Slashdot Mirror
On Nintendo And Marketing Myopia
Thanks to Nintendojo for their editorial discussing why Nintendo may be heading for a fall by branding itself a 'video game company', as opposed to Sony and Microsoft's wider goals as part of the "entertainment or technology industries". The writer points out: "Theodore Levitt introduced an idea called Marketing Myopia. To summarize the basic idea of his concept: in an industry where future growth seems guaranteed, a leading company will mislabel itself and ultimately lead to its own downfall." Apparently, the best historical example of this is the railroad industry, who "...labeled themselves as being in the railroad business and not the transportation business, limiting themselves and causing their own downfall." The writer concludes: "The industry has changed. Nintendo is no longer the biggest player in a relatively large niche market. They are in last place in a huge segment of the home entertainment sector, and they need to remember this fact, because no one needs another Amtrak."
In my opinion the best game for the cube right now are the ones Nintendo doesnt produce. This is the opinion of an older person though. My kids will play Animal Crossing all day if I let them. Its just a brilliant game and a fun machine.
What I want an Xbox for is a DVD player and a more adult gaming console.
Who has the money. Parents. Who do they spend it on? Kids.
Sure Nintendo may have beat earnings this quarter, but, what abou the dry summer months. I bet for the next 3 quarters they will be losing money, stopping production, etc.
I wish my cube played DVD's. It would make it more useful. Instead all I have is just another gaming machine, and, where I work, trying to convince mom and pop consumer that they should get a gamecube for jimmy because thats all it does is play games when they hear from the joneses that thier PS2/XBOX plays DVD's, and thier XBOX doesnt need expensive memory cards, it isnt easy.
People want the most bang for your buck, and when they see the titles they want on all three machines, and the machine does more, they are going to pay the premium to get it.
Its human nature for joe consumer. Not the educated.
We took in 4 used gamecubes yesterday. Not a good sign.
You all have it wrong. Nintendo is in the business of selling cards and plush toys. Here they are positioned ok, so long as pokemon remains popular. Nintendo will never, ever, innovate in video games again. Period. Any talent they had in the 80's is now old and senile, and the designers that have replaced them have done nothing but copy the predecessors.
Wait, they did invent the e-reader! They found a way to both sell cards and make you pay for either: software you paid for long ago or the chance to use all the features of the software you just bought. At least one person over there is still clever; too bad he is in the card/plush division and not in video games.