...VIDEO GAMES CONSOLE The games console industry is divided into three periods. The first period is the growth of the industry to the advent of the 32 bit era. The next period is the developments and trends during the PlayStation era and the third is the likely development of the industry over the next few years BRIEF HISTORY OF THOSE PERIODS and THEIR REVENUES (The Evolution of the Game Console Industry) In 1994 , the first time that consumer electronics giant Sony had bravely attempted to enter the highly competitive games console market. Going under the catchy, self–explanatory name PlayStation, this 32–bit, CD–based system hit Japan in December and faced tough competition from 'The Big Two' in the form of Sega's fundamentally similar Saturn, and Nintendo's upcoming Ultra 64. By May 1995, barely six months after the release of PlayStation, over 1 million Japanese gamers had become converts. Games like Toshinden, CyberSled, Jumping Flash!, and a host of other, decidedly more obscure titles (our favourite is Chou Aniki – Kyuukyoku Muteki Ginga Saikyo Otoko – literally 'Super Older Brother – The Galaxy's Absolutely Invincible Strongest Man') helped to propel sales, impressing players with their advanced 3D visuals and diverse gameplay. By October, worldwide PlayStation shipments had reached 9 million, and with the arrival of huge sequels such as Tekken 2, Ridge Racer Revolution and Wipeout 2097. In a year that saw cosmologists announce that the expansion...
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...To fully understand the importance of video games you need to take a look at all angles. Video games have been around for years and have impacted us more than you can imagine. From the very first prototype, to the futuristic simulations we have today, video games have changed the world as we know it. The video game industry is at an all time high. Video games are no longer a form of entertainment for few, but a world-wide phenomenon for people of all ages joining in on the fun. Consoles have a very long history; from the very start passionate people have been hard at work to make the industry what it is today. There are also guidelines that all video game companies must abide by as well, so it’s not all fun and games. A video game is defined as a game that involves direct input from a user to generate visual feedback on a device. The systems used to play video games are commonly known as platforms. These devices range from home consoles such as the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii to the personal computer, and all the way to the arcade system, where the video game was born. Video games were first made as a form of entertainment but have since evolved into a worldwide cult following. They are now used for entertainment, learning tools, and even training. The video game industry was first introduced as a commercial entertainment medium in 1971. This is where it all started. After the collapse of video games in 1983, there was a rebirth 2 years later which set in motion the events...
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...Five Forces Analysis of the Video Game Industry The video game industry is the economic sector involved with the development, marketing and sale of video and computer games. It includes video game consoles, game software, handheld devices, mobile games and online games. The video gaming industry has been growing exponentially in recent years with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo competing for the higher profits in the market. This essay will analyze each of the five forces acting on the industry: threat of new entrants, threat of substitute products or services, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, and the competitive rivalry among existing firms. Then it will be determined if the video game industry is still an attractive industry for Sony. The video game industry has high entry barriers because of its high research and development costs, and capital investment needed to start a business in the console industry. The cost required to develop and manufacture a product that could be a decent competitor in this market is too great for a non-established company in this industry. The technology that is needed to be successful is too advanced for new competitors to achieve. For this reason, the threat to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo of new entrants, was not very high in 2008. Additionally, Sony’s PlayStation, Microsoft’s Xbox, and Nintendo’s gaming systems were very well established names in the industry. The prestige of these products was so strong that it...
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...Introduction to Written Communication News Report E3 Introduces the Next-Gen Console Vishal .R. Shivam 3-27-2015 Entertainment News Report E3 Introduces the Next-Gen Console 27th, March 2015 This month at Sony’s PlayStation Meeting 2015 in New York, the company announced their latest gaming console, the PlayStation 4. Although the hardware has undergone no aesthetic changes, several new features were demoed for the audience. Further details about the system are being kept under wraps for now. However, information on the new motion detecting software was introduced at The Electronic Entertainment Expo, also known as E3. To announce the new system, lead architect and long-time game developer Mark Cerny took the stage. After reviewing the success of the PlayStation 4 1.0, Cerny announced the much awaited PlayStation 4 2.0. While Cerny gave a few technical details regarding the hardware specifications of the device, the focus was clearly on virtual gaming ability. The first title that was demoed, called The G, was created by Cerny himself. Cerny designed the game to be a familiar, easily accessible family game that anyone can pick up and play. This game is a workout game where the player’s body is scanned via PS move, then the players follow the characters “instructor” of the game. For people who care for health, this game was introduced. Also if the player does it wrong they lose points they could compete online for exercises like pushups, pull-ups...
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...Video Game Consoles Video Game Consoles Video Game Consoles Name | Varun Punjabi | Class | PGDM - Communications | Subject | Marketing Management | Roll No | 39 | Scope: The Indian video games sector in 2011 was driven by the urban middle class/upper-middle class population, who adopted both static and handheld games. Rising income levels, increased availability of international brands such as Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360 as well as growth in retail chains were primary factors driving the demand for video games in India. An industry worth 25 billion dollars globally, the 9th generation of video game consoles will see tremendous advances especially with the inclusion of virtual reality compatible hardware technology. ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Video Game Consoles: Interesting Trivia ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- - 2 out of 5 gamers are women ------------------------------------------------- - 65% of US households have atleast 1 video game console ------------------------------------------------- - The average age for gamers is 32 ------------------------------------------------- - An average gamer spends 18 hours playing video games. ------------------------------------------------- - Sony Playstation 2 sold 138 million units worldwide making it the best-selling console ever...
