AdAge has posted an examination of what makes Nintendo a leader in the video game space. Namely, they make different products, not better ones.
Too many companies focus on trying to make better products when the real advantage is making different products. The video-game dogfight between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo illustrates this point.
It’s easy to draw parallels between Apple and Nintendo that aren’t there, and I don’t agree with everything the author says (Pepsi better than Coke? Whatever.), but it’s a lesson more marketers need to remember. Grab the imagination of your consumers and you’ll win. Try to out-do the competition with a soulless battle of features and you’ll lose. This is why the iPod outsells all other MP3 players combined even though its feature set is not as robust as theirs. And it’s why Nintendo is eating Sony and Microsoft’s lunch.