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Discuss the key elements of Total Quality Management within the context of the emerging business environment

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to look at the history of Total Quality Management (TQM) and identify the elements that are within this business improvement tool. With these key elements I will then be looking at how TQM is used within the current business environment and how its elements affect all levels of an organisation.

What is Total Quality Management?

Concepts developed in Japan beginning in the late 1940′s and 1950′s, pioneered there by Americans Feigenbum, Juran and Deming set the foundations of TQM. The evolution of TQM happened in a few stages easily identified as Inspection, Quality Control, Quality Assurance and now Total Quality Management.

Inspection

This method at one stage in time was the only method that was able to ensure a certain level of quality for a product or service. In manufacturing incoming goods and output would be measured and physically inspected for defaults or not meeting required guidelines. Services would be appraised at certain levels and inspected in production and delivery. The inspection process is an after-the-event measurement process that can only result in non conforming products being sent back to be re-worked or result in lower graded products that are produced in a rating system.

Quality Control

Quality control remains in the operation of detecting mistakes, finding and fixing them after the event has occurred.
Under a quality control scheme you may find that everything is closely monitored, with detailed performance and product specifications as well as control systems for paperwork and procedures, product testing at raw material and mid-production stages with reports being filed and overall feedback on the processes involved to personnel and suppliers.
Quality control brought about delegation of quality inspection to approved operators with more sophisticated methods and systems. This brought about a higher number of process control with less non-conforming products being delivered to customers through screening.

Quality Assurance

A lasting continual improvement in quality was needed as finding and solving problems wasn’t viewed as an effective means to eliminate the root problems. It was identified that this could only be achieved by targeting efforts towards planning and prevention of problems occurring at the root source. On this basis Quality Assurance was developed.
Quality systems development, advanced quality planning, comprehensive quality manuals, use of quality costs, involvement of non-production operations, failure mode and effects analysis are features attained through progression from quality control to quality assurance. At a minimum the systems adopted are likely to have met the requirements of BS EN ISO 9001 (2000). Overall the organisation should experience a shift in emphasis from detection towards prevention of non-compliant produce.
“more emphasis is placed on advanced quality planning, training, critical problem solving tasks, improving the design of the product, process and services, improving control over the process and involving and motivating people” (Barrie G. Dale, 2007)

Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an initiative which aims to involve every member of an organisation, at all levels, in improving the standard of product or services that they provide.
The history of quality management, from mere ‘inspection’ to Total Quality Management, and its modern ‘branded interpretations such as ‘Six Sigma’, has led to the development of essential processes, ideas, theories and tools that are central to organisational development, change management, and the performance improvements that are generally desired for individuals, teams and organisations.
“Total Quality embraces not only the quality of a specific product or service, but everything an organisation does, might or should do to determine the opinion not only of its immediate customers or end-users, but its reputation in the community at large. Dr J. M. Juran, the American quality guru, defines the difference between Total Quality and product quality as capital Q vs small q.” (Hutchins, 1992)
TQM should be implemented into a company as a ‘Kaizen’ initiative, Kaizen is a strategy developed by the Japanese meaning ‘continuous improvement’. So with TQM, it should be at the core of an organisation and employed every working day, to achieve the best quality attainable.
“Total Quality Management (TQM) is a continuous set of mindset that keeps on improvement processes for individuals, groups and whole organizations by understanding and discovering better process.” (Poonsook Janpen 2005)

The Core Elements of TQM

Most excellence models trace their roots back to TQM, as TQM is the foundation of setting an organization up for managing its output at every level to achieve standards.
The following are most of the core elements of TQM.

