OptimusPrime brings up an intriguing argument about the Wii being a disruptive product. But again, the problem here is that a truly disruptive product is disruptive only to COMPETITORS and to other industries, not to partners, licensees, and such. One thing I've noticed is that Nintendo likes to toss a word like "disruptive" around like it's a good thing. It's not.
For the Wii to be called truly disruptive, it would have to be threatening the business model of a previously unrelated industry, or it would have to give Nintendo such an obvious competitive advantage that everyone else would have to take a back seat. Neither has happened. If you want to call the Wii disruptive to anything, perhaps it's to other forms of entertainment that it mimics with motion controls (like bowling), and even that's a stretch, since I don't hear tennis racket manufacturers complaining.
No, the problem here is that Nintendo has simply created a business model where they lowered development costs at the same time increasing profit margins. They've manage to do this by realizing that there was a market that doesn't care about quality or depth and for whom a short, repeatable play experience is acceptable. Why spend money creating an epic game when you can lower your costs 90% by making a game some people will enjoy playing for just an hour or two?
Well
1) That's why I referred too content-character of the Industry. Because consoles as a product are driven by content, you need content providers. Nintendo, with making the Wii disruptive has also disrupted every content provider on the planet (excep a few who quickly adapted or new entrants in game-development), so you're argument against my argument is moot, i allready had incorporated the argument in my argument (phew...). Now I don't know if Nintendo accounted for this, maybe they thaught everyone would follow sweet after they become the market leader with the seoncd scenario being Nintendo going bust.
2) The Wii is actually a very text-book example of a disruptive innovation, except the text-book doesn't exist that long though. A Disruptive innovation is a product that is inferior on the dimension of quality that it's customers historical have valued but is cheaper and more accessible then the established powers (Sony and MS). The Wii is this.
A disruptive product first aims at market oppurtunities away from the established powers, aka the lower tiers. The Wii was from the ground-up designed to be marketed to well...everyone. Again, check.
A Disruptive product does not have to have innovative features, it can also exist out of already existing technology/components but in a new bussiness model which represent new vlaues and processes. The argument that Rick uses that NIntendo just made a bussniness model that benefits them actually makes it fit the disruptive description (wha??).
What Rick says implies that the Wii has a new bussniness model based on casual games (which is a new value for a console maker)...a disruptive product can also just be a new bussniness model representing new values and processes. So yes, Nintendo having this new bussniness model is a sign of it being disruptive, that it's based on casual games is a sign of a new value and so of being disruptive, the last thing are the processes. Well let's take WiiFit and Wiimusic or even Nintendogs. Let's compare the date we know these games where in development and when they were released. Notice how for all three games this has been around 2 years! That's the difference in proces, Nintendo makes its "casual" games with its best people and giving them ample time. This let's them create the best game possible in regard to the market it is aimed at and can be seen as one the reasons why these games sell so good for so long, they're just bloody well made. This is also why Nintendo doesn't really make sequels out of these games: they don't want to satuarate the market and the game they have now is good enough.
It's clear that Rick does not understand the nature of disruptive innovations, as can be seen of him cramming it in his traditional think-structure.
1) Disruptive products do not compete with established powers from the get go. They first need to built up their base-market (the lowest tiers which are ignored by the established powers anyways), after which they will move up the tiers trough sustaining inovations (WiiMotion plus). At some point in moving up they will bump up against the established powers.
2) Disruptive products take time to be established and become the awesome force that strikes down estalished powers. The musket needed 150 years before it replaced knights and bows during the last decades of the 16th century with the Maurits reform. Steam engines needed decades of redesigning and refining before they became center-piece of the Industrial Revolution. The iPod needed 3-4 years before it got to the "Almighty White"-status it has received. So maybe you could excuse the Wii for not being such a force that pushes out it's competitors. But rest assured, the Wii is becoming it.
3) disruptive innovations not a good thing? Sure they are...if you're not a nostalgic-driven old fart. Disruptive Innovations are the things that push mankind forward in terms of technology. The disruptive innovation of farming made mankind settle, the disruptive innovation of metallurgy made mankind into warring city-states...well ok, maybe not always good. But steam-engines, PC's, the internet, the Enlightment are all disruptive products (now those four I like to see as Disruptive Hotbed products since all four ushered in a new technologic era and caused a lot of other disruptive innovations). And there are always people against it. There are examples of regions in germany who re-inforced serfdom to compete with steam-engines in the textile sector. The internet is still making people who hide behind author rights to maintain their markets very mad, the Enlightment made a whole bunch of people (nobles, clergy, princes, kings) uneasy, power to the people? Absurd! What good could come from that!
What Rick does is trow around some stuff he has seen, crams it in his traditional structure and then claim it must be like this because it makes to most sense to him. Disruptive innovations means that a new structure, thinking and logic is being formed ready to take over the tradtional one. So his methods of forming arguments are allready by default wrong which makes his arguments wrong. It sounds harsh, but this is mankind's history in a nutshell: a very long march of constant change in everything. Rick, I welcome you to the gaming's equivalent of old farts mumbling about the "good ole days".
Now again, what he does is not useless. His traditional structure thinking does still apply to MS and Sony, it just fails horrendously against the market leader. Also he gives a social relief to people who refuse to adapt to the new change, which stops them from going into bloody revolts so to say.
Short: he's wrong, what he's complaning about is third parties fault of non-adapting to something very natural in the world: change. And he can't see why he's wrong because of the same reason.
Topic: Rick’s Rant - Episode 5: Powers Strikes Back (Read 28980 times)
