Nintendo Case Study Essay Example

the case in large failure of Atari’s E. T.

the Extra Terrestrial), Nintendo devoted twelve to eight months. Large development costs were devoted to Nintendo’s games and their developers when Atari were constantly losing talent to 3rd party companies.This allowed for one or two big hits a year as opposed to several smaller winners and prevented an oversaturation of low-quality software on the market. Nintendo utilized a powerful marketing strategy in the US across several different mediums.

Their monthly publication, Nintendo Power, provided a clever form of advertising to readers. Their involvement with the movie The Wizard allowed them to showcase their future success Super Mario Brothers 3. Cartoons and other merchandising efforts (cereal, clothing, promotional partners, etc. ) also had their benefits.Finally, the major widely perceived reason for Nintendo’s success was due to their licensing and distribution strategy.

By developing and patenting a unique “security” chip for their cartridges they were able to control the outside game development production, thus allowing high royalties to be established, requiring large minimum orders, and controlling oversaturation by requiring a limited number of games to be developed yearly. Nintendo also forced commitments from game developers for several years that prevented them from moving to other game systems.This similar concept was applied to their distributors, preventing them from selling completive products or discounting Nintendo products. They also kept a careful inventory supply management that prevented excess supplies of games, sometimes not filling retailers’ demands. Overall, Nintendo implemented several different tactics to achieve market dominance for a long time; some considered ethically improper and some not.

Regardless, this provided the beginning framework for a industry that still continues today, including

Nintendo’s enduring success.