Systems and Techniques

These are Quality awards and excellence models that are used to present the essential controls and discipline, in the development of quality management systems.
Identification of the relevant tools and techniques pertinent to each different stage is required. This includes the area/project and the conditions in which the tools should be used to achieve successful application. The tools used should be identified as familiar to employees and be classified as core or optional depending on their nature and impact each has on the working environment.
If a formal system for quality management isn’t in place within the organisation one should be considered, the BS EN ISO 9001 (2000) is a good starting point for all companies as it outlines the major requirements.
Some of the systems they could use are the ISO 9000 series, EFQM Model, Investors in People and Charter Marks. Integration of the most relevant of professional systems shouldn’t conflict with priorities and policies. Some of these systems and standards may be required as part of contractual agreements or legislative requirements.
In Assessing Business excellence (Tanner, 2004), they outline that self-assessment results when set against an excellence framework provide organisations with insights to what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Developing a balanced Scorecard may prove very instrumental in developing further strategies for quality assurement. The Balanced Scorecard is a communication, informing and learning system. Used to help concatenate and to communicate strategy by aligning individual, organisational, business unit and cross-functional objectives to achieve common goals and mission. An effective scorecard analysis and deployment is a link that connects plans to the organisations key value-adding and support processes.

Processes

Analysis of processes should be an integral part of the organisation, there should be a focus on processes rather than the functions, and be part of the Kaizen initiative for continuous improvement.
In Japan they have a saying, ‘Look after the process and the product looks after itself!’ (Hutchins, 1990)

Above is Hitachi’s system for evaluating quality management in departments. This shows that it is an integral part to the development of best practices and it encourages a Kaizen environment.
An example process is the Just in Time (JIT) scheme. Using JIT involves everyone within the organisation and everyone external to it, from suppliers to the delivery personnel. It is a method of minimizing product and supply inventories by ordering materials as close as possible to the actual time of need. This reduces the cost of maintaining inventories of expensive items, such as newer biotechnology drugs. Precise timing and reliable suppliers are essential for this technique to work effectively.

Management

Management can be referred to as the corner stone of a successful Total Quality programme as they hold the seat of most influence upon those working for the company. They do not as such produce anything, but they get results through their employees. Their management style may come into play when trying to get the best from staff, whether it is through an authoritarian approach or a participation styled approach.
TQM is a way of life for a company. It has to be introduced and led by top management. This is a key point. Attempts to implement TQM often fail because top management doesn’t lead and get committed – instead it delegates and pays lip service. Commitment and personal involvement is required from top management in creating and deploying clear quality values and goals consistent with the objectives of the company, and in creating and deploying well defined systems, methods and performance measures for achieving those goals. These systems and methods guide all quality activities and encourage participation by all employees. If leadership roles in TQM aren’t taken up by chief executive officers (CEO’s) and their line senior managers nothing much in ways of changes will be implemented and any that are wont stand the test of time.

Above a diagram showing more the emphasis on making the standards more streamlined and user friendly for businesses in the new series of revised standards, embracing ISO 9000, ISO 9001 and ISO 9004, and how the integration relates to management principles, practices and systems.

People

Employees do not decide on how they are to be managed, but when implementing change to management styles you cannot expect that all employees will pick it up and accept it because management sees the need to make the change. It is imperative that management keep employees in the picture at all times when decisions are being made regarding TQM, which should encourage participation and help ease transition.
When the identification of the tools for a system to be used is complete it should be implemented that the right training is given to the right people. This is to emphasise the benefits of why their using them and how they are using them. Training given to the right people has been proven to minimise the misuse of the tools and techniques.
On-going education and training of all employees supports the drive for quality. Employees are encouraged to take more responsibility, communicate more effectively, act creatively, and innovate. As people behave the way they are measured and remunerated, TQM links remuneration to customer satisfaction metrics.

Teamwork

Within an organisation it is important to emphasise the need of teamwork. TQM is an all in initiative, which requires everyone to work individually and as a team. This can be within the one department of a company or interdepartmental. Teams in a kaizen environment could develop the culture of total quality through building collective responsibility and develop a sense of ownership, provide additional communication channels between individuals, management, customers and suppliers, develop problem solving skills and facilitate awareness of quality improvement potential, leading to behavioural and attitude change. (Barrie G. Dale, 2007)
An initiative that works well within teamworking is quality circles. Within quality circles problems will only be solved if the team has developed effective relationships. They would tend to operate by consensus as the members work together to improve quality and quality control techniques.

