Nintendo's Recovery
Thanks to 800-CEO-READ I just read Business 2.0 article about Nintendo's recovery and their return to completely dominate sales for the current generation of consoles.
It's a very interesting read in terms of strategy, marketing, learning from your mistakes and being willing to take big risks. After all if the Wii failed then Nintendo might well have pulled out of consoles and just concentrated on hand-held gaming. And when you consider that the DS was a huge risk for them as well then they've made 2 bet-the-business gambles in the last 5 years.
Anyone who's read Built to Last will recognize that Nintendo has exhibited many of the traits of visionary companies.
Nintendo has stuck with their core ideology (interactive entertainment), they focus on customers over profits (gameplay comes first), they've made huge gambles (DS & Wii), they've kept leadership promotions internal (Hiroshi Yamauchi - 1950, Satoru Iwata - 2002), were willing to change with the times, and they've tried a bunch of things and kept what works ("game & watch" was a success; gamecube was a failure).
In fact Nintendo corporate history shows that big gambles, trying stuff, etc are a part of their corporate culture, and for a company that was founded in 1889, I suppose it was only a matter of time before they bounced back.
It's a very interesting read in terms of strategy, marketing, learning from your mistakes and being willing to take big risks. After all if the Wii failed then Nintendo might well have pulled out of consoles and just concentrated on hand-held gaming. And when you consider that the DS was a huge risk for them as well then they've made 2 bet-the-business gambles in the last 5 years.
Anyone who's read Built to Last will recognize that Nintendo has exhibited many of the traits of visionary companies.
Nintendo has stuck with their core ideology (interactive entertainment), they focus on customers over profits (gameplay comes first), they've made huge gambles (DS & Wii), they've kept leadership promotions internal (Hiroshi Yamauchi - 1950, Satoru Iwata - 2002), were willing to change with the times, and they've tried a bunch of things and kept what works ("game & watch" was a success; gamecube was a failure).
In fact Nintendo corporate history shows that big gambles, trying stuff, etc are a part of their corporate culture, and for a company that was founded in 1889, I suppose it was only a matter of time before they bounced back.