Month: October 2013

Playing games on handheld devices has become an important part of people’s lives. In the beginning, Sony and Nintendo are famous for Playstation Portable (PSP) and Nintendo DS (NDS), which dominated the market of handheld game devices for a long time. However, as the smart phones evolve in an amazing speed and become popular because of the decreasing average cost of producing, people have more alternatives of playing handheld games devices.  Google’s Android and Apple’s iOs, two of main game platforms on smart phones, prevailed and occupied dominating positions in the market quickly.

According to the report of 2nd quarter of 2013, consumer spending on games created for Android outstripped spending titles for gaming-optimized handheld devices for the first time.With the release of new series of iPhone, iPhone 5s is not only an excellent smart phone, but a powerful gaming device as well. Games created for iOS occupy the most market shares.

From my perspective, the success of games created for Android and iOS has following reasons. First of all, smart phones are better platforms for playing games than game handheld devices. This may sound ridiculous, but it is true. Smart phones are more popular than game devices like PSP or NDS. It means that everyone can have a smartphone yet everyone don’t have to own a handheld game device. Also, Google and Apple has a really good value positioning. Games created for these platforms are usually much cheaper than those of PSP and NDS, and easier to play for men and women, young and old. Moreover, Android and iOS built good relationships with their customers. Customers can easily give their feedback just under the game they bought in order to help the games to improve.

Sources:

http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/android-games-generate-more-cash-sony-nintendo-handhelds-q2/2013-08-22

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/sep/25/mobile-games-apple-google-sony-nintendo

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/aug/21/android-games-outselling-sony-nintendo

BlackBerry has get into a bad predicament. Recently, the stock price of BlackBerry has fallen to the company’s liquidation value, and BlackBerry also declared a quarterly loss that neared $1 billion. What is more, BlackBerry announced plans to reduce workforce by 4,500. In addition, BlackBerry is thinking about selling off a number of its office buildings in the Waterloo region.

What happened to BlackBerry, one of the most famous cell phone brand in the world?

From my perspective, BlackBerry is losing its marketshare of cell phone market because BlackBerry lacks of apps and users gradually change their taste to popular smart phone brand like Apple and Samsung, which are in the dominating positions of  the market. In another word, cell phone market is very competitive although few people appreciate that. According to the theory of Porter’s five forces, BlackBerry faces a threat of substitutes because the technology of cell phone is evolving in an amazing speed, and the average cost is declining. Customers have more and more alternatives than before. BlackBerry is impacted a lot, though it has strong supply power and well-positioned brand, which targets to businessmen.

References:

http://mobilesyrup.com/2013/10/02/blackberry-starts-thinking-of-selling-its-waterloo-office-space/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/21/us-blackberry-warning-idUSBRE98J0V220130921