Culture

Many (e.g., Hyde, 1992; Chaudron, 1992) have noted that TQM results in a radical change in the culture and the way of work in an organization. A fundamental factor is leadership, including philosophy, style, and behaviour. To make TQM an organisation wide initiative, it has to be rooted in the culture of the company. It needs to be aligned with human resource systems, including job design, selection processes, compensation and rewards, performance appraisal, and training and development. The culture requires quality in all aspects of the company’s operations, with processes being done right the first time and defects and waste eradicated from operations.
“Firms with strong comprehensive culture implement highly the TQM elements of top management leadership, people, process, customer and supplier management. Firms with clan-driven culture implement highly the element of process management while firms with hierarchy-driven and weak comprehensive culture implement lowly to moderately all elements. A culture-based TQM implementation strategy is proposed.” (Koh Tas Yong, Mar 2008, Vol. 26 Issue 3)

The emerging business world

Within the emerging business world there are several elements that have become the norm now that may not have been a concern to organisations before. With the internet and consumers more willing to voice their opinion there are new elements to consider and implement TQM into. There has been an explosion in the consumer service industry, time has become more compressed with everything now seemingly available at the touch of your fingertips through the internet, companies are becoming more global orientated therefore less local and companies are integrating all these elements into their organisational structures.

Consumer service explosion

Within a company at any level an employee may have to deal with a consumer/customer, that is why TQM is important so that the employee is correctly tooled to deal with any situation.
As outlined in a case study of Vista Optics Limited listening to customers can provide a basis on where to go in business and what improvements can be made,
“To be honest we thought we did! It is only after a concerted effort in this area, driven again by the desire for excellence that we really began to listen to the “real voice” of the customer. As a result, we have brought out new products, discovered new customers, forged partnerships with some customers and know a lot more about their real needs – 99.2% of all orders received by 4.00pm are now shipped the same day, an improvement from ca.90% in 1997, whilst substantially reducing stock levels during the same period.” (Vista Optics Limited, 2000)
Feedback is an important element of catering to consumers, external indicators relate to consumer perceptions and product/service enhancement. Consumer surveys, external benchmarking and market reports are tools that can be used in assessments against future plans and/or roadmaps.

Time compression

“Supply chains compete, not companies” (Martin Christopher)
With the continual improvement in information technology access to information and requests made by consumers is happening at a faster rate than before. This is where if TQM is implemented at the core of an organisation and everyone is trained in maintaining and controlling quality of their work, when aiming to increase productivity total quality should be maintained.
“It is clearly recognized that the components included in the purchasing tools dimension of TBST (Time-based strategies and tactics) are closely associated with the broader family of tools, philosophies, and initiatives called total quality management (TQM) or continuous quality improvement (CQI).” (Carter, Vol.27 no.8 January 1)
When using JIT production everything relies on timing and reducing waste. Just-in-time is having the right part at the right place in the right amount at the right time. This technique shortens cycle times, decreases the amount of inventory that a company carries, leads to low work-in-process (WIP), and creates a flexible atmosphere for the type or amount of product that a company would like to run and most of all streamlines work flow through a manufacturing facility.

Globalisation

Globalisation leads to many companies, especially in the manufacturing industry in the 1980’s, to fall victim to the improved quality standards being exported by the Japanese. Being the initiators of the TQM system, the Japanese had the lead on the competition in improving their quality processes and systems. Globalisation brings risks due to which they are unlikely to survive in their present form without improving quality, competitiveness and management practices.
“With increasing globalization and global competition, quality management is becoming increasingly important to the leadership and management of all enterprises and organizations. Quality Management Principles provide understanding of and guidance on the application of quality management” (Europe 2001)
Benchmarking is a tool that could be used very effectively if an organisation finds itself under pressure from other organisations within a global market. Benchmarking is a means of establishing, quantifying and comparing one activity’s performance against another. Within a very competitive market benchmarking may be very hard, functional/generic benchmarking would be a good option as they would be able to take the lessons learned in other ‘best-in-class’ organisations specific processes, in different industries.

