s

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NINTENDO’S STRATEGY IN 2009:

THE ONGOING BATTLE WITH MICROSOFT AND SONY

MBA 6611 – BUSINESS STRATEGY

INDIVIDUAL CASE ANALYSIS

INSTRUCTOR: Dr. W.Heron

STUDENT: Dang Ving Giang – ID 1371769

Hanoi – Dec, 2012

I) Executive Summary

For many years now, gaming industry has been very competitive when big corporations occupied

the industry and shared a limited pie of hard-core gamers. In 2006, by implementing successfully

the “Blue Ocean” strategy, Nintendo has had a tremendous breakthrough and explored a brand

new potential market segment: Women, the elders and families. Nintendo’s successes were

undeniable by implementing a brilliant strategy and capture the big time of economy

development. However, Microsoft and Sony which are in the most powerful corporations in the

gaming industry, also reacted aggressively in order to capture back their markets. Moreover, the

economy crisis busted in 2008 has affected Nintendo’s bottom line and brought more challenges.

The question stated for Nintendo: “where to go next after the big success with Nintendo Wii and

how to maintain the leading position in gaming industry against giant competitors?”

The paper’s purpose is to analyze Nintendo’s strategy, resources as well as the effects of the

economy on the gaming industry in order to craft a generic strategy for Nintendo to adapt new

circumstances and earn more success in the difficult economic situation.

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II) Situation Analysis:

A) External Analysis

i) State of the Industry

In the last few years from 2006 to 2009, the videogame industry was an oligopoly market with

the dominant of some large corporations including Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. According to

the Global Games Console, Nintendo was the market leader in game console field in 2009 with

59% of market share, following with Microsoft and Sony (with 32% and 9% relatively) (See

appendix 1).

The gaming market is considered a maturity market since the economy is developing,

breakthrough advancements in technology are releasing every year and people’s needs for

entertainment are still increasing but it hit the peak when the global economy crashed in crisis.

The graph below demonstrated the videogame industry evolution in the U.S from 1997 to 2009

Figure 1:

Source: Matt Matthews, NPD: Behind the numbers, December 2009

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After remaining stable from 1997 to 2000 at around US $5.1 to 6.9 billion a year, the revenue of

the videogame industry in the U.S had a slight increase in 2001 to US $9.4 billion and kept

remaining steady until 2005. The real booming in sales was from 2005 (the total revenue doubled

in four years - from US $10.5 in 2005 to US $21.3 billion in 2008) when three of the largest

firms in the industry introduced there breakthrough products (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony

PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii). Overall, the graph shows a clear upward trend of videogame

retails from 1997 to 2008 but it has suffered a significant decrease in 2009 due to the world

economy crisis. The total sales are predicted to rise again when the economy becomes better.

Operating in an oligopoly market, price discrimination does not matter, instead, all of the three

firms want to create uniqueness for their products in order to setup high barriers and hold the

price power over rivals. In order to maintain their positions in a fierce market with giant

competitors, they have to invest a big amount of time and money in R&D and release new

products every four years (See appendix 2).

The seventh generation of the game console came into play in 2005, 2006 not only brought a

significant breakthrough to the industry but also witnessed a significant climb in the videogame

retails revenue. Depending on technology, each of the gaming console firm wants to be the

pioneer in the field and lead the market. Each generation of videogames comes out with more

powerful processing power, better and more realistic graphics, more beautiful designs and better

interactions among players in order to capture more market. However, Nintendo found another

way to penetrate the market by targeting non-traditional gamers. Adopting a unique design of the

Wii console controller to target the elderly and young women, Nintendo Wii had an exceeding

success over its rivals (See appendix 3 and 4).

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Figure 2: Total unit sales in July, 31, 2009

RegionTotal units sold (in Millions)

Nintendo Wii Microsoft Xbox 360 Sony PlayStation 3Europe 16.67 9.78 9.28Japan 8.27 1.11 3.31America 23.91 17.82 8.95Other regions 2.75 2.64 1.46Worldwide 51.60 31.35 23.00Source: Thomson & Gamble (2012), crafting and executing strategy – concept and cases (18th

edition)

With a deep emphasis on family and casual gamers rather than the traditional game players and

the significant reduce of hardware configuration which helped save a huge development costs;

Nintendo has created a console with good value, great accessibility and broad based appeal. The

Wii does not effectively capture the market for “hard-core” gamers, but it focused its efforts and

resources on expanding and then penetrating new markets.