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...*CASE STUDY 11* Competition in Video Game Consoles: The State of the Battle for Supremacy AUTHORS: Christian Kostadinov 29114042 Ivaylo Baldev 29114047 Sofia 2010 Competition in Video Game Consoles: The State of the Battle for Supremacy Objectives in front of the case study The main objective that stands in front of our project is to clarify the present situation on the market of video console games. To present the strategies of the three main rival firms-Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, to see their advantages and disadvantages, to see what their mission statement is, to see who are their customers and in which market segments the companies are trying to penetrate or have already penetrated. At the end we are going to try to predict the future development of the battle. We are also going to compare them in the above mentioned spheres, with the help of a competitor analysis. Conclusions are going to be derived after every paragraph. In order to do that we are going to use different methods including- SWOT analyses, PEST analyses etc. There were two different variants how to structure the text- first to include the PEST and SWOT analysis in the text for every firm or second variant to add it after the analysis. The second way was chosen because we decided that using this method it will be easier to compare the firms. Additionally we are going to present the information in the most understandable way by a PowerPoint Presentation. Content: 1. Introduction...
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...The console video game craze started off in November 1977, the year the Atari 2600 was released. It sold for 200 dollars and was an instant hit. The killer app for the system was the game Pong. This game consisted of a ball bouncing back and fourth on the screen, the player had to hit the ball with a paddle and the other player or computer would return the ball in the same manner. Atari offered many other games but none were as popular as Pong, until space invaders came along. Released in Japan in 1978 and 1979 in the US, Space Invaders became a world wide craze. According to an article found on http://retrogamer.merseyworld.com “kids stopped listing to music, playing sports or going to the movies, they played Space Invaders. Space Invaders Greatly increased the popularity of the Atari 2600, video games became the new hot thing. Everything was going great for Atari until 1984 when the Atari 5200 was released. The system was a flop and it seemed to kill the video game industry in the US. While the US video game craze seemed like it was over, a new craze was starting in Japan. In 1983 a little company named Nintendo released a console named, Famicom. The system sold for 100 dollars in Japan and was very popular; however it was not released in the US due to the video game crash of 1984. In late 1985 The Famicom was released in the US as the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). By February 1986 the NES had already sold over 30 million. The original US set came with two controllers...
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...in Kyoto, Japan and, decades later, expanded to video game production. Nintendo released its first game console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), in 1985 (Nintendo, 2013). The NES became an instant hit and set Nintendo to be a pioneer in the game console industry throughout 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...
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...for Video Game Supremacy John Sterman, Khan Jekarl, Cate Reavis As Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony Corporation, settled in for his flight back to Japan from New York, a number of pressing issues occupied his mind about Sony’s future. At the forefront, Sony’s next generation video game console, the PlayStation 3 (PS3), was set to launch worldwide on November 17, 2006, a mere week away. Despite PlayStation 2’s (PS2) dominance in the last generation of gaming consoles, Stringer understood that past successes were no guarantee of future success in the intensely competitive game industry. Microsoft had launched the first volley in the last console war by releasing the Xbox 360 in the fall of 2005. Within one year, almost 4 million Xbox 360s had been sold worldwide, giving Microsoft a significant head-start in the race for market dominance. Meanwhile, Nintendo, a competitor thought to be dead due to the lackluster sales of its previous console, the Nintendo Gamecube, had generated significant “buzz” around its new entry, the Nintendo Wii (pronounced “we”). Targeting more of a mainstream audience than Sony and Microsoft, the Wii, scheduled to launch just two days after the PS3, posed a serious threat to Sony’s market share, particularly due to its $249.99 retail price, half the price of the PS3. Stringer also knew that there was much more at stake than winning the console war. The next generation of the DVD market was at stake as well. In addition to being a gaming console, the PS3...
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...The Challenge Of Maintaining Greatness in the Gaming Industry Strategic Management Professor : Yuri Mishina 12-12-2013 1 Table of Contents Executive Summary....................................................................................................................................... 3 Industry Analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 3 Threat of New Entrants ............................................................................................................................. 4 Power of Suppliers .................................................................................................................................... 4 Power of Buyers ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Substitutes ................................................................................................................................................ 5 Degree of Rivalry ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Firm Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 7 Company Strategy ....................................................................................