Organisational Integration

Integration has been defined by some researchers as the quality of the state of collaboration among departments to achieve unity of effort demanded by the environment (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967, Galbraith 1994). In current organisations integration between departments isn’t an “if it happens” situation it is a certainty. For total quality to be effectively initiated at its core, project teams would be made up from production staff all the way to the accounting staff. This is to ensure that all areas are covered when planning and setting conditions in work.
An important element of making integration work within an organisation is that measurement and feedback channels are clear and concise.
“Measurement, from a baseline, needs to be made continually against a series of key result indicators – internal and external – in order to provide encouragement that things are getting better (i.e. fact rather than opinion).” (Barrie G. Dale 2007)

Conclusion

Within the current environment and markets many companies are growing because of the information era or are being incorporated into already established global organisations, for example EA Inc. in October 2007 acquired BioWare (Austin, Texas) and Pandemic Studios (Brisbane, Australia) to be incorporated into its global operations.
“One thing that is not changing is the enormous advantage EA holds with the breadth of our portfolio and the quality of our people. Creative people are the core strength of our company…” (Electronic Arts Inc., 2007)
Total Quality Management is a mindset that needs to be established in an organisations core if it is to be successful. At all levels in all departments a mindset of quality management and continually improving should be primary, when expanding and developing as a whole organisation, new challenges would be dealt with in the most efficient way. But also at all levels tools and techniques should be clear to the users, goals and standards should be set out in an attainable fashion and everything should be traceable through feedback to analyse what happened and how it could be improved. Quality within the organisations processes and employees should also be recognised and promoted as a distinguishing factor.
When growing and bringing in new businesses, if TQM is lead by the top executives of an organisation, it inspires the other members of the organisation to incorporate into their daily work and self training. It is always a part of the continuous improvement (Kaizen) mindset, continue to improve through daily actions and quality takes care of itself.

Bibliography

• Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 2003.
• Barrie G. Dale, Ton van der Wiele and Jos van Iwaarden. Managing Quality 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
• Businessballs Ethical Work and Life Learning. http://www.businessballs.com/ (accessed April 2008).
• Carter, Craig R., Hendrick, Thomas E. “Organizational determinants of time-based strategies and tactics.” International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol.27 no. 8 (January 1): 445-458.
• Edward de Bono & Robert Heller’s Thinking Managers. www.thinkingmanagers.com (accessed April 2008).
• Electronic Arts Inc., Notice of 2007 Annual Meeting and Proxy Statement
• Europe, United Nations Economic Commission for. “Quality Systems for Enhancing Competitiveness of SME’s.” Expert Meeting on Best Practice in the Creation of Quality Systems for Enhancing Competitiveness of SMEs. Geneva: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 2001.
• Free Management Library. www.managementhelp.org (accessed April 2008).
• Hutchins, David. Achieve Total Quality. Heartfordshire: Director Books, 1992.
• Hutchins, David. In Pursuit of Quality. London: Pitman, 1990.
• iSixSigma. www.isixsigma.com (accessed April 2008).
• Koh Tas Yong, Low Sui Pheng. “Organizational culture and TQM implementation in construction firms in Singapore.” Construction Management & Economics, Mar 2008, Vol. 26 Issue 3: 237-248.
• Martin Christopher. www.martin-christopher.info (accessed April 2008).
• Poonsook Janpen, Kusuma Palaprom and Pong Horadal. An Application of Total Quality Management for Thai Communities Knowledge Management Systems. Bangkok: Phranakhon Rajabhat University, 2005.
• Tanner, L. J. Porter and S. J. Assessing Business Excellence. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004.
• Vista Optics Limited, Case Study via Department of Trade and Industry, 2000

{Post Editorial}

If you would like to download a PDF of this, you can do so here with all the bells and whistles (along with missing images and formatting).  I would welcome the feedback and any discursive comments you may have about this piece. Enjoy.

“Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals….the aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations, and society” Sir Adrian Cadbury (1999)

Introduction

In this coursework I will be looking at Corporate Governance today and how it came to be today, within an industry I will also assess how corporate governance theories can be applied to a situation that has occurred and what can be learnt from this.

