Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

The video game industry has plenty of options for different lifestyles. From computer gaming, gaming consoles, to mobile gaming, people have the choice of their preferred gaming style. Some are doing better than others. For example, in a portfolio analysis mobile devices are a star, PlayStation is a cash cow, Nintendo Wii U is a question mark, and Xbox 360 is a dog.

Mobile devices are a star of the industry because they have a high growth rate and market share. ”And yet, as I pointed out on Twitter, 13.5m’s all well and good until you consider that Apple sold 10m iPhones in a weekend, and it sells between 12 and 14m iPads per quarter. Then you have Samsung selling frankly hilarious numbers of its devices and even Microsoft selling nearly a billion dollars worth of Surfaces. That’s 3m or more machines, or nearly half the number of Xbox Ones that it’s sold to date.” (techcrunch.com) This is why mobile devices are taking over the industry.
Sony PlayStation is considered a cash cow of the industry because they have a low growth rate and high market share. Sony has added in features that appeal to the users. “But the most advanced revelation could be the PS4 system update 2.0 which will allow friends to play a game even if they don't own it. "The best way to think about Share Play is like a 'virtual couch'," Sony said in its official PlayStation blog. "PlayStation 4 will create an online local co-op experience by allowing you to invite a friend to join your game—even when they don't own a copy of it." It will also allow players to upload game footage to YouTube, a growing trend amongst users wanting to show off their gaming accomplishments.” (cnbc.com)


The Nintendo Wii U is the question mark of the video game industry because they have high growth prospects but low market share. “Wii U has been a huge disappointment for Nintendo. And although the company's boss Satoru Iwata has been talking up post-Mario Kart 8 sales, it continues to lag behind expectations. Nintendo is the most venerable name in gaming and yet Wii U has not sold nearly as many units as the company hoped, planned and budgeted. It points to percentage increases in sales for the April-September period,  but the actual hard numbers of consoles sold remains sluggish. As a result, Nintendo's future in the console business looks murky.” (polygon.net) Xbox 360 is a dog because it has both a low market share and growth rate.

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