Multi-sided platforMs patterns 83 Same pattern, but diΩerent business model: Nintendo’s Wii Wii Focus Nintendo’s Wii changed all this. Like its competitors, the Wii is based on a double-sided platform business, but with substantially diΩerent elements. Nintendo aimed its consoles at the huge audience of casual gamers rather than the smaller “traditional” market of avid gamers. It won the hearts of casual gamers with relatively inexpensive machines equipped with a special remote control device that allows players to control the action with physical gestures. The novelty and fun of motion-controlled games such as Wii Sports, Wii Music, and Wii Fit attracted enormous numbers of casual gamers. This diΩerentiator is also the basis for the new type of double-sided platform that Nintendo created. Sony and Microsoft competed with costly, proprietary, state-of-the-art technology aimed at avid gamers and subsidized it in order to gain market share and keep hardware prices aΩordable. Nintendo, on the other hand, focused on a market segment that was far less sensitive to technological performance. Instead, it lured customers with its motion-controlled “fun factor.” This was a much cheaper technological innovation compared to new, more powerful chipsets. Thus, the Nintendo Wii was less costly to produce, allowing the company to forego commercialization subsi- dies. This is the main diΩerence between Nintendo and rivals Sony and Microsoft: Nintendo earns money from both sides of its double-sided Wii platform. It generates profi ts on each console sold to consumers and pockets royalties from game developers. To summarize, three interlinked business model factors explain the commercial success of the Wii: (1) low-cost diΩerentiation of the prod- uct (motion control), (2) focus on a new, untapped market that cares less about technology (casual gamers), and (3) a double-sided platform pattern that generates revenues from both “sides” of the Wii. All three represent clean breaks from past game sector traditions. "family" console access to console users & cheap game develop- ment costs casual gamers game developers profi table hardware sales royalties VP CR CH CS KA KR R$ gamers game developers casual gamers access to profi table profi table hardware sales console access to develop- ment costs profi table hardware sales royalties cheap game develop- profi table hardware sales game developers hardware sales hardware sales KP C$ bmgen_final.indd 83 6/15/10 5:36 PM