The development of Corporate Governance Today

Within UK corporate governance the key aspects are that a single board are collectively responsible for the success of the company. There are 4 points that are key to governing an organisation in a checks and balances exercise;

• The roles of Chief Executive and Chairman are separated
• There is a balance in Executive and independent non-Executive directors
• The organisation has strong, independent audit and remuneration committees
• There is an annual revaluation by the board of its performance

There is an emphasis on objectivity within directors and the interests of the organisation, there should also be a transparency on appointments awarded by the organisation and remunerations made by the organisation. Shareholders have effective rights from a legal standpoint within the governing of an organisation. This ‘Code of best practice’ is not a legal requirement but is rather a guidance on how to do things within the organisation, which is why it is given a ‘Comply or Explain’ requirement for listing meaning that if an organisation does not follow the UK Corporate Governance Code, they must explain as to why they see fit to do something else. “The Code is not a rigid set of rules. It consists of principles (main and supporting) and provisions. The Listing Rules require companies to apply the Main Principles and report to shareholders on how they have done so.” (FRC June 2010)

The origin of the ‘Code’ stems from a number of reports commissioned looking into good corporate governance, one of these is the Cadbury Report chaired by Sir Adrian Cadbury. The committee for this report was founded after the UK Company Polly Peck went into insolvency after years of falsifying financial reports, this committee was initially limited to preventing financial fraud but when the cases of BCCI and Robert Maxwell occurred the remit of the committee was extended to Corporate Governance in general. The Cadbury report when finished covered financial, auditing and corporate governance matters, whilst also making the following basic recommendations;

• the CEO and Chairman of companies should be separated
• boards should have at least three non-executive directors, two of whom should have no financial or personal ties to executives
• each board should have an audit committee composed of non-executive directors

In 1994 the principles of the code were given the comply or explain status meaning that companies need not comply with the principles, but had to explain to the London Stock Exchange why not if they did not. This was also due to recommendations made by Adrian Cadbury stating that listed companies should make a statement in their reports about their compliance with the Code and give reason for any areas of non-compliance.

Another committee was set up as a study group into executive compensation which was chaired by then Chairman of Marks & Spencer Sir Richard Greenbury. This Greenbury report finalised in 1995 and recommended some further changes to the principles existing in the Cadbury Report;

• each board should have a remuneration committee composed without executive directors, but possibly the chairman
• directors should have long term performance related pay, which should be disclosed in the company accounts and contracts renewable each year

Under Granbury’s recommendation that progress should be reviewed in 3 years, in 1998 Sir Ronald Hampel chaired a third committee that suggested that the Cadbury and Greenbury reports be consolidated into a ‘Combined Code’ to which would form the bases to what the UK Code on Corporate Governance is today.

Throughout the following years there have also been several other reports whose recommendations have made it into revisions of the Combined Code (2003, 2006, 2008 and 2010). These reports were The Turnbull Report, The Myners Report, The Higgs Report and The Smith Report, with several of these reports having been updated in later years. As well as updating the UK Corporate Governance code in 2010 they introduced the UK Stewardship Code 2010 which is a set of principles or guidelines released in 2010 by the Financial Reporting Council directed at investors who hold voting rights in UK companies. Its principal aim is to make shareholders, who manage other people’s money, be active and engage in corporate governance in the interests of their beneficiaries.

Institutional investors should:

• Publicly disclose their policy on how they will discharge their stewardship responsibilities.
• Have a robust policy on managing conflicts of interest in relation to stewardship and this policy should be publicly disclosed.
• Monitor their investee companies.
• Establish clear guidelines on when and how they will escalate their activities as a method of protecting and enhancing shareholder value.
• Be willing to act collectively with other investors where appropriate.
• Have a clear policy on voting and disclosure of voting activity.
• Report periodically on their stewardship and voting activities.

(FRC, July 2010)

The Video Games Industry

The Video Games Industry is an industry that today finds itself bringing in more revenue than Hollywood or music, in some years the industry revenues beat that of DVD’s and CD’s combined. It’s a fast moving industry that finds itself competing against all forms of entertainment or as Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata would say any form of entertainment that takes time from consumers is a competitor. The structure of the way games are brought to consumers is through authorised publishers publishing games created by developers, but these publishers are also developers themselves, often finding themselves merging with other organisations (Activision merging with Vivendi Games to create Activision Blizzard) or purchasing up control rights within small or medium sized developers to bring them under the brand of the publisher (ZeniMax Media Inc acquired Machinegames Sweeden in November 2010 and Tango Gameworks in October 2010). But also in cases with larger publishers acquisitions can be a short lived thing for example EA Games bought Australian studio Pandemic Studios in October 2007, a successful studio founded in 1998, in November 2009 EA Games closed the studio. In October 2006 EA Games acquired DICE fully and closed their Canadian offices hours after the acquisition leaving DICE Sweden the only studio still operating today.

