Week 2 EOC: Boston Consulting Group - Video Games

            Over the past few decades, video game console marketing has been a rollercoaster ride for manufacturers.  It seems as if every year a new console is being released as a brand new console, an upgrade to an existing console, or free online gaming (ie. Facebook, Apple’s App Store, or Android Marketplace).  At the turn of the century “more than 200 million Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 systems were sold worldwide. Upward of 12 million subscribers were paying $15 a month to play the online game World of Warcraft” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/arts/video-games/video-game-retail-sales-decline-despite-new-hits.html?pagewanted=all). 

            In 2011, “Sony has reached a milestone. The company announced that sales for the PlayStation 3 have reached 50 million units worldwide in the five years since its debut” (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383692,00.asp).  For this reason alone, it is safe to say that Sony’s Playstation 3 (PS3) can be considered a “cash cow.”  The PS3 has been around for nearly six years and is still selling strong.  Its Blu-Ray player separates it from its counterparts: Microsoft’s X-Box and Nintendo’s Wii.  With online instant streaming, downloads and Blu-Ray taking over the video world and making DVDs obsolete, the PS3 may have solidified its place in the entertainment world for quite some time.

            Playstation 3’s “ancient” sibling, the original Playstation, can easily be considered a “dog.”  The original Playstation was, at one point, top-notch technology.  However, it quickly became obsolete with the technology world booming.  Apple’s iPad 3 could easily be considered a “star.”  Apple produces high-demand products and experiences heavy sale volume at the products’ release. "The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold―the strongest iPad launch yet," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/ipad-sales-first-weekend_n_1365421.html).  Eventually the sales die down and the products revert back into dogs with the release of the next model/product.

            A question mark in the video game realm could be the Barnes and Noble Nook.  The Nook is a lower end tablet with many competitors.  Barnes and Noble does not quite need as many investors as Apple due to its sub-par sales volume.