Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

“Five million. That's the number of traditional consoles and handhelds that were sold in the U.S. during December 2012, based on the latest retail estimates released by the NPD Group, a sales tracking firm.” (source). Video games have been around for quite a while, but they only started becoming popular in the 70's-80's. Then once the 90's hit, the technology started advancing and the video game market went up even higher. Nowadays, video games have become a part of our culture and it is the number one source of entertainment in most young children, teens, and even some adults. Personally, I have worked with young children and I have observed that majority of the kids constantly carry hand held video game systems with them, wherever they go. So the question is what type of video game or game console is in demand right now? “There are three major players in the market for video game consoles: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. Nintendo’s Wii is the best seller among current generation consoles.” (source). If I were to categorize the consoles on the BCG growth-share matrix, I would put Nintendo in the star category, Sony in the in the cash cow category, and Microsoft in the question mark category. As far as software, currently the top 5 most selling games are, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Halo 4, New Super Mario Bros. 2, and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. In my opinion, the reason why Nintendo is doing so well is because they came up with the idea of taking traditional video games and turning it into a physical experience with the Wii. By doing that, they appealed to parents who thought that their children were spending too much time playing video games and not enough time being physically active. In the end, the gamers still get to play their video games but also become more active at the same time. “The Wii was the first console to feature motion-controlled games and became an instant hit, especially among casual gamers.”(source)