The idea behind using this industry is with such mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and agreements corporate governance needs to be at the core of the organisation to avoid any scandal. If someone stood to profit from a certain activity what measures is there in place to avoid manipulation. With instances that go on it should be important to understand the corporate governance controls or issues that are involved. Although there have not been huge corporate governance scandals to happen within this industry the theories can still be applied to how situations are managed and how the organisations conduct their business.

Case Company

The case Company that I have chosen is Activision Blizzard, they are one of the largest publishers within the video games industry and with Activision’s recent merger with Vivendi Games (holding company of Blizzard Entertainment and Sierra Entertainment) to form Activision Blizzard Inc they now own some of the largest properties within the industry including Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Call of Duty, Diablo, Starcraft and World of Warcraft, as well as holding agreements to produce games based upon Hasbro’s Transformers and Marvels Spiderman and other movie to game rights including James Bond 007. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard, Inc. is a worldwide pure-play online and console game publisher with leading market positions across all categories of the rapidly growing interactive entertainment software industry. “Activision Blizzard maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, Australia, Chile, India, Japan, China, the region of Taiwan and South Korea.” (Activision Blizzards Investor website)

Within the last 1 and a half years Activision are at the forefront of a very public legal case against two of its former studio heads. Jason West and Vince Zampella were the two studio heads at Infinity Ward a subsidiary of Activision, this studio created the Call of Duty franchise for Activision and throughout the years they took shared responsibility to producing the annual sequels with other subsidiary Treyarch who recently produced Call of Duty: Black Ops. Shortly after Infinity Ward had wrapped up development of Modern Warfare 2 and had it published in shops West and Zampella were fired by Activision, this was brought into light by amendments to its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission to include a notice that two top members of the studio were being fired. The filing read, “The Company [Activision] is concluding an internal human resources inquiry into breaches of contract and insubordination by two senior employees at Infinity Ward. This matter is expected to involve the departure of key personnel and litigation. At present, the Company does not expect this matter to have a material impact on the Company.” In among the court cases law suits and counter suits, there was an original complaint that while West and Zampella had 2 years remaining on their current contracts with Activision, and that EA Games, through talent agency Creative Artists, dispatched a private jet to carry them to a secret meeting at the home of CEO of EA Games John Riccitiello during August 2009, according to Activision’s complaint. West and Zampella are also counter suing Activison to the tune of $36 million which they claim was part of unpaid bonuses being withheld by the firm. They went on to sign with EA Games after termination at Activision and formed Respawn Entertainment, subsequently hiring 40 employees away from Activision.

Recently the case has picked up again over a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ that West and Zampella are claiming that Activision fraudulently got them to sign to protect its interest in consummating its merger with Vivendi Games. The recent filing in this legal case also alleges that Activision “began secret development of Modern Warfare and Call of Duty games and related products” behind the backs of its creators, a violation of West and Zampella’s contract with the publisher dubbed the “Memorandum of Understanding”. Now, West and Zampella say they were lied to by Activision, that they were fraudulently induced into signing that contract. The former Infinity Ward heads say Activision CEO Bobby Kotick assured them it was “impossible for you guys to get fired,” allegedly saying “You’re in the big leagues now”. (Kotaku.com Legal Coverage)

Corporate Governance Models

Agency Theory

Agency Theory is a hypothesis concerning the relationship between a principal and an agent of the principal. An agency relationship arises whenever one or more individuals, called principals, hire one or more other individuals, called agents, to perform a prescribed service and then delegate decision making authority to the agents. The primary agency relationships in business are those between shareholders and managers and between debtors and shareholders. These relationships are not necessarily easy going. Agency theory is in relation with so-called agency disagreements, or conflicts of interest between agents and principals.

