Marketing Mix Assignment: In-Depth Analysis On Playstation 4 And Nintendo Switch Game Console
Question
Task: Prepare a marketing mix assignment critically analysing the marketing mix approach of PlayStation 4 and Nintendo game console.
Answer
Introduction
The present report on marketing mix assignment is focused on discussing about the approach of marketing mix which is being referred to the set of tactics or actions which helps the business organisation to promotes and analyse their product or brand in the present market. The marketing mix is of two types they are 4Ps or 7Ps, but the majority of the market only focus on 4Ps. The full form of 4Ps is price, product, place and promotion for a particular brand. The place factor is being referred to as the point of sale for providing the best strategy. The price factor is being referred to the value of the product, which is tied with the pricing strategy. The product factor is the item of the brand which is being sold for delivering the performance level. The factor promotions are being applied to advertise a particular product or service of the brand. This specific method helps the business organisation to increase the popularity of their brand among the consumers. For this marketing mix assignment, the researcher will be going to analyse the marketing mix of the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo game console.
Marketing Mix of PlayStation 4
Product: The Sony PlayStation manufactures home consoles for adults and children to play video games. The product of PlayStation includes PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro, PlayStation App, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation Nacon Revolution Pro Controller, PS VR and other relative accessories provided by the brand PlayStation. Every PlayStation 4 model comes with 16 per cent lighter and 30 per cent slimmer than different variants (Davies et al., 2015). The video storage available in the PlayStation 4 is 1TB or 500GB to store game data or to save other relative online data. The PlayStation 4 Pro is one of the latest products of the model PlayStation 4 which had provided 4k video quality. The PlayStation 4 Pro examined in the context of this marketing mix assignment had always boasted the graphics level of the video game and one of their main competitors of the game console PS4 pro called Xbox One X (Rand et al., 2018).
Figure 1 : PlayStation 4 Console
( Source : Rand et al., 2018)
Price
The PlayStation 4 console provides the premium price to their console depending on the competition present in the market. The interactive Video Game industry is becoming one of the top competitors. The top competitors of the video gaming console are Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony, who are one of the three dominant players. The total cost of PlayStation 4 is approximately 279 - 384 pounds, which vary according to the chosen model. However, the full price of PlayStation 3 was 120-200 pounds according to the bundle or model the customers are wanting (Khanji et al., 2016). The pricing plan will provide considerable benefits to the gaming console PlayStation 4.
Figure 2 : Logo of PlayStation 4
( Source : Khanji et al., 2016)
Place
The distribution strategy of PlayStation 4 is one of the most popular products of Sony. The PlayStation 4 products are being sold mainly in Sony stores, Amazon and other gaming stores. The PlayStation 4 console is available in both the physical and online stores all around the world. Sony has service centres every part of the world, which served as the service, centres, and customers support to the customers who are facing many problems while launching the PlayStation 4 console (Fan et al., 2015). However, considering the overall investigation on the marketing mix assignment it is also clear that the majority of the consumers are buying gaming console through e-Commerce platform because the price of PlayStation 4 is less than the physical stores.
Promotion
One of the most robust gaming console name PlayStation 4 has total 8GB ram and AMD Jaguar processor with total eight cores. The PlayStation 4 brand mainly targets the gamers by promoting their product in Youtube, Game Expo, E3 event occurs in Las Vegas, Shopping malls and another online shopping website. PlayStation 4 is very popular among consumers due to its massive popularity since the past years. The brand PlayStation 4 had controlled the media with the right attitude because they are highly aware of the media contribution to finding the failure and success of the product. The gamers are becoming more passionate because they are waiting for more new exclusive games to make PlayStation 4 console more popular among the consumers. The PlayStation Plus had helped the consumers to form a community for all the PlayStation users. Every PlayStation Plus members will gain free access to two old games and can play new demo games.
Discussion of Marketing Mix of Nintendo Switch in the case scenario of marketing mix assignment
Product: Nintendo Switch provides a great experience in gaming with more faster frame rate and high level of graphics. Nintendo is highly popular with their dual screen handled system for augmented, and virtual reality games (Huber et al., 2018). The Nintendo Switch is a much smaller version of the console, which had helped users by making it transferrable and portable for the users. The Nintendo Switch and 3DS had helped the users to maintain their personal accounts. The Nintendo device can be used from any location and the application provides support for various games to manage multiplayer setting.
Figure 3 : Bundle Pack of Nintendo Switch
( Source : Huber et al., 2018)
Price
As per the readings used to prepare this marketing mix assignment it can be stated that the cost of the new Nintendo switch model is equivalent to 290 pounds, which is almost equivalent to the 500 GB PlayStation 4 console. In the present market, the Nintendo Switch is one of the most popular among the consumers because the brand Nintendo is creating one of the best exclusive games than other main competitors like Sony who are also making the best exclusives for the PlayStation brand. One of the best exclusives games of Nintendo are Mario, Luigi Mansion, Super Smash Bros. etc. that are highly popular among the consumers (Quadrio et al., 2016).
Figure 4 : Logo of Nintendo
( Source : Quadrio et al., 2016)
The Nintendo uses differential pricing strategy for increasing the total profit of the gaming console. It can be seen in this segment of marketing mix assignment that the price of PlayStation 4 is much higher than the Nintendo Switch console, but still, the majority of the consumers buys PlayStation 4 console because the exclusive games of PS4 are much more popular than Nintendo (Arruda Filho and Gammarano, 2018). The price of the Nintendo Switch console varies according to the location because the brand Nintendo had to pay extra trading tax for selling their products in other countries.
