Nintendo Wii Introduction

Nintendo is trying to make a lot of noise with Nintendo Wii. It's kind of a whole new concept in gaming - they really want to get the experience for people - the experience of playing games. They want to totally change that, and the way they do that is with a controller that is motion- sensitive. You swing the controller around -- you can swing it like a sword. You can swing it like a fishing rod. It actually senses what you're doing with it. And it's really cool! They're doing some really creative, inventive things with it. It's kind of side-stepping the whole industry.

Is that totally new for the video-game industry?

Um, you know, people have played around with motion-sensitive peripherals and such, but it's really kind of taking it to a mainstream consumer in a way that we haven't seen before. And we're going to see a lot of really creative games from it. Certainly with Nintendo's track record, we're going to see a lot of interesting things.

What you're looking at right now is Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. This is a perfect evolution of a first person shooter. You're using the remote to point and shoot on screen - it's very intuitive and it's very easy. All you have to do find a target, put the crosshairs on them, and press the button to fire. It's going to feature a lot of the same characters that you remember from previous Metroid Prime titles. You're fighting against space pirates, also bounty hunters which appeared in Metroid Prime Hunters will also make an appearance. And as we start to rotate over a little bit more here, you're going to see there is the orchestra which is going to be part of the Wii music pack. As you wave the remote, you are controlling the musicians, telling them how quickly to play the music. And this is a very easy application in which to see how the controller works.

It's a game too?

This is going to be part of the Wii music pack, which is a title unto itself. We'll also include things like drums so you're air-drumming with your remotes and actually playing the drums. Well, I think if you watch people play games, you're going to notice that they actually tend to move the controller with their body as they're playing. It's something people have been doing for years and now, it's part of the game. It's just a natural design evolution - things that people have been wanting to do intuitively, now that's intentional design.

Two different functions in the remote they're holding right now - one has an accelerometer so in addition to sensing position, it's going to understand velocity, acceleration - different ways it's going. You get 6 degrees range of motion, including pitch and yaw and it also has a pointer functionality, so there's a sensor bar mounted on the bottom of the monitor here, and that's going to pick up light emitted from end of the remote, and the crosshairs that you see on Metroid Prime 3, for example, that's where he's pointing on the screen with the remote. (long screen shot of a game of tennis on the Wii)

1. Was the Nintendo Wii a disruptive or incremental innovation? Justify your answer.

2. How did Nintendo's competitors respond to the introduction of the Wii? Why did they respond? Evaluate Nintendo's competitors using the three response factors from the textbook - Awareness, Motivation, and Capability.

3. Did the introduction of the Wii provide Nintendo with (1) a dominant position and (2) a sustained competitive advantage?

4. What first-mover advantages and disadvantages did the Nintendo Wii experience?