In the case company the Agency Theory can be applied when identifying Activision Blizzard as the Principles and West and Zampella as the Agents. As identified throughout the case documents against West and Zampella they wanted creative control of the Call of Duty brand, with all decisions regarding the franchise to be directly influenced by them. This is a significant reason as to why they entered into the memorandum of understanding with Activision. Though it is unclear as to who caused the disagreement between the principles and the agents, was it the acclaimed fraud by West and Zampella, or was it the incited breach of fiduciary duty by West and Zampella in secret meetings with a competitor or the unwillingness to work with other studios also working on the Call of Duty brand, and intentionally sabotaging marketing campaigns by them. One of the claims in the countersuit by Activision is that West and Zampella released marketing videos for the next game in the series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the same day as a partner studio released marketing videos for downloadable content for the current game in the series, Call of Duty: World at War, with the intent to “Crush and destroy with our video” (Text message sent by West to fellow Infinity Ward employee on the situation, text messages submitted in court filings)

Stakeholder Theory

Stakeholder theory has been articulated in a various ways, but in each of these stakeholders represents a broader population for corporate responsibility than shareholders. One very broad definition of a stakeholder is any group or individual which can affect or is affected by an organisation, including suppliers, customers, stockholders, employees, the media, political action groups, communities, and governments. Stakeholder theory suggests that the purpose of a business is to create as much value as possible for stakeholders. In order to succeed and be sustainable over time, executives must keep the interests of customers, suppliers, employees, communities and shareholders aligned and going in the same direction.

Within Activision Blizzard, the termination of the contracts based upon the evidence submitted showing their meetings at competitors, email evidence of the Infinity Ward duo talking about photocopying Activision documents and smuggling them out of their offices and what Activision describes in their court documents “executives almost obsessed by jealousy of other developers and the thought that another Activision game or studio might share their spotlight”. Applying stakeholder theory Bobby Kotick and other Activision execs acted in the best interest of them all as a whole, for remaining staff at other studios being affected by these underhanded tactics it gave a greater comfort in their job security. It is still unclear on all the activities that have went on as the court case has yet to be determined by a judge, from what I have read it would be safe to assume that if Activision’s claims are indeed factual West and Zampella were acting wholly on a self interest basis trying to cease control of a brand which they had created but Activision held the rights to. This was not an approach to business that held all stakeholder interests at best, within the memorandum of understanding they claim that they were to control all interest of the Call of Duty brand as well as establishing a new brand of game that was to also be controlled by West and Zampella at Infinity Ward.

At Nintendo they have been going about their business in an industry expansion strategy, they call it the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ this could be in reference to a book in the same name by W.Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. This strategy is aiming at bringing the industry to a much wider audience, and they started to execute this strategy with the hardware called ‘Wii’ and ‘Nintendo DS’. This audience expansion could be viewed as a stakeholder theory approach to business, by strengthening the organisations position within the industry they create stronger job security, they help support the infrastructure of the local areas in which they operate and they create additional income for local governments to their facilities. These being 3 of many stakeholders they would have associated with their business.

Shareholder Value Approach

Shareholder Value Approach on the other hand when compared to Stakeholder Theory is where the organisation wholly concentrates on enhancing shareholder wealth. According to this view, a firm’s only purpose is to serve the needs and interests of the company’s owners, being those who hold shares in the organisation. According to shareholder theorists such as the Nobel winning economist Milton Friedman, managers should only focus on serving the interests of the firm’s shareholders. “Responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their [shareholder’s] desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.” (Friedman, 1970) Shareholder Value is all about enriching those who invest in your organisation, while someone is invested in your business you should do your duty in making sure that the value of their investment only rises throughout the period so when they do sell their share they have done so for a greater price than when they bought them.

As previously stated it was clear that West and Zampella had an issue with working with other studios within the Activision Publishing umbrella, namely co-developer of the Call of Duty brand Treyarch Studios. If Activision did not reign in the behaviour of the Infinity Ward execs, this could have harmed the shareholder wealth with disillusion within the market about the quality of the series and what to purchase. West and Zampella even “refused to sign standard exit documents representing that they had returned all Activision property, including computer code, and would honour the confidentiality obligations that they have to Activision” as stated within court documents, this even shows the fact that these execs did not have the best interests of the shareholders and could still potentially harm Activision’s value with their knowledge of the organisation and key information.