Figure 3: Strategic group map of key consoles

Souce: Elizabeth Menozzi, “Why Nintendo has dominant the market share”

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ii) Competition

Considering the competition in gaming console market, there are five forces that affect a great

deal on competition:

Potential entrants: The gaming consoles market is dominated by a few giant firms that already

have reputation and technological advancements which affected their target markets’ entertain

style and created a high entrain barrier to new comers. Any new company wants to penetrate the

market has to operate in a mature market, divided between existing large companies with high

technological barriers. However, the continuous changes of life style preferences also create

many opportunities for new gaming experience.

Substitutes: There is a wide range of various entertainment substitutes that can directly compete

with video games such as PC games, portable consoles, mobile phones,... All these entertainment

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Substitutes

Rivals

Potential Entrants

Suppliers(Bargaining power)

Buyers(Bargaining power)

alternatives can directly affect the retention of existing customers and the conversion of new

ones.

Buyers bargaining power: Entertainment is not one of the essential needs of customers, in the

circumstance of the fierce competition from major rivals and wide variety of substitutes;

customers enjoy strong bargaining power. In addition, through the development of gaming

industry and technology, the hardware prices become cheaper and cheaper over time lead to low

switching cost and strengthen the bargaining power of customers.

Supplier bargaining power: In contrast to the buyer bargaining power, in the oligopoly market

with few large firms, each firm plays a very important part to the suppliers’ bottom line. By

taking advantage of the economies of scale, gaming console firms have better positions over

their suppliers.

Industry competitors: According to the Global Games Console, Nintendo is not only the leader

of gaming console market with 59% market share in 2009 (see appendix 1) but also the pioneer

to exploit a new market segment. This opportunity is idea for launching the new generation of

console targeting the non-traditional markets. However, there again will be fierce competition

from its traditional rivals: Microsoft and Sony.

Microsoft was the first mover in releasing the seventh generation of gaming console and it has a

huge advantage in developing software, therefore; this is a potential competitor in penetrating the

non-traditional gamer segment. Joining the gaming market very late in 2001 with its Xbox and

becoming the first one released the Xbox 360 in 2005 clearly indicates that Microsoft has the

“proactive” strategy rather than “reactive” strategy; however, compared with other firms such as

Nintendo and Sony, Microsoft is still a very young company in the gaming industry.

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Sony is a big company with its strength of hardware and electronic designs, Sony is a

redoubtable competitor. With its experience of leading the market and the quick-witted strategies

in order to change and adapt the target markets’ preferences, Sony is likely to have strategies to

penetrate the segment of women, family and other non-traditional gamers and becomes a big

player in the field. In short term, there is still no sign for such products released from Sony.

B) Internal Analysis

i) Financial analysis

From the Consolidated Statements of Income and Consolidated Balance Sheets (Fiscal 2005 –

Fiscal 2009) (See appendix 5, appendix 6), the financial assessment of Nintendo can be analyzed

as below:

(a) Liquidity ratios:

Current ratio (= current assets/current liabilities)

2005 2006 2007 2008 20094.84 5.59 2.98 2.90 3.05

Working capital (= current assets – current liabilities)

2005 2006 2007 2008 20090

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

7805.58280.9

9169.8

10688.211633.5

Working capital

Working capitalExponential (Working capital)

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The graphs clearly indicate the company’s liquidity is getting better and better through the period

from 2005 to 2009. During the period, the current ratio also stays stable equivalent 3 which

shows the stability and safety of the asset availability.

