Nintendo is trying, with the Wii, to create a disruptive technology that unseats current industry leaders. I believe they may already have created that disruptive platform, but it’s not their new console.
The concept of “disruptive technology” was popularized with the book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”. The gist of it is that, in many markets, technological capabilities increase faster than most consumers’ needs. At the same time, some companies create new products that are less capable in the traditional aspects, but feature new characteristics that weren’t considered important in the past.
For example, in the past hard drives were big boxes that had large capacity (for the time). Capacity increased faster than consumer’s needs, and eventually having physically smaller hard drives that held less data became more interesting than large drives that held more data. The companies making the big old drives slowly were overtaken by the companies making the new drives.
Contrary to popular belief, disruptive technologies don’t necessarily revolutionize a market instantly; the new technology often existed in a niche market for a long time before its capacities became good enough for the mainstream market. Look at portable MP3 players: even though the iPod set the market on fire, there were many other similar products beforehand that were promising but not good enough to replace the popular portable CD players.
We can apply this logic to consoles. Graphics quality — the traditional metric for evaluating a console — is improving faster than many consumers care about. For all the talk about the HD era, very few people have TVs that support 1080p. Many people also note that we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns in graphics; adding a few thousand polygons more on the screen just doesn’t have the impact it used to. Yet, both Sony and Microsoft concentrate on graphics power to promote their new system.
The console market seems ready for a disruptive technology to shake its core assumptions. Is the Wii the platform to do so? Nintendo hopes so. They see their new console as the “Revolution” that will change gaming into caring more about ease of use than raw power. I don’t believe that will happen: the Wii games are just too similar to their competitors’, even with the new controller. The Wii may be a success, but I don’t think it will disrupt the status quo.
The good news for Nintendo is that they’re already the leaders in what may be the real disruptive technology: handheld consoles. Handheld games used to be too limited to reach the masses, but now the PSP and DS are reaching graphical quality that’s “good enough” for the mainstream. They also have unique qualities that traditional consoles don’t have: portability, easy connectivity with nearby players and approachable games.
Handhelds are good enough in the traditional characteristics of consoles, but also bring something new to the table. Sounds like a potential disruptive technology to me — as I said, disruptive technologies don’t overtake a market instantly, but rather do so when they become good enough for the mainstream market.
I believe the Nintendo DS’ success is the tipping point of what may be the real new era of gaming — forget the HD era, here comes the Portable Era. The next hot system may very well be defined by its battery life and ease of transportation rather than by the quality of its graphics.
October 5th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
That’s an interesting thought. I’d have to say that I agree with this too. Since I’ve started working in the game industry the DS is what I play the most. I can play on the go, on break, hell, even at home. It’s the enjoyable hardware I’ve bought from the top 3 in a long time.
November 15th, 2006 at 12:03 am
I own a DS, and I love playing it. In fact it’s the only video game I play, since my PS2 broke down a while back. The one thing I’ve missed the most in this time has been what I consider to be a “real” gaming session. This is where I sit down in front of the tv, in my own comfortable pocket of the world, which I have created expressely for this purpose, and play video games. Or watch TV. I think this is the big flaw in the idea of the “portable age”. I often play my DS at home, which is not nearly as comfortable as playing a tv console. When I play in public, it’s a few short rounds of this or that. Games like Big Brain Age, and Elite Beat Agents are great because I can play a whole “game” in just a few minutes. However, when I want to really play video games, when that event is the focus, rather than a time-killer, I want to sit on my throne and stare at my TV. Also, when I have friends over, it feels much more communal to share a controller connected to the same tv, in other words to share the same visual focal point, than when we’re each staring down at our own pair of hands.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:00 am
We will see in the end if it actually has any merit to change the industry.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Elitegamer,
DS sells more than PS2
October 2006 Game consoles sales for USA
NDS - 360,000
PS2 - 235,000
360 - 218,000
GBA - 169,000
PSP - 130,000
GCN - 32,000
XBX - 3,500
Looking at these numbers, I concur DS (portables in general) IS changing the industry.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:05 am
Portables sold in October = 659,000
Consoles sold in October = 488,000
Portable gaming systems are more popular then traditional consoles
November 15th, 2006 at 2:55 am
I think post 5 and 4 are misleading, dont forget there is a calm in the consoles market before xmas, and the wii/ps3 launch so many are holding out of the market until then. Not that it is untrue, just misleading.
The Wii will also benefit from the portables more than any other console, and thus enabling compatibility and breeding familiarity.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:53 am
[…] A very interesting read. Popularized in the book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, the concept of disruptive technology states that when leading companies tend to increase product quality faster than the increase in demand, smaller companies will court niche markets with underpowered yet innovative products, and slowly wind up toppling the giants.read more | digg story […]
November 15th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Jonathan, I agree that traditional consoles are better for extended playing and will keep dominating that field. However, I think handhelds will keep getting a larger and larger part of the marketplace.
You could even have a future where your handheld is also a console: imagine coming home with your DS-4 and plugging it to a docking station (like an ipod) that connects it to the TV and separate controllers. You would then enjoy the same games, but with a bigger screen and all the advantages of a traditional consoles.
The change to the portable era would happen much like the change from arcades to consoles: slowly. If that happens, it’ll take a while — probably not until the next generation of handhelds, at very least.
January 29th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
[…] A very interesting read. Popularized in the book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, the concept of disruptive technology states that when leading companies tend to increase product quality faster than the increase in demand, smaller companies will court niche markets with underpowered yet innovative products, and slowly wind up toppling the giants.read more | digg story Links […]
April 18th, 2007 at 10:00 am
[…] A very interesting read. Popularized in the book “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, the concept of disruptive technology states that when leading companies tend to increase product quality faster than the increase in demand, smaller companies will court niche markets with underpowered yet innovative products, and slowly wind up toppling the giants.read more | digg story […]
November 18th, 2007 at 10:24 am
[…] read more | digg story […]