Using Nintendo as an example again and their ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ it can also be viewed as enhancing their shareholder wealth. Before they took this approach their previous generation of business was based upon the successful Gameboy series but also a lacklustre Gamecube home console strategy. Without a strong console business Nintendo lagged in sales and revenue, but upon the releases of the DS series and the Wii, their revenues rose to a degree they were able to increase investment into research and design, at its highest point it was 3 times as much or more as their lowest research investment in years prior (Nintendo Financial Statements). By having such a good financial position within the industry their share prices rose dramatically and have maintained a level above that during the “Gamecube” era, thus improving shareholder value.

Conclusion

It’s clear to see that there are some corporate governance issues at play here, whether it is at the hands of Activision for mistreatment of a game studio and its execs or whether the self interests of West and Zampella. West and Zampella to whom Activision refers to as “insubordinate and self-serving schemers” were also in breach of fiduciary duty and implied covenant of good faith. In breach of fiduciary duty implies fraud on some level, to which with corporate governance measures should have been discouraged with financial controls. The agency problem is clearly seen through a complaint laid out in the papers filed with the courts regarding the behaviour of West and Zampella toward Activision staff, “Acting insubordinately by, for example, repeatedly refusing to follow the directions of senior Activision management to whom West and Zampella reported and publicly and privately insulting Activision’s executives and other Activision employees, including, for example, by creating fictitious and unwarranted accusations of ‘incompetence’ on the part of Activision employees in order to poison the relationship between IW and Activision”.

Within Activision Blizzard’s corporate governance code of conduct it states “You should not engage a competitor in discussions, agreements or understandings concerning prices and related matters, allocations of territory, customers or sales. In addition, you should avoid discussing with a competitor any other agreements inhibiting free and open competition or involving tie-in sales or reciprocal transactions without prior authorization from the Legal Department”. And by their actions in this case they have stood by their corporate governance beliefs, they maintain their beliefs and corporate culture even when the accused is two of their most senior of studio executives who were responsible for one of their largest franchises.

In comparison to Nintendo their corporate governance states that “At Nintendo, we strive to maximize long-term corporate value while carefully considering the benefits to everyone we touch, including our consumers, shareholders, business partners, employees and the community. We work to achieve a highly transparent and sound system of corporate governance, and we educate our employees regarding good corporate ethics.” Although they have not been in a similar situation as to that of Activision they have been in the business of investing in developers to bring them under the Nintendo business as a 1st or 2nd party developer. If this situation was to occur I would believe that they would handle the situation in a similar manner to that of Activision with the removal from post for the executives to sustain the long term viability of the business. Nintendo’s corporate governance structure is an extensive one but very similar to many organisations out there, which is represented in this following table.

References

• Crowe Horwath – The Changing Landscape of Risk Management 2008 [PDF document] accessible at: http://folio.crowehorwath.com/files/PDF/RISK8018_CFOResearch.pdf accessed 3-4-11
• Financial Reporting Council – The UK Corporate Governance Code June 2010 [PDF Report] accessible at: http://www.frc.org.uk/documents/pagemanager/Corporate_Governance/UK%20Corp%20Gov%20Code%20June%202010.pdf accessed 31-3-11
• Financial Reporting Council – The UK Stewardship Code July 2010 [PDF Report] accessible at: http://www.frc.org.uk/images/uploaded/documents/UK%20Stewardship%20Code%20July%2020103.pdf accessed 31-3-11
• Kotaku – Call of Duty: Legal Warfare Brian Crecente, Brian Ashcraft, Luke Plunkett et al [web news articles] accessible at: http://kotaku.com/#!callofdutylegalwarfare accessed 1-4-11
• New York Times – The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits Milton Friedman 1970 [newspaper article]
• Nintendo [Financial Statements] accessible at: www.nintendo.co.jp
• Superior Court of the State of California Activision Publishing Inc Vs. Jason West et al [court documents]

Bibliography

• Activision Blizzard Inc [website] accessible at: http://www.activision.com accessed 2-4-11
• EDGE – Zampella, West Accuse Activision Of Fraud Nathan Brown [