Brandweek, a trade
magazine for marketing, today published an opinion piece from Nintendo's Reginald Fils-Aime. Being that Mr. Fils-Aime's
job requires that he boast his product in the most universal manner possible, his article is very easy to read and
unabashedly supportive of Nintendo's ideology--no surprises there. Citing the movie industry as an example of a medium
that did not evolve on technology alone ("Remember Waterworld? If you don't, you're not alone."), Reggie
emphasizes the need for "disruptive" technologies, i.e. a technology capable of "overturning a
predominant industry trend."Fils-Aime continues from the movie industry to the consumer electronics sector (take note of the iPod mention and recall the very Apple-esque style of the new Nintendo DS Lite) and then onto his major point: the video game industry. "Mounting evidence shows," says Fils-Aime, "that we may well have overshot our own market." You can guess what follows next: discussion on the DS's current success and the "code-named" Revolution's future success in expanding the market.
While the slant is obvious, Fils-Aime's choice quote from Jack Welch intrigued us: "Change--before you have to." The video game industry has always changed, to varying degrees, every 4 years or so. We have no doubt Nintendo will be here for generations to come, but how much of Nintendo's next-generation technology do you think will be adopted by the competition?
[Thanks, Vik]
