The "Truth" About Nintendo
Jonathan Coley is a friend of mine (though he may know me by a different name), and his article on Nintendo's market dominance in 2004 from back in April is getting some traction, in large part due to a second part he's recently posted.
In this article, Coley says that Nintendo outsold both Sony and Microsoft in the US and Japan for all of 2004. He's got numbers and convincing graphs to back it all up, and then promptly proceeds to miss the point. Nintendo isn't gaining marketshare, and as Reggie Fils-Aime himself correctly theorized ... Nintendo is selling a lot of systems to those who already own a PS2 or Xbox. This was a function of the price drop of GameCube down to $99. Traditional marketshare figures don't take into account multi-console homes. Nintendo did outsell it's competitors, but did not significantly grow their marketshare, but it's irrelevant ... marketshare is no longer an accurate measure of significance in the marketplace
The second article has far less to argue with; Coley rightfully points out that Nintendo has always focused on not just how profitable they can be overall (loss-leading the console to make it up in another segment, like software and accessories), but strives to make every segment of the business as profitable as possible.
One factor completely ignored is the idea of mindshare. Nintendo may be very profitable, but unlike in the 1980's, when the name Nintendo was synonymous with video games ("Let's go play Nintendo!"), Nintendo is now an afterthought, or hardly thought about at all. Sony and Microsoft have far more "cred" in the industry than Nintendo. Let's hope Revolution can help turn that around with some innovative games.
1 comment:
Being in college, it's pretty easy to notice that "Nintendo" no longer means videogames. "Xbox" and "Playstation" are much more synonymous with that term. However, Nintendo has a lot of mindshare in the "we used to play that" sense of videogames. Being retro is way big around campus. Nintendo fits in really well with girls. I see so many girls wearing shirts with cute designs of Mario, Peach, Yoshi, etc. on them.
I think Nintendo has realized this, and it's obviously the genesis of the "virtual console." It's like a cover song. If it was a hit once it'll be a hit again.
Post a Comment