Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

The video game world is continuously changing day in and day out. One minute this game is important, the next this game system is rated the best. Video game technology in the last 31 years has made huge advances in their systems. We now have game that can be in 3D as well as games that we control through the movements of our bodies. "Hollywood is cashing in on the video game boom .In 1981, game cartridges that can be plugged into home television sets and coin-operated arcade games were and $8 billion business….In the last few weeks, nearly every movie studio has announced a joint venture… siphon off, some of those impressive video game revenues." (Sarasota Journal - Jul 2, 1982) http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QSQeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wo4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6787,240175&dq=video+game+news+through+the+last+century&hl=en

This was just 30 years ago that every major business wanted some sort of in with the video game industry. Now though are video games still such in huge demand? Even in the last 5 years we have seen the advances of Sony's PlayStation, now in its 3rd version, Nintendo now has a complete interactive video game system with the Wii, and Xbox has it own 360 model. For the past couple of years these advances have been somewhat of a break through in the video game industry.

"Sony's Playstation 3 is in hot demand and short supply this weekend. And to make it an official video gamer weekend, on Sunday, Nintendo releases its coveted Wii gaming system. For the truly dedicated video-gamer, this weekend might as well have been New Year's, Halloween and the annual Star Trek convention wrapped in one. Today, Nintendo is releasing its new game console. It's called the Wii……The craziest consumers camped out to buy the Sony Playstation 3, which came out on Friday. At some stores, only 32 of the systems were available, far fewer than people in the line."http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6509671

Now though a few years later there is a new competitor for video game advances and that happens to be video game apps for the new iphones, ipads, and androids. So where do the old game types lie in comparison to the new craze? Well there is a way to answer this question. Through the Boston Consulting Group Approach we can see exactly where these specific games now lie. This system is broken into four groups the first is the STARS group. This group contains things that are in high demand and are continuously make new and better advances, what can be considered in this group is things such as the game apps for tablet type technologies. "Tablets are just great for gaming. Everything that modern cellphones bring to games — touch screens, tilt sensitivity and of course constant Internet access — the tablets do better." (The New York Times June 8 2011) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/technology/personaltech/09TABLETS.html 

The next group in this system are the CASH COWS are low-growth, high-share businesses or products, what can be considered in this group are things like playstation, wii, and xbox video games. "Sony said it now expected an operating loss of 260 billion yen ($2.9 billion) for the year to end-March, after previously forecasting a 200 billion yen profit." http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/01/22/idINIndia-37600220090122

Next on this list is DOGS. DOGS are low-growth, low-share businesses and products things like the old playstation, xbox and nintendo game cube systems and games are at. They still sell occasionally but they are not in as high of a demand. Lastly is the QUESTION MARK group. The Question Mark group is a group where the STARS either go to die out or be rebuilt. Obviously each of these groups are a personal opinion of my own and each one can change in a matter of minutes but one thing is for certain our need for video games will not cease we seem to just advance along with the technology around us.