The Competitors and their Offerings
Four well-known organizations compete fiercely with one another for a share of the gaming industry market. They are: Shiny Apples, Purple Plums, Yellow Bananas and Blue Buddies (YOUR TEAM)
Each competitor vies with the others in a bid to amaze the industry gurus and journalists with the technological sophistication of their offerings. The gurus and journalists have the ability to make or break an offering’s success. Industry magazines are dominated by speculation concerning the fascinating technological capabilities of potential future offerings.
An organization’s market leadership – in terms of market share – can easily be lost to a competitor through the launch of a new ‘generation’ of technology by the latter, leading to a step change in market share. However it can take years to recover the hundreds of millions invested in developing new technology, and often hardware sales need to be subsidized for a while by software sales. Thus, although it is a large industry, making a good profit or even growing profits remains a daily struggle.
The sales and market shares in volume and value of the four competitors are given in Figure 5 below, and a detailed description of each organization is given in the sections which follow.