(b) Profitability ratio

Return on Equity (ROE) (= Net profit before taxes/ Total Equity)

2005 2006 2007 2008 20090.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

0.25

0.30

0.130.14

0.18

0.24 0.25

ROE

ROELinear (ROE)

Gross profit margin (= (revenues – cost of goods sold)/revenues)

2005 2006 2007 2008 20090.40

0.41

0.42

0.43

0.44

0.42 0.42

0.41

0.42

0.43

Gross profit margin

Gross profit marginLinear (Gross profit margin)

The graphs indicate that Nintendo has an increasing trend in profit and invested equity.

(c) Assets

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Return on assets (ROA) (= Net profit before taxes/Total assets)

2005 2006 2007 2008 200913% 14% 18% 24% 25%

The table presents the company’s ability to use its assets to create profits. The ROA shows that

Nintendo has used its assets effectively in the period as the percentage of creating profit on assets

increasing every year.

ii) Dominant generic strategy currently in

For many years now, the video game industry has been locked into the Red-Ocean, where the

focus is to beat the competitors, win market share, capture as many customers as possible and

outsell the competition. Nintendo has gone a different way from the industry. Instead of fighting

for a bigger slice, they created a brand new market.

By targeting the non-traditional market segments, Nintendo has executed the Blue-Ocean

strategy and has earned a lot of successes from that. The Statements of income and balance

sheets have pointed out it was a successful strategy.

iii) Core competencies and resulting competitive advantage.

The core competency of Nintendo is the broad differentiation. By targeting the broad market of

casual gamers and unique gaming console that create value for women and family members,

Nintendo has created various gaming title which suitable for the target market and compatible

with the handheld controller which increase the experience appeals. While other games titles for

hard-core gamers are easily to be replaced by computer games or other games supplied by

competitors, Nintendo’s strategies have been extremely successful compared with its rivals.

One of the important keys that led Nintendo to its peak of success was to cut off cost and create

more values for the target customers (See Nintendo Wii’s strategy canvas, appendix 7). Which

once used as weapons in the gaming industry: Better gaming graphics, more powerful hardware

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processing power and creative non-gaming functionalities required a lot of time and money. In

order to attract the non-gamers and reduce expenses, Nintendo has cut off those unnecessary

functionalities by launching simple, acceptable resolution games but creating more fun, motion

senses for the customers. This strategy not only helps save cost but also make Nintendo Wii

unique, perfectly suited for the elder, women and family members. The first mover advantages

can become one of the most important, sustainable competitive advantages for Nintendo in the

fierce competitive environment of gaming industry.

When launched, both Microsoft and Sony have suffered loss in each unit of hardware they sold

while Nintendo Wii was earning a profit estimated at around $50 in the United States (Thomson

& Gamble (2012), crafting and executing strategy – concept and cases (18th edition)). The razor

and blade economy approach caused both Sony and Microsoft a loss in the fiscal year of 2007

while Nintendo had a big success. With the momentum of uprising fund and its reputation,

Nintendo has tremendous advantages over its rivals when launching new products.

III) SWOT analysis

The SWOT table is generalized from the above analysis:

Strength Weakness- Broad and unique market- Unique products- Utilized costing

- Lack of attractive game titles- Low gaming graphic configurations

Threat Opportunity- Fierce competitions from big rivals- The economic crisis affects customers’

needs for entertainment

- First mover advantages: reputation, economies of scales, copyrights of designs, inventions...

IV)Vision & Mission:

The company’s vision and mission retrieved from the official website http://www.nintendo.com/

is stated as below:

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Nintendo’s vision statement:

“Our vision is to produce an entirely new product like nothing that has come before it, aimed at

greatly expanding the gaming population. Our idea is to expand the gaming audience through

the release of the Wii. There is a devotion to the entertainment business, reflected by the

company's attitude to staff collaboration. We believe in risk and encouraging employees to take

creative decisions in order to challenge the perception of what a videogame can be”

Nintendo’s mission statement:

“At Nintendo we are proud to be working for the leading company in our industry. We are

strongly committed to producing and marketing the best products and support services available.

We believe it is essential not only to provide products of the highest quality, but to treat every

customer with attention, consideration and respect. By listening closely to our customers, we

constantly improve our products and services.

We feel an equal commitment toward our employees. We want to maintain an atmosphere in

which talented individuals can work together as a team. Commitment and enthusiasm are crucial

to the high quality of our products and support services. We believe in treating our employees

with the same consideration and respect that we, as a company, show our customers”.

