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The Executive Interview Series 2003
DFC Intelligence, Nov 2003, Pages: 30
This report provides the result of our most recent executive interviews. Every year since 1997, we have interviewed leading figures in the game industry and published the results in our annual Executive Interview white paper. For the 2003 report many topics were discussed in detail. Hot issues included the general state of the industry, the costs of development and marketing, which companies are likely to do well, which companies are likely to struggle, the wireless and portable game market, online gaming, console systems going online and the state of the PC game market.
Perhaps the most surprising issue that was raised in our interviews dealt with the hardware console race between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Of course, this is always a hot topic. However, this year we were not expecting such strong responses. Everyone knows Sony is number one and Microsoft and Nintendo are fighting for a distant second place. True to form, almost everyone had good things to say about Sony and the PlayStation 2 platform. What took us by surprise was the general attitude that Microsoft has overtaken Nintendo as the number two player in the marketplace.
Nintendo has always been a problematic company for third-party video game publishers. The major complaint is that Nintendo platforms only make money for Nintendo, not anyone else. Despite that, Nintendo has generally received a great deal of respect as a true industry leader. This year it was different. The majority of respondents had extremely harsh words for Nintendo. The general consensus seemed to be that Nintendo lacked leadership and a clear strategy and was in danger of becoming a non-player in the video game hardware race.
The attitude towards Nintendo is somewhat surprising considering that the GameCube and Xbox are in a close race for second place. With a major price advantage, the GameCube could easily outsell the Xbox this holiday season. Nevertheless, in many respondents’ eyes, this may be too little, too late. Nowadays, almost no one questioned whether Microsoft would be around for the long term. Instead the main complaint about Microsoft was the fear that they may become too powerful, possibly becoming the next Nintendo. In other words, the fear about Microsoft is that they will follow the Nintendo model and focus more on their own profits (as opposed to helping third party publishers make money).
Once again it should be made clear that Sony was far and away seen as the leading player. Most interviewees felt that Microsoft still had a long way to go to be a true market leader. However, in many people’s minds it seems Microsoft has already replaced Nintendo as the leading challenger to Sony’s dominance. That was the biggest surprise.
The following quote perhaps best describes the general consensus of the respondents to our survey.
“Sony continues to dominate and will do so until the PS3 launch. Microsoft has done a credible job of establishing themselves as a player. Nintendo has fallen off the radar and is risking becoming a non-factor.”
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