Introduction
There are several gaming consoles available in the market. With the gaming population across the world, almost tripling, manufacturers are coming up with great and unique gaming product variations to make their products appeal to their target customers. This is a marketing strategy aimed at increasing the clients and making profits in a competitive market.
Products and Brand
There are nine smart gaming products available on best buy.com. Eight of them are similar products of different brands, these are two Play station brand products, four X-Box brand products, two Nintendo brand products. It is necessary to identify the difference between a brand and a product. A brand can never exist without a product. Firms manufacture products that other firms can easily alter to increase their competitive advantage in the market. On the other hand, clients create a brand. A product may become obsolete, but a brand is timeless. In this case, even if Sony stopped producing Play station3 model 99129 the Sony brand of play station will continue to sell in the market (“Smart Gaming Consoles”).
Variations within Brands
The main variation in features of the products within the brands is simple. This refers to a variation that focuses on the characteristics of a product. Products with extra features cost the manufacturers more to produce than those without. As a result, the prices vary from product to product within a brand. For example, within the play station brand, there are two products. These are the play station3 model 99129 and model 99106. Play station model 99129 has a stronger WIFI capability than model 99106. Features such as; 3D, HDMI output, motion gaming, and 720 HD Video output are represented in Model 99106, but not in model 99129 (“Smart Gaming Consoles”).
There are four products within the X-Box brand, which have variations although they are the same products. In this category, the variations are in the product features, for example, X-Box Bundle does not have USB capability, whereas the other three products of this model have USB Capabilities. Another variation is in the warranty; X-Box Bundle does not have a one-year warranty like the other products of the brand. The same applies to the Nintendo brand; the variation in features is still simple. The products appear to differ in features and capabilities. From an observation of the variations in features, one may argue that the main variation is a simple variation coupled with a bit of horizontal variation to increase the quality of products (“Smart Gaming Consoles”).
Price Variation
The nature of price variation in this product category is on the product specifications and features. Products with more features and characteristics that gamers yearn for within each brand are sold at a high price. This is because they are in high demand and as such, the price increases. For example, play station3 model 99129 has features and capabilities that clients yearn for such as USB support and ESRB descriptor while model 99106 does not have the features. Therefore, it has a higher price than Model 96106. Nintendo Console Deluxe Set with Nintendo Land has more features than Nintendo – Nintendo Console (Black) with Sports and Resort and as a result, is sold at a high price. This shows that the nature price variation in this category is on the customer preferences and features of the products (“Smart Gaming Consoles”).
Packaging and Clients
Packaging is significant for every company that intends to make a niche in the market. This is an important criterion as it defines the firm’s brand. For the gaming products on the site, manufacturers choose to use appealing colors blue and green are among them. The package also has drawings of the product and a description of the features. This is done to distinguish products from each other. This also attracts customers because the features appeal to them. The display of the packages in this case is the main feature of the packaging that manufacturers of the gaming products use to attract clients (“Smart Gaming Consoles”).
Lowest-priced and highest-priced product
The most notable difference between the lowest products, Ouya – Ouya, and the highest product Microsoft Xbox 360 Starter Bundle are the features. The highest-priced product supports wireless connections and allows one to use body movements without having to hold the controller when playing. These appealing features are not in the latter. Another major difference is that the Xbox 360 Starter Bundle comes with more items in its packaging than the Ouya-Ouya (“Smart Gaming Consoles”). These features could be the cause of the variation in the prices of the two products.
Conclusion
In conclusion, when products are homogenous, firms find it necessary to vary them. This is one of the best ways to increase the market and competitive advantage of a product in a market. The same is applied to smart gaming consoles. They all serve the same purpose; to increase the competitive advantage, producers decide to introduce different features to make their products appeal to clients.
Works Cited
“Smart Gaming Consoles”. Best Buy, n.d. 2013.