The vision statement has been successful in sketching out Nintendo’s way of development. The

vision statement in one hand is short, clear, vivid, inspiring and concise; in the other hand, it

carries a challenge of creating instead of capturing the market which makes the vision is more

engaging with the employees.

The mission statement of Nintendo reflects its core purpose, identity, values and principle the

business aims. The mission statement comes along with the company’s vision make it more

powerful, compelling and memorable when communicating with employees. Nintendo’s mission

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statement not only focuses on the quality of product and services but also emphasizes the

philosophy of treating the staff as valuable assets to enhance team spirit and creativity.

V) Key Issues:

After the period of fast growing in 2005 – 2009, Nintendo has been facing decline in sales

because of the Global economy downturn, lacking of blockbuster game titles and low graphic

configurations.

Global economy downturn: The economy situation affects almost all businesses’ bottom line

especially when gaming industry is not one of people’s essential needs. Although most of

countries in the world are struggling in the crisis, some have very impressive breakthrough in

economy. In order to go against the economy regression, Nintendo should focus more on fast

developing countries in Asia such as China, Malaysia or Singapore... Even in bad situation of the

economy, those countries are promising for development and consumption.

Lacking of blockbuster game titles: All the games available for Nintendo Wii are at a low

quality of revolution and very simple. Although the simple game titles are suitable for families

and casual gamers but they hardly keep its attractive appeal when other competitors come into

play. With potential competitions of Microsoft and Sony who have experience in designing and

programming very popular games, Nintendo should concentrate on developing new, attractive

game titles.

Low graphic configurations: Nintendo should upgrade the gaming configurations for its Wii

console according to the rapid development of technology and the chasing of two giant

competitors Sony and Microsoft who have terrific experience and technology for powerful

hardware and realistic HD graphics.

VI)Strategic Alternatives:

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In the foreseen future, both Microsoft and Sony claimed to exploit the casual gamer segment and

will become direct competitors with Nintendo. Consider the potential competitions, the effects of

economic crisis in the next several years and all the competent resources; there are alternative

strategies for Nintendo:

Diversify products and game titles and attain the current markets: Having been facing

threats of competitions in the near future, Nintendo could execute an aggressive strategy. On one

hand, it could release more attractive game titles for hard-core gamers on Nintendo Gamecube to

capture the traditional market, on the other hand, it could invest more in Nintendo Wii to upgrade

the functionalities, resolutions, and more family motion appeals to lure more casual gamers. In

term of geography, Nintendo could still focus on its traditional markets including the United

States (the biggest gaming consumer in the world), Japan and Europe.

Focus on non-traditional gaming segments and attain the current markets: Advancing and

taking full advantage of the first mover, Nintendo could concentrate on developing Wii products

to capture the non-traditional segments and forgive the hard-core segment. Along with pushing

the Wii console, Nintendo could keep promoting in the current major markets including the U.S,

Japan and Europe.

Diversify products and game titles and expand markets: This strategic alternative suggests

Nintendo should continue the offensive strategy by capturing the hard-core gamer segment with

Nintendo Gamecube and expand its casual gamer segment with Nintendo Wii. The actions

should be taken are improving the gaming graphic of Wii console, pushing marketing and release

more attractive game titles for Nintendo Gamecube. In term of geography, since the global

economic regression has been affecting the United States, Japan and Europe, Nintendo should

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push promotion in other fast-developing countries in Asia such as China, Singapore and

Malaysia.

Focus on non-traditional gaming segments and expand markets: On this strategic alternative,

Nintendo should forgive the hard-core gamer segment since this segment is rather small

compared with the casual gamer segments. Instead, Nintendo should focus on improving

Nintendo Wii in terms of graphics, motion controllers and attractive game titles. In parallel,

Nintendo also should boost marketing in developing countries in Asia.

VII) Analyze each alternative.

In general, the strategic alternatives recommend either Nintendo should diversify or focus its

products and either expand or concentrate on market geography. There are some pros and cons

for each alternative.