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...according to researcher NPD Group Inc. The decline was led by shrinking sales of game consoles, which fell 39 percent to $210.9 million, the Port Washington, New York-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Software sales fell 18 percent to $497.4 million even with strong gains in Electronic Arts Inc. (EA)’s “Madden NFL 13” football game, which sold 11 percent more units in its debut month than the previous version last year, NPD said. Video-game industry sales this year have shrunk as fewer consumers buy packaged titles, which sell for about $60 each. Sharp gains in games played on mobile devices have failed to offset an overall decline. Taking into account digital downloads, consumers probably spent almost $1.6 billion on games last month, NPD analyst Liam Callahan estimated. New video-game sales for this month will probably decline 5 percent from a year ago, which would be the best result for the industry in nearly 12 months, Arvind Bhatia, an analyst at Sterne Agee & Leach Inc., said in a research note today. The industry is gearing up for the peak holiday shopping season beginning in November. Among nearly a dozen tent-pole game titles from major developers, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) releases the next installment of its $3 billion Halo franchise, while Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI) will begin selling “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.” Console Sales Microsoft held the lead in console sales in September for the 21st consecutive month. The Redmond, Washington-based...
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...current top selling console in worldwide but lose to the Ps3 in have the better gaming console dose one truly know why? If one has ever own an Xbox 360 or Ps3 one would have notice that they are both good video game systems. They are different and only one can be the top selling but does that mean it need to be the more superior gaming console. Even though the Ps3 is the better gaming console on the market, the Xbox 360 is the current top selling console in the American market only because it is cheaper They are many reasons the Ps3 is the better gaming console over the Xbox 360 on the worldwide market right now. The main reason for it been superior over the Xbox 360 is because the date it was release to the worldwide market. It was the lasts gaming console to come out of the current gen gaming console. The Ps3 was release a year after the Xbox 360 which gave it more time to add new upgrade to their system to make sure it was the better gaming console. The ps3 was release on November 17, 2006 in the American market with this it gives them more time with the development of the games console to make change to it. The Ps3 also became one of the top gaming consoles on the worldwide market when it was release with a Blu-ray player built in it so it gave its customer the ability to watch full HD contention on their TVs. Were the Xbox 360 came with a dvd player built in. With the Blu-ray player built in it is system it gave them the edge over the other gaming console currently in the...
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...differentiation strategy with its seventh generation console the Wii, while simultaneously deciding to focus on serving buyers comprising of a narrow market niche. Rather than building a console with new graphic features and technological capability in to the console itself, the company concentrated on pioneering a daringly different video game controller. The bold new approach allowed Nintendo to tap into an entirely new demographic and to engage new players of video games. Combining these two strategic approaches propelled the company to become the market leader in sales of the third generation video game consoles, far surpassing Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Nintendo is currently facing two significant problems: 1. The immediate concern is that the company is unable to meet the demand for the Wii console which continues to sell out in stores. 2. The long term issue that needs to be addressed is whether the company can identify and invest in innovations that would allow Nintendo to continue to expand in the market, while resisting a significant attack from its competition. In order to analyze the issues in detail a SWOT, PESTE, financial, and competitive analysis were performed. The findings indicated that the company differentiates itself from the competition with a high emphasis on product differentiation; it is quite susceptible to competition; and that the release of the Wii console has improved its financial status immensely from a revenue...
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...The History of the Video Games The world of video games has played a part in several generations and they have always been entertaining for everyone. They have consistently evolved over the years keeping up with the times always offering gamers the best quality that is available. What started as mainly being played on televisions now is being played in hand held versions in addition to cell phones. Video games are evolving again with the games allowing the chance for everyone to get involved with the fun. From little toddlers to grandparents, there is a game out there all genres. I will explain each next-gen platform and its differences. The first system is the Nintendo Wii, Wii standing for we meaning that this console was built for everybody to play. This is the smallest console to date weighing in at only less than three pounds, over six inches tall, and it plays 12” inch discs in addition to eight inch discs from its predecessor the Nintendo GameCube. This console is motion censored based meaning that you have to move your body with the controller. This is the only that requires a memory card since there is not a lot of internal memory. This console is for everybody and it became instant hit and sold millions of units in a few short months. Next console is the X-Box 360, the second system released by Microsoft offering a more detailed online experience. With the ability to play others online the 360 has a social networking feel where you interact...
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...as Nintendo Koppai. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the business produced and marketed a playing card game called Hanafuda. In 1956, Hiroshi Yamauchi visited the US, and this is when he realized the limitations of the card business and hence moved on to different arenas of the gaming world. In 1963, Yamauchi renamed Nintendo Playing Card Company Limited to Nintendo Company, Limited. During 1963 and 1968, Nintendo set up a taxi company, a "love hotel" chain, a TV network, a food company and several other things. All these attempts at expanding and diversifying the business failed, except toy making, where they had relatively prior experience with from selling playing cards. In enormous debt, Nintendo was trying to withstand the Japanese toy industry; it was still small at this point. Due to the short product life cycle of toys, innovation and constantly new product development was vital. This was the beginning of a major new era for Nintendo. In 1970, Hiroshi Yamauchi discovered the hidden talents of Gunpei Yoki, a maintanace engineer at the factory, who built what was later called The Ultra Hand which soon turned into a huge success, selling approximately 1.2 million units. Yokoi was soon moved from maintenance to product development. Nintendo’s first step into the video games industry was in 1975. At the time, home video game consoles were very rare, even the seminal Atari Pong console had not yet been produced. The early 1980s Nintendo created some of its most famous and infamous...
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