Sony Ceo Kazuo Hirai

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai is struggling with the Nintendo’s comeback. Wii console is taking a big piece of games market. So after being the leader for 2 consecutive console generations in 2008 Nintendos’wii had almost 2 times the market share that Sony had.

In my point of view Sony should keep focus on the regular gamer, just like in the past 2 generations of PlayStations and respond building a device similar like the Wii that allow other non-classical gamers to enjoy the same experience as Wii provides.

How attractive does the video game industry look in late 2008?

The gaming industry started in 1972 when the television maker Magnavox introduced its gaming system Odyssey. After that other companies developed their own gaming system such as Atari and over time Nintendo, Sega, Playstation and eventually Microsoft.

According to Exhibit 2a in 2008 the market for gaming console producers consists of 3 major players Microsoft with the Xbox 360, the Sony Playstation 3 and the Wii launched by Nintendo

Furthermore, in Exhibit 2b we appreciate large operation profits over the years for gaming console producers. Moreover, when looking at how the industry evolving over time we can use figure A given in the case reader and see that the volume leader has an approximate life time of about 5 years.

Why did Nintendo delay introducing its 16 bit video game system?

Nintendo delayed its released of the new 16 bit system to avoid cannibalizing sales of the 8 bit NES

Did Sega use any elements of Judo Strategy?

SEGA took advantage of the 16-bit segment pricing its system at a high level to reduce the threat to Nintendo. At the beginning SEGA was unable to compete in the market for 8-bit systems. In this context Sega took advantage that Nintendo would delay bringing out a 16-bit system because of it didn’t want to cannibalize its 8-bit market. So at the end SEGA conquered the 16-bit market for almost 2 years.