Place
In this aspect of the approach examined in the marketing mix assignment, the discount provided by the Nintendo Switch console does not have any difference in every location. The Nintendo Switch consoles are being supplied to the distributors of the different place where they could make the product available to the consumers in different areas. The Nintendo Switch always features their upcoming exclusive games and products in various exhibitions all around the world. Nintendo Switch gaming console is available in India, UK, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Africa, Europe and other locations (Datta et al., 2017).
Figure 5 : Nintendo Switch Console
( Source : Datta et al., 2017)
Promotion
The study examined in the marketing mix assignment also signifies that majority of the consumers buys Nintendo Switch game consoles due to their popular exclusive games. Even the Nintendo Switch ad gained massive popularity among the consumers due to the use of advanced technology. Majority of the shopping malls offers demo about the gaming console where consumers can play demo games in gift centres more efficiently. The brand Nintendo had managed to gain one of top 5 position in the game console market than other competitors due to its technology and exclusive games (Dangelico and Vocalelli, 2017)..The consumers can buy games online at a discounted price who are part of the Nintendo online community.
How PlayStation 4 explored in the context of marketing mix assignment is different from Nintendo Switch game console? Discuss.
The exclusives games of Nintendo Switch created by Nintendo brand had received a game of the year award. However, exclusives games of PlayStation 4 gaming console brand had won more game of the year award in the game industry (Priya et al., 2016). The brand Sony uses “Umbrella Branding Strategy to launch the PlayStation 4 console for promoting their product for their consumers. The differential strategy of the Nintendo had made the consumers buy the Nintendo Switch console according to their capabilities. Nintendo host their Nintendo Switch products in the electronic entertainment Expo is one of the most significant gaming events where the critics and consumers visits every year for reviewing console or games. Sony advertises its products with a large amount of crowd by focusing on the perspective of buyers.
The promotions consist of the advertisements and commercials, which are being aired online by PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch game console both on different websites, social media and television to make the consumers aware of their new product (Stead and Hastings, 2018). In the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch game console; there are different criteria, which had affected the price of the PlayStation 4 due to acoustics, processors, graphics, power, controller, operating system, game exclusives and hard disk content. The PlayStation 4 console is also promoted in the magazines and newspapers which provides massive awareness about the products to their consumers. The promotional strategies include different displays in the stores which need to be tested by every consumer. For this reason, the brand Sony gaming console popularity is higher than Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
Conclusion
From overall analysis of the marketing mix assignment, it could be found out the marketing mix helps the brand to find out significant drawbacks they are facing for gaining new consumers in the market. The marketing mix had helped the brand Sony to identify the PlayStation 4 position in the gaming market against other competitors like Nintendo Switch. The promotional strategy used by the PlayStation 4 as discussed in the above contents of marketing mix assignment is popular than other brands. Nintendo Switch had gained less popularity than PS4 all over the world. The PlayStation and Nintendo provide more advantages to their users than the other competitors. The brand Sony uses “Umbrella Branding Strategy to launch the PlayStation 4 console which has great advantage over Nintendo Switch console who sues differential strategy. An exclusives game of Nintendo Switch is not so much accessible like the PlayStation 4 in some countries.
Reference
Arruda Filho, E.J.M. and Gammarano, I.D.J.L.P., 2018. Marketing mix assignment For every “game over” there is a “play again”: Analysis of user preferences regarding 7th-and 8th-generation video games consoles. The Journal of High Technology Management Research, 29(1), pp.46-56.
Dangelico, R.M. and Vocalelli, D., 2017. “Green Marketing”: an analysis of definitions, strategy steps, and tools through a systematic review of the literature. Journal of Cleaner production, 165, pp.1263-1279.
Datta, H., Ailawadi, K.L. and Van Heerde, H.J., 2017. How well does consumer-based brand equity align with sales-based brand equity and marketing-mix response? Marketing mix assignment Journal of Marketing, 81(3), pp.1-20.
Davies, M., Read, H., Xynos, K. and Sutherland, I., 2015. Forensic analysis of a Sony PlayStation 4: A first look. Digital Investigation, 12, pp.S81-S89.
Fan, S., Lau, R.Y. and Zhao, J.L., 2015. Demystifying big data analytics for business intelligence through the lens of marketing mix. Big Data Research, 2(1), pp.28-32.
Huber, M., Rabin, B., Docan, C., Burdea, G., Nwosu, M.E., Abdelbaky, M. and Golomb, M.R., 2018, August. PlayStation 3-based tele-rehabilitation for children with hemiplegia. In 2008 Virtual Rehabilitation (pp. 105-112). IEEE.
Khanji, S., Jabir, R., Iqbal, F. and Marrington, A., 2016, December. Forensic analysis of xbox one and playstation 4 gaming consoles. In 2016 IEEE International Workshop on Information Forensics and Security (WIFS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Priya, P.K., Zunke, S. and Mitra, A., 2016. Marketing mix assignment Analyzing marketing mix to relate the consumers' behavior and beliefs for high involvement goods.
Quadrio, G., Bujari, A., Palazzi, C.E., Ronzani, D., Maggiorini, D. and Ripamonti, L.A., 2016, June. Network analysis of the Sony Remote Play system. In 2016 IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communication (ISCC) (pp. 10-13). IEEE.
Rand, D., Kizony, R. and Weiss, P.T.L., 2018. The Sony PlayStation II EyeToy: low-cost virtual reality for use in rehabilitation. Marketing mix assignment Journal of neurologic physical therapy, 32(4), pp.155-163.
Stead, M. and Hastings, G., 2018. Advertising in the social marketing mix: getting the balance right. In Social Marketing (pp. 29-43). Psychology Press.
