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Does “Pokemon Go” Indicate The New Direction
Does “Pokemon Go” Indicate The New Direction?
A new game software has been released from Nintendo, one of the major computer game providers early this month, and it has been booming with several new business records in the American market. Several medias have been reporting the new phenomena in the society. Over 25 million people download and play the game every day. Mostly young people spend many hours per day for the game looking for various Pokemons in town or field. Very frequently, they cannot stop the game. They continue to play the game even during walking or bicycling. Certainly, they have been making a lot of accidents and troubles.
Now, the soft wear is available in 36 countries. Nintendo is a Japanese company, but the game was released just last week in Japan. Japanese people were eager for the release in Japan. Japanese government has announced a special advice for the potential customers to eliminate the troubles before the release.
Accordingly, Nintendo’s stock price has been making new records every day in the last two weeks. The total trade of Nintendo’s stocks has exceeded six billion dollars. It is more than one quarter of the whole trade in Tokyo Stock Market. Certainly, it is the new record as daily trade of the single company.
It may be too early to consider the financial performance of the year of 2016. However, it is very sure that Nintendo will have strong rebounds for the fiscal year of 2016 after five year slow season.
There is a significant change with the business direction for Nintendo. Previously, Nintendo was successful with unique game machines competing against Sony and Microsoft. Unfortunately, smart phones changed the main stream. New applications created for smart phones have taken over the game market. It may be not only Nintendo, but also Sony and Microsoft, traditional game machine manufacturers have been losing the busines. It could be almost the time limit for Nintendo to change its business direction. Nintendo has changed the direction from “against smart phone” to “with smart phone”.
The first trial of Nintendo with new direction looks successful. It has been indicating new market stream in the computer game industry. Several business analysts are expecting many new business opportunities with Pokemon Go. On the other hand, electronics manufacturers are concerning negative effects, because Pokemon Go does not need electronic devices if the customers already have smart phones. One of business analysts in Japan told me that Nintendo would keep the game machine business, but it could be minor in the company. It will be a natural stream that the other game manufacturers will move to the same direction. It could be disappointing for EMS companies, component suppliers and circuit board manufactures. A remarkable part of the consumer electronics industry will disappear from the market. The manufacturing companies have to find alternative applications quickly.
Dominique K. Numakura, dnumakura@dknresearch.com
DKN Research, www.dknresearchllc.com
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July 24, 2016