Diversify productsPros Cons

- Diversify risks- Adapt different customers’ preferences- Directly compete with rivals and

develop new markets simultaneously

- Potential for over-extension in a mature market

- Scatter resource capabilities- Fierce competitions.

Focus productsPros Cons

- Taking the first-mover advantages and build customer loyalty

- Concentrate resources on one product- Make competition irrelevant

- Forgive a potential market of hard-core gamers

- Be risky if the demand shifts or disappears.

- Be vulnerable when competitors penetrate the market.

Expand market geographyPros Cons

- Capture more international market- Diversify risks in terms of geography- Less affected by the regional economic

conditions

- Big investment in Marketing and promotions in new markets

- Invite more competitions both local and international

Attain current market geographyPros Cons

- Attain and compete on the current biggest markets

- Be vulnerable with the regional economic conditions.

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- Do not require capital to exploit new markets

- Fierce competition from traditional rivals

VIII) Recommendation:

From all the strategic alternatives, it is highly recommended the diversify products and expand

markets strategy.

Due to the economy regression, demand in the traditional markets including America, Japan and

Europe is declining. However, there are countries in South-East Asia are having impressive

development; these are promising lands for investors and international corporations to expand

their markets (See appendix 8 for more information of Asia’s GDP growth). With a large

population and dynamic economy, Asia is more potential for development and expanding than

other traditional markets. Although in most of the Asia countries such as China, Vietnam or

Singapore, Sony has occupied as a huge electronic and gaming brand but the casual gamer

segments are still vacant to exploit.

According to The Economist online (figure 4), the U.S and Japan markets will stay stable since

the Global economic crisis busted in 2008 while other countries such as China still has a great

development in market size.

Figure 4: Video game global revenue and market size

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Source: The Economist online

Along with expanding the markets to South-East Asia, Nintendo should continue competing with

Microsoft and Sony in hard-core gamer segment. The fierce competition and broad product lines

help Nintendo generate more revenue and diversify risks in the new market geography. Attaining

the hard-core segment also makes it harder for Nintendo’s rivals to penetrate into the casual

gamer market segments. With the inherent reputation, Nintendo will not fall into defensive

position when Microsoft and Sony come to the casual gamer market.

The risk that Nintendo might face when following the expansion and diversification strategy is

the misallocating resources and the potential of over-extension. The strategy hence requires a

careful market research before coming to each market. In such developing and dynamic markets

like Asia, it is still a very promising opportunity for market expansion.

In terms of financial, with a huge budget accumulated from the successful Wii product over the

world and a positive financial balance, Nintendo has about 8 billion U.S Dollars in-hand cash.

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This budget could help Nintendo either acquires or cooperates with local gaming corporations to

occupy the Asia markets especially China.

IX) Implementation

In order to execute the strategy successfully, Nintendo must consider the resources distribution to

follow both hard-core gamer and casual gamer segments. The resources including capital, human

resources... to maintain the segment and expand new geographic markets simultaneously.

The second course of action, Nintendo must concentrate and invest more on game development.

Apart from better graphic resolutions and powerful hardware, it is very important to contain

attractive game titles. Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation are very successful with the

attractive Role Playing games (RPGs) which play an important part in their strategies. If

Nintendo launched the similar games, the company would be in better position to pull customers

from rivals. The gaming titles programming can be contracted out to third parties in order to

enjoy more creative ideas and wide range of supplier selections.

Finally, Nintendo should look into the future of video games and develop more break-through

technology advantages. The new hand-held console could be played in three-dimension (3DS)

and have ability to integrate with social networks (such as facebook and tweeter) and mobile

devices (smart phones, tablets..) These integrations are important for drawing the customers and

keep the company in track with newest technology.

