Introduction:
In this paper I will explain how competition impacts management decisions in the electronic gaming industry. Starting from the humble origins of the Atari 2600 to today's next generation offerings, This industry has a long history of fierce competition and rivalry that I feel will demonstrate my general point.
Body
In 1975 Atari Inc. launched the first electronic gaming console for home use, called the Atari2600. A huge success that was seen as the dawn of gaming. It also paved the way forNintendo, who at the time was making Pachinko machines and playing cards, to step into the home console market with the Nintendo Entertainment System. This electronic gaming revolution was something new and exciting. Games like Duck Hunt, the first electronic video game that featured a gun shaped peripheral, brought families together in their living rooms and brought a whole new level
of immersion to their television screens. This family theme in gaming did not last long. Electronic video games were marketed towards younger
males to begin with, the biggest consumer base being the sixteen to twenty four age demographic. Games such as Super Mario Brothers and
The Legend Of Zelda, both featuring male protagonists, sold well with young males and were genre defining games for that generation. During this time, there was not much competition in the electronic gaming industry. Nintendo had one competitor, Sega, who's offering at the time, The Sega Master System, was not doing as well as the company planned, and were aready planning a successor system. Over the next 10 years, electronic gaming matured, in terms of both content and hardware. In 1991 Nintendo released the 16 bit Super Nintendo, which already had a competitor on store sh ...