weakest? Would you characterize the overall strength of competition in video game consoles as fi erce, strong, moderate to normal or weak?
Why?
3. What forces are driving changes in the video game console industry? Are these driving forces acting to make the industry more or less competitively intense? Are the driving forces acting to make the industry more or less profi table in future years?
4. What 3-5 key factors determine the success of video game console developers like Nintendo?
5. What is Nintendo’s strategy? Which of the fi ve generic strategies discussed in Chapter 5 is Nintendo using?
What are some of the recent offensive and/or defensive strategies that Nintendo has employed? Have these tactics been successful?
6. Is it fair to characterize Nintendo’s introduction of the Wii as a blue ocean strategy? Why or why not?
7. How well is Nintendo’s strategy working in terms of the fi nancial performance it is delivering? Should shareholders be pleased? Why or why not? What 2-3 weaknesses do you see in Nintendo’s fi nancial performance? 8. What does a SWOT analysis reveal about the attractiveness of Nintendo’s overall situation? Is the company’s competitive position as solid as top management seems to believe? Does the company have a competitive advantage? If so, what is the basis for this competitive advantage and is the advantage sustainable?
9. What does a competitive strength assessment (as per the methodology in Table 4.4 of