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X) Bibliography

- Elizabeth Menozzi, “Why Nintendo has dominant the market share”, retrieved at

http://sites.duke.edu/soc142-videogames/global-value-chain/market-power/why-

nintendo-has-dominant-market-share-2/ in Dec, 2012

- Matt Matthews, NPD: Behind the numbers, December 2009, retrieved at

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132635/npd_behind_the_numbers_december_.p

hp?print=1 in Dec, 2012

- The Economist online (2011), “Video games will be the fastest growing form of media”,

retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2011/12/daily-chart-0 in

Dec, 2012

- Thomson & Gamble (2012), crafting and executing strategy – concept and cases (18th

edition), “Case 6: Nintendo’s strategy in 2009: The ongoing battle with Microsoft and

Sony”

XI)Appendices

Appendix 1: Gaming consoles – market share

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Source: Global Games Console – Datamonitor December 2009 report, retrieved from

http://sites.duke.edu/soc142-videogames/global-value-chain/major-players/console-

manufacturers/#_ftnref1 in Dec, 2012

Appendix 2: Evolution of the home gaming console industry

Console name Year of releaseFirst generation Magnavox Odyssey 1972

Atari Pong 1972Coleco Telsta 1976 - 1978

Second generation Atari 2600 1977Altari 5200 1982

Coleco Vision 1982Third generation Nintendo Entertainment System 1983

Atari 7800 1984Fourth generation Sega Genesis 1988

Super Nintendo Entertainment System 1990Fifth generation Sony PlayStation 1994

Sega Saturn 1994Nintendo 64 1996

Sixth generation Sega Dreamcast 1998Sony PlayStation 2 2000

Nintendo GameCube 2001Microsoft Xbox 2001

Seventh generation Sony PlayStation 3 2006Nintendo Wii 2006

Microsoft Xbox 360 2005Source: Thomson & Gamble (2012), crafting and executing strategy – concept and cases (18th

edition), “Case 6: Nintendo’s strategy in 2009: The ongoing battle with Microsoft and Sony”,

pg.C-104

Appendix 3: Annual Console Hardware totals from 2005 - 2009

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Source: Source: Matt Matthews, NPD: Behind the numbers, December 2009, retrieved at

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132635/npd_behind_the_numbers_december_.php?

print=1 in Dec, 2012

Appendix 4: Console total sales over periods

Source: vgsales.wikia.com, Video game sales wiki, retrieved at

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Charts in Dec, 2012

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Appendix 5: Nintendo’s consolidated Statement of Income fiscal 2005 – fiscal 2008 (in millions

of U.S dollars)

3/31/2009 3/31/2008 3/31/2007 3/31/2006 3/31/3005Total revenue $19,308.1 $16,557.0 $9,568.7 $5,041.6 $5,098.4Cost of sales 10,973.8 9,626.4 5,630.3 2,911.9 2,946.4Gross profit 8,334.3 6,930.6 3,938.3 2,129.6 2,152.0Selling, General and Administrative Expenses 2,503.3 2,105.4 1,697.3 1,225.6 1,028.8Operating income 5,831.0 4,825.2 2,241.0 904.1 1,123.2Other income (interest and other) 337.7 437.2 336.5 222.7 133.8Currency exchange gain (loss) 1,406.2 (914.2) 254.8 450.6 216.3Other non-operating income (expenses) 50.7 17.5 30.5 23.7 (17.8)EBT, excluding unusual items 4,711.9 4,365.7 2862.8 1,601.1 1,455.5Gain (loss) on sale of investments (7.9) (107.7) 5.5 35.0 (16.0)Gain (loss) on sale of assets (0.6) 36.3 1.3 0.2 __Other unusual items 2.6 __ __ 12.2 __Unusual items, Total (5.9) __ __ 12.2 __EBT, including unusual items 4,706.0 4,294.4 2,867.0 1,648.1 1,439.5Income tax expense 1,776.1 1,747.7 1,141.9 674.6 573.8Minority interest in earnings (1.0) 1.0 0.4 0.5 (0.2)Net income $2,930.8 $2,547.7 $1,725.5 $973.9 $865.4

Source: Source: Thomson & Gamble (2012), crafting and executing strategy – concept and cases

(18th edition), “Case 6: Nintendo’s strategy in 2009: The ongoing battle with Microsoft and

Sony”, pg.C-98

Appendix 6: Nintendo’s consolidated Balance Sheets fiscal 2005 – fiscal 2008 (in millions of

U.S dollars)

