Rivalry in Video Game Industry
Introduction
The video games industry faces an entirely new rivalry situation. After 11 years of leadership, Sony has nearly lost its strong positions on the market, which gives the other two players – Microsoft and Nintendo - the chance to compete for the leadership. While the goal of Nintendo is to stay in the industry, Sony and Microsoft aim to strengthen their positions on the home entertainment market, which is constantly growing. The key factors, the companies need to consider in order to gain a competitive advantage, are good marketing and well developed distribution, as well as providing a huge range of games with recognizable characters. As the market segmentation increases, it is of crucial importance to put an emphasis upon the new target groups and reqruit as many new players as possible. However, there are also a lot of factors outside and inside the industry, which play a major role and have to be considered in order to become a better idea of the state of the industry, and to estimate its profitability and tendency of growing.
Summary of macro-environmental analysis
Stricter legislation both advantageous and disadvantageous for the video games industry is expected. As governments become more concerned about the increasing violence among teenagers the control of video games content is strengthened. On the other hand the laws against piracy aim to reduce the number of the illegaly copied games.
With the rise of the prices of everyday goods, petrol, etc., while salaries don’t go up as fast, the disposal income declines and for many entertainment becomes a luxury good. People are not willing to spend as much on it as they used to. However, as the average age of the video games players goes up, there are more players with own incomes, who are able to buy more games.
The industry is expexted to grow due to the fact that, as surveys of the NPD Group show, kids spend more time playing and the hardcore gamers spend an avegare of 45 hours per week playing video games. On the other hand the growth prospecst are dampened by the increasing concerns of the parents about their children being too inactive and spending more time playing video games than playing sports or taking part in other activities. However, there is also a tendency of video games being increasingly regarded as an entertainment for the whole family.
The future growth of the industry is theratened by the declining birthrates.
In 2012, software and hardware sales in the video games industry raked up more than over $65 billion dollars in revenue in comparison to just $10 billion dollars seven years prior. These statistics indicate that the gaming industry is not only one of the largest and fastest growing businesses in the world, but showcase that it is also outperforming other similarly popular mediums of entertainment such as film, books, and music in terms of revenue and annual growth. In the short fifty years that video games have been around, they’ve quickly become an integral part of the lives of many and are only continuing to increasing in popularity. I’m sure that everyone can attest to knowing at least one or two people who engage in regular video game playing activity. However, despite being a common leisurely activity and hobby for many in today’s society, there is still a shocking level of stigma surrounding the medium. There are various stereotypes in place which attribute to the stigma - from the gaming community mainly consisting of young adolescent boys to gamers being socially inept individuals; these ideas and the way video games are unfairly scrutinized and misrepresented in the media (by those who
Violence in video games supposedly causing violence and criminal acts in real life has been argued for many years and a solution has been proposed. Since many people believe that violence or a criminal act in real life is more likely to occur at the hands of someone who has played a violent video game as a child, an age limit on certain kinds of violence in games has been proposed. I believe that if parents regulate their children and make sure that their child is not being negatively affected then no problems would arise from this.
“The objective of video games are to entertain people by surprising them with new experience” (Shigeru Miyamoto).Video games have been a leisure activity for many people around the world but for some people it has become a way of life. Video games help us escape everyday life and bring us to a land of imagination. That is why many people play video games because it is a great way to relieve stress. Video games have many benefits than just being fun. Not only are video games shown to have positive effects on the individual if used in the right manner, but it also helps to connect people with common interest; bring a sense of community. It is also a resourceful way to find a career path. The components
Video games can be seen in both a positive and negative light. Video gaming has become a popular activity for people of all ages, yet many fear the aftermath they can ensue. Many children and adolescents expend large amounts of time playing them. Video gaming is a multibillion-dollar industry – bringing in more money than movies and DVDs. In fact, the PlayStation 2 was the first video game system to integrate DVD mechanics. It was originally intended to exist as a CD add-on to complement the Super Nintendo, but due to licensing difficulties Sony chose to develop the PlayStation as its own distinctive system. Video games have become very sophisticated. Some games connect to the internet, which can allow children and adolescents to play online with unknown adults and peers. The
Nintendo, which is one of the video game industry competitors, have been the worldwide leader in creating the entertainment games. Nintendo’s video games have been sold everywhere in the world and they became in the list of the worlds best selling. The latest gaming console system, which is considered as a revolutionary video game console, was the Wii. It attracted a large number of people from different ages, which resulted in a large number of sales and profit. Unfortunately, nowadays the demand of the video games slightly decreased because of the new games and devices introduced recently. This internal analysis of Nintendo conducts its competitive strength assessment versus its competitors and analyzes the firm using the value chain analysis tool and the VRIO framework.
Video games have come a long way. They have evolved from the simple game of Pong into a complex, multi-platform, multi-genre, multi-billion dollar industry.
Video games have been a growing industry for about 30 years and has never been bigger. As a whole, the industry made around $66 billion last year, and is expected to make even more this coming year. Because of this growth, gamers have sought better graphics, better stories, and even more violence. Developers have satisfied this want with more M rated games that include heavier violence, stronger language, sexual themes, and intense blood and gore. Past acts and laws have been put in place to try and eliminate violence in video games. These laws have stiffled the industry's freedom of expression and caus...
Since the Early 70’s video games have been giving a bad name. Parents state that video games rot the minds of children and are influencing them do be violent. These accusations are far from the truth. In my research I found that there are many positive effects of gaming. Some of these effects are increased skills, creativity, general knowledge, and also help those in need. Parents can also take proper precautions and look into a game before buying it to see if it meets the criteria discussed in this paper.
Lynch (2012) asserts that it is necessary for an organization to carry out an analysis of its resources and capabilities as it help it in identifying the places where value can be added by the organization. This also helps the company in finding out ways to gain competitive advantage in the market. The given case on Nintendo showed that by 2005, Nintendo appeared to be heading towards an end as its rivals Microsoft and Sony has captured the market through Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 respectively. In this scenario, Nintendo innovated Wii which changed the market scenario in 2007. The case showed that innovative new strategy by Nintendo with its Wii games machine has transformed the industry and revived the profitability of the company. Since the release of the Wii, Nintendo is the leader in the video game industry. By introducing a totally new, one of a kind console, Nintendo has set clearly its goal and objectives, i.e. to reach an unexplored market share by introducing new gaming experiences, and therefore being the leader over its two main competitors, Sony and Microsoft. The case thus highlights the need to take a resource based view of the capabilities of the company so that such resources can be exploited to generate higher value for the firm.
The average adolescent spends a major part of the normal week watching or interacting with some form of the media’s products. Video games are one of these media based mediums and have become increasingly popular since the 1980’s. According to a report in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, "Female gamers spent an average of 44 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and four minutes playing on the weekends, and male gamers spent an average of 58 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and 37 minutes playing on the weekends" ("Video Game Play Among Adolescents"). What can we understand from this evidence? The fact is that adolescents, male or female, are spending tremendous amounts of time each day sitting in front of a screen with a controller in hand.
Today, video games have become the preferred choice of entertainment among children and teenagers. Research done in 1998 has shown that kids who own video games spend an average of 90 minutes a day playing them. Clearly, the video gaming industry is a profitable one. With the increasing competition between gaming companies, the advancement of technology and content of games began to change. One of the most significant and concerning changes in gaming is graphics.
Video games have been around about 50 years and they contribute a big part of the U.S. economy. People interact with video games every day throughout different ways, such as cell phone devices, computers, consoles or whatever which has a screen on it. In fact, it has always affected people’s lives. However, not so many people understand the benefits of video games. With video games, people can not only relieve themselves from stress and suffering, but it also improves people’s social experiences while they are exchanging and absorbing knowledge with other people; more than that, people can learn many other things from video games which can help them to achieve great things in lives.
This being said, it can be proven that advancements come with positive and negative effects. The video games of twenty-five years ago have evolved into something different and in some cases something dark. Research has shown in many cases that video games have negative effects such as: increased aggressive behavior, desensitization, and poor physical heath on adolescents. Many researches also think part of the problem arises because adolescents do not receive enough parental supervision with these games. After discussing these negative effects it will be obvious that more vigilance and regulations are warranted.
Many parents suffer from video games, due to the influence of it on their children. It is a really important topic because many parents are suffering from the influences of video games and I personally know a friend who had epilepsy from playing video games for long hours daily. Recommendations Video games have both good and bad effects, but bad effects are greater. Limiting the time spent playing video games and choosing the right type are the solutions to the elimination of bad effects on children. Thus, moderation between playing video games and playing sports or doing extracellular activities will benefit the child.
In 2008, the computer and video game industry has made $1.7 billion in revenue. Of this, 16% was made through the sale of violent video games (FYI: Video Game Statistics by the Entertainment Software Association | Critical Gaming Project). Many parents are concerned about these violent games because of how they can affect their children. Many think that these games are dangerous and should be banned. Others believe that the sale of these games should go unregulated. Whereas still others believe that there is a middle ground between these in restricting the sale or rental to minors.