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Lessons from gaming… (in 2 mins)

The gaming market was an arms race to build ever better, faster, more realistic gaming units for home use.  That’s what the industry decided the consumers wanted and that was the innovation ‘rule of the game’.

Nintendo appeared to be losing.  The design of the original 16-bit version of their now iconic Mario was very deliberate.  He wore a big hat and mittens, because hair and fingers were too detailed to show.

But they turned this apparent weakness into a strength.  Lower specification and quality enabled them to reduce the size of everything. Reduce the size of everything enough and you leave the home console unit behind and enter the handheld space.  Not just that, the lower quality definition facilitates a much longer battery life and a lower cost per unit.

Nintendo created an entire new market, a blue ocean; one where their weakness made them the market leader.  And at the end Nintendo had sold 118m Gameboys worldwide before they phased it out for the DS and eventually The Switch.

SO WHAT?

Following the herd and entering an arms race never really works.  You end up one bad launch away from disaster.  And even then, it’s usually the one with the deepest pockets that wins.  If that’s not you then the supreme art of war is to subdue your enemy without fighting.  WHAT WEAKNESS COULD YOU REFRAME TO CHANGE THE GAME AND GIVE YOU THE ADVANTAGE?