Having your parents and grandparents playing a video game with you just because it is a Wii? When I received a Wii, exactly this happened. Everybody had a Wii and I knew that it is made for every age, but I didn’t know that it was so innovative. As a Nintendo game console lover, it was interesting to find out how Nintendo came to the Wii and which strategy they were using. Furthermore, I wanted to find out what the history behind this exploding innovative gaming experience was.
Looking at Wii`s following history, something caused surprise.
History
Nintendo`s way till Wii.
- 1889 “Fusajiro Yamauchi starts the production of Japanese playing cards” (Nintendo.de)
- 1902 these announced whole world
- 1933, unincorporated company = Jamauchi Nintendo & Co.
- 1947 sales company = Marufuhu Co. Ltd.
- 1951 name changed: Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd.
- 1963 Nintendo Co. Ltd.; other games were produced
- 1984 VS. system à NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)
- 1989 game boy (Japan)
- 1994 Super game Boy
- 2006 Nintendo 64
- 1998 game boy color
- 2001 game boy advanced; Nintendo Game Cube
- 2004 Nintendo DS
- 2006 touch in DS; year-end àWii console
Flop before Top
The GameCube was the successor of Nintendo64 and the predecessor of Wii.
With it Nintendo hoped to get back to the top of the console manufacturers.
But PlayStation2 thwarted the plans, after the GameCube sales were clearly below PlayStation2. With the X-box, Microsoft established to a strong competitor.
Another problem occurred, due to the fact that other manufacturers did not support Nintendo anymore after the bad sales figures were published, which continued to stop the sale: a flop.
In 2006, the Wii followed with its innovative idea, which brought Nintendo on top.
Nintendo's innovation called: Wii
You might wonder what Wii means? Nintendo`s answer – “Wii sounds like “we”, which emphasizes it is for everyone” (theviewspaper.net).
The console was often attributed to make video games more popular with great audience, e.g. women.
The question is, what makes Wii an innovation and different from other consoles?
- First console with motion sensor as norm
- Wireless controller à Wii Remote à “hand-held-pointing device, detects the movement in real time” (theviewspaper.net)
- To capitalize this motion-sensing capability à WiiSports
Through this innovation, we can integrate the console in myriad ways in our daily life.
“Nintendo`s Blue Ocean Strategy: Wii” (businessmodelalchemist.com)
The Blue Ocean Strategy, as a business theory, offers an enterprise to be a league of its own. The goal is to generate an environment in which you are setting the pace, create unique products and benefit from lucrative new markets, instead of competing in your market.
It wants companies to search ways to gain “unchallenged market space” than being active in traditional competition.
Disruptive Innovation
Also, Wii is a disruptive innovation, which means create something, which has nothing to do with what came before.
The idea behind the Wii was something moms want to buy, which was completely new.
Not only video games, online news, weather updates and more are given, were different.
The same contrary product: WiiU
With the Wii, Nintendo had a big hit in their hands and grounded themselves against Sony and Microsoft. They created the WiiU, which is seen as one of the biggest flops of the company. “The sales volume was expected to reach 100 Million, but only reached 13 Million” (tomshardware.com) – very embarrassing after the gaming revolution Wii.
Future
After the release of Wii, Nintendo is seen as a company, which will always do his own thing, not caring about competitors.
For this year, the company recently stopped production of NES, to vary to its next home gaming platform, dubbed Switch. It`s a hybrid advice which allows to play from home and on the go. Through the successful partnership with Niantic and ThePokemonCompany, they want to expand more in mobile gaming.
Nintendo will always try to do something new. We cannot say, what they are going to do next or which innovation they bear in mind, but we can be excited of what will follow and be impressed what they`ve done for our gaming future. They smoothed the way, for new and innovative games.
I am excited about Nintendo’s future, are you?
