Nintendo Case Study
Case Analysis Part 1
Introduction
Case 7 of the textbook titled Essentials of Strategic Management looked at the video game pioneer Nintendo. The title of the case is Nintendo's Strategy in 2009: The Ongoing Battle with Microsoft and Sony and was written by Lou Marino and Sally Sarrett. The case begins by describing how Nintendo faced serious competition from Sony and Microsoft in the video game market. As Sony had created the Playstation and Microsoft came out with the Xbox, Nintendo had taken a backseat in terms of new video game consoles. Through the years however, Nintendo had created many popular devices used for gaming such as the Nintendo 64 and numerous versions of the DS. As Nintendo prepared to release the Wii game system, many said that it lacked the graphics and user experience that their rivals had and it appeared as though it would be a market flop. To the surprise of many critics and competing companies, the Wii was a huge success setting records for total sales. Currently Nintendo is seeing reduced demand and reduced sales due to the recession but they continue to release new features and games and analysts say that “the only limitations of the system were the limitations of the designer and the user-leading most to believer they considered the possibilities endless” ( ).
Nintendo's Strategy
In it's early years, Nintendo's strategy was to bring video game experience most commonly found in public venues such as the Donkey Kong arcade game into the users home. This differentiation strategy proved highly successful for Nintendo as they were the first to give the user an affordable gaming console with many different games available for the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES. This continued with the release of numerous versions of the Game Boy and Nintendo DS as users could take their games with them anywhere they went which was unheard of from rivals such as Sony and Microsoft at the time. As competition grew with Sony, Sega,
Introduction
Case 7 of the textbook titled Essentials of Strategic Management looked at the video game pioneer Nintendo. The title of the case is Nintendo's Strategy in 2009: The Ongoing Battle with Microsoft and Sony and was written by Lou Marino and Sally Sarrett. The case begins by describing how Nintendo faced serious competition from Sony and Microsoft in the video game market. As Sony had created the Playstation and Microsoft came out with the Xbox, Nintendo had taken a backseat in terms of new video game consoles. Through the years however, Nintendo had created many popular devices used for gaming such as the Nintendo 64 and numerous versions of the DS. As Nintendo prepared to release the Wii game system, many said that it lacked the graphics and user experience that their rivals had and it appeared as though it would be a market flop. To the surprise of many critics and competing companies, the Wii was a huge success setting records for total sales. Currently Nintendo is seeing reduced demand and reduced sales due to the recession but they continue to release new features and games and analysts say that “the only limitations of the system were the limitations of the designer and the user-leading most to believer they considered the possibilities endless” ( ).
Nintendo's Strategy
In it's early years, Nintendo's strategy was to bring video game experience most commonly found in public venues such as the Donkey Kong arcade game into the users home. This differentiation strategy proved highly successful for Nintendo as they were the first to give the user an affordable gaming console with many different games available for the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES. This continued with the release of numerous versions of the Game Boy and Nintendo DS as users could take their games with them anywhere they went which was unheard of from rivals such as Sony and Microsoft at the time. As competition grew with Sony, Sega,