Console Hardware - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 151

to develop high-selling game titles on the Wii. The dii culties could partially
be attributed to a lack of the same brand recognition as Nintendo enjoyed
among consumers. Yet, some of these challenges were also likely related to
dii culties in changing engrained heuristics of how game software should
be designed according to the discontinuous design attributes of Wii and the
broader consumer demographic it attracted. When the Nintendo Wii had
proved successful on the market, many third-party companies increased their
development resources for the platform. Nintendo's strong internal game
software development capability meant that the company could push the dis-
continuous Wii console without signifi cant third-party game development
from the beginning. According to Shigeru Miyamoto:
We had to overcome the hurdle of how to convince users and game
designers who had grown accustomed to traditional interfaces. This
was an incredibly dii cult hurdle. So, to put it in a rather extreme way,
I teamed up with ID [industrial design] people [at Nintendo] to fi ght
against the people creating the current market, or to challenge them—
it was kind of like a battle, in a sense. (Nintendo 2006b)
The discontinuous product attributes of the Wii also encountered mixed
responses from the most dedicated consumers. Nintendo's management
often described the need to “surprise” or make “new proposals” to users
in order to introduce unexpected product attributes (Nintendo 2010; Nin-
tendo quarterly fi nancial report presentations). Accordingly, Nintendo did
not use the direct input of focus group during the development of the Wii
( BusinessWeek 2006). This approach was in contrast to the established
practices of user co-development product development in the industry
whereby game companies often hired hardcore game users for the quality
assurance of the game, bringing in user test-groups during development and
carefully monitoring the user responses to their game development ef orts
at game shows and Internet forums (Jeppesen 2002; Zackariasson, Styhre
and Wilson 2006; Grabher, Ibert and Flohr 2008). Some hardcore game
users perceived the Wii as a console more for “casual” rather than “hard-
core” users. To persuade consumers about the value of the discontinuous
innovative product attributes of the Wii, Nintendo focused on promotion
through direct experiences and word of mouth. Stores were focused on
allowing direct experiences of the Wii, whereas the Wii's design to fi t in the
living room was inviting to various members of the family and their guests.
The later form of promotion was strengthened with the release of game
software consisting of various forms of easily approachable mini-games,
including, e.g. Wii Sports , which came bundled in a package together with
the Wii console in the U.S. and Europe.
Following the launch of Wii at the fourth quarter of 2006, the system
rapidly became the best-selling console hardware of its generation ( Figure
8.4). One of the challenges of Nintendo was to try to extend the consoles