3/31/2009 3/31/2008 3/31/2007 3/31/2006 3/31/3005AssetsCash and equivalents $7,941.2 $10,925.1 $6,818.5 $6,109.7 $7,848.0Short-term investments 4,872.1 1,472.9 3,855.4 2,566.2 538.7Accounts receivable 1,461.5 1,441.5 869.0 418.9 487.7Inventory 1,520.1 1,037.9 877.2 305.3 492.6Deferred tax assets, current 463.7 376.5 352.7 239.3 193.2Other current assets 1,055.2 1,049.7 1,034.4 446.1 279.3Total current assets 17,313.9 16,303.7 13,807.3 10,085.4 9,839.5Net property plant and equipment 746.3 546.0 570.2 554.1 538.8Long-term investments 574.7 730.2 914.9 596.1 726.6Deferred tax assets, long term 310.5 233.1 142.7 102.1 100.5Other intangibles 22.8 19.9 5.0 3.2 __Other long-term assets 47.5 11.9 158.3 150.1 6.2

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Total assets $19,015.6 $17,844.7 $15,598.4 $11,491.0 $11,211.7Liabilities & EquityAccounts payable 3,746.6 3,324.6 2,980.7 829.8 1,271.5Accrued expenses 20.3 18.3 17.6 17.1 __Current income taxes payable 877.4 1,113.3 891.1 525.1 514.3Other current liabilities, Total 1,036.0 1,159.3 748.1 432.5 248.2Total current liabilities 5,680.4 5,615.5 4,637.5 1,804.5 2,034.0Pension & Other Post-Retirement benefits 107.6 44.6 44.0 32.7 48.4Other non-current liabilities 59.6 8.8 8.3 10.3 6.8Total liabilities 5,847.5 5,668.9 4,689.8 1,847.5 2,089.1Common stock 105.7 99.6 99.6 99.6 99.6Additional paid in capital 123.1 115.2 114.7 114.7 114.7Retained earnings 15,048.1 13,666.3 12,080.9 10,851.1 10,225.1Treasury stock (1,643.6) (1,546.2) (1,538.4) (1,535.6) (1,286.0)Comprehensive income and other __ (159.2) 151.8 113.6 (30.9)Total Equity 13,633.3 12,175.8 10,908.6 9,643.5 9,122.5Total liabilities and equity $19,015.6 $17,844.7 $15,598.4 $11,491.0 $11,211.7

Source: Source: Thomson & Gamble (2012), crafting and executing strategy – concept and cases

(18th edition), “Case 6: Nintendo’s strategy in 2009: The ongoing battle with Microsoft and

Sony”, pg.C-99

Appendix 7: Strategy canvas for video Nintendo Wii and other video gaming companies

Price

High re

solution gr

aphic

Non-gaming f

unctionali

ties

HDTV co

mparibilit

y

Proces

sing p

ower

Online g

aming

Design

aesth

etics

Availa

ble ga

me test

ers

Motion sense

contro

ller

family

& fr

iendly

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Nintendo WiiVideo game industry

Appendix 8: GDP growth and GDP per capital South-East Asian countries

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Source: OECD medium-term projection framework (MPF)

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Troy UniversitySorrell College of Business

Global Campus, Augusta, GA

Assignment for: EMBA 6611 Business StrategySubmitted to: W. Thomas Heron, DBASubmitted by: Dang Vinh GiangStudent ID: 1371769Home Address 1: 209/22 An Duong Vuong street, Phu Thuong Ward, Tay Ho, HanoiHome Address 2 14/24 Giai Phong street, Nam Dinh provinceTelephone: (+84) 973497885

Date of Submission:

Title of Assignment:

CERTIFICATION OF AUTHORSHIP: I certify that I am the author of this paper and that any assistance I received in its preparation is full acknowledged and disclosed in the paper. I have also cited any sources from which I used data, ideas or words, either quoted directly or paraphrased. I also certify that this paper was prepared by me specifically for this course.

Student’s Signature (signed, if hardcopy or typed if submitted electronically):

Dang Vinh Giang

Instructor’s Grade on Assignment:

Instructor’s Comments:

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