Was the Nintendo lucky or does the Wii’s success have strategic merit?
In the business world today, luck is not treated as a contributing factor towards the success of a business. Businesses need to adopt strategies which would sustain their competitiveness.
The strategies that Nintendo adopted can be said to have had strategic merit. The company was focused on receiving the attention of the masses in order to meet their needs.
The company believed that customers were the ones who made a business to gain new business opportunities. It therefore focused on meeting the various gaming needs that majority of the people were interested in.
Cheap costs are very appealing to customers. Most customers always make sure that the products they use are affordable and capable of meeting their needs adequately.
Since Nintendo was not competitive technologically initially, it mostly focused on the masses and designed its products in a manner that ensured that members of the public had fun while they were playing the games made by the company.
This strategy enabled the company to do more with less. Instead of adopting the expensive state of the art chips and high definition lasers that Microsoft and Sony were using, Nintendo ensured that the devices it manufactured incorporated the motion-sensing wireless technology which was cheap and interesting for the customers to use.
Nintendo ensured that the controllers of the game incorporated the TV remote technology so that the games would be more inviting to people.
The basic software of the Wii was designed in such a manner that it allowed people to design their own avatars thereby making people to feel as if they were part of the game.
This went hand in hand with the motion sensing technology that the company paid emphasis on thereby making the game to be more interesting to the people who were not hardcore gamers.
Since people were capable of playing Wii using characters that resembled them, the game became more popular to people thereby making the demand for the Wii console to go up significantly.
Because of the popularity that Wii had gained since its introduction, competitors such as Sony and Microsoft lost a significant share of the market thereby making Nintendo Company to outsell the two companies.
Has Nintendo put the “fad” question to rest?
Since the introduction of the Wii, many analysts wondered whether it would survive the competitive pressure in the gaming industry. However, it has not been possible for retailers to keep the Wii in stock since it was introduced because of its high demand.
Nintendo has been able to improve the Wii such that it is possible for customers to get weather details and news through wireless internet connectivity.
It is also possible for customer to keep themselves up to date because they can easily download the classic games from Nintendo and other independent developers. Nintendo is also laying emphasis on developing new applications which can cope with the motion sensing technology adopted by the company.
In which stage of the product lifecycle is the Wii?
Once a product is introduced into the market, there are certain stages of product life-cycle that it passes through. The Wii can therefore be said to be in its maturity stage because the sales of the company have gone up significantly, the competitors have begun designing games that are more interesting to the public, the prices of products have reduced because competitors such as Sony have reduced the prices of their PlayStation games to levels that compete with the cheaper games and hardware that Nintendo offers its customers.
Nintendo is also focusing on developing new games which are unique to the customers in order to enable it remain competitive in the industry.
Develop a strategy for the Wii’s next product life-cycle phase
When a product becomes well pronounced in the market, it encounters competition from other manufacturers thereby forcing a company to adopt new strategies what would enable it to remain competitive.
To survive in the market, Nintendo should ensure that the products designed are cheap and affordable to the general public.
In addition, it is important for the company to ensure that it diversifies on the games and services that it offers to its customers such that it is possible for the customers to access a wider variety of games from the company
. It should design hardcore games which would then attract the hardcore gamers to use of the games designed by the company. This would increase the competitiveness of the Nintendo in the gaming industry.
Threats to future success: Can Nintendo overcome threats to sustain Wii’s relevance?
Any business faces serious threats while conducting its operations in the market. In the case of Nintendo Company, it is possible that companies such as Sony and Microsoft would introduce games that are friendly for a majority of people to play and at a cheaper cost.
This would significantly impact on the market share of Nintendo thereby declining the demand for Wii. In order to ensure that the company remains competitive, it should ensure that it makes use of advancing technology to enable it design exciting games at a cheaper cost.
The company should also design hardcore games thereby attracting the hardcore gamers into the company.