Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The Idea of Differentiation



Nintendo Wii has a fascinating story to tell. It's a story of doing it differently rather than better. "Re-thinking, re-minding, re-approaching and re-discovering" what gaming is about. I can picture the excitement of those who envisioned it, pitched it, and worked on it. But I question what they had to go through to make it happen. The end result, a modest video quality and picture definition gaming opposite of what gamers seek. But it didn't matter. We were given the opportunity to discover something else. A different twist in gaming experience with motion sensing technology. People bought into it. So how do you create something that would put a company in such a trouble (a good trouble) of being short satisfying demand? My life's journey is to explore, learn, enable and practice the art of disruptive innovation. I'll continue posting topics related to this.

What I see Wii differentiated:

1. Brand: Very friendly, playful, short, quick, easy to say (for everyone) and remember. It also sounds like "we" as all of us, it's inclusive and brings people together. The promise and value proposition speaks for itself.
2. Audience: It's for everyone, not just for traditional gamers (kids and enthusiast adults)
3. Affordable: Wii $250 (well..$549 because of shortage), Xbox 360 $349+, Playstation 3 $399+ (Amazon.com)
4. Ease of play: Simple and easy to play, easy to learn and get into the game within seconds. Make mistakes in the beginning but quickly becomes a -aha! moment when you learn.
5. Interactive: You need to get up and move your entire body, not just fingers.
6. Changing Behavior:
Every game is different, you need to move differently to control. It's contextual and sensitivity changes based on situation.
7. Expandable: You can plug in the controller into a steering wheel and drive, plug it into a gold club and swing, plug it into a tennis racket and hit the ball, a guitar, a shooting gun, lightsaber, you name it...
8. Personalization: Mii allows you to create personal avatars
9. Freshness: It's new, never experienced before, eye opening, mind blowing, stimulates your senses, body and mind, create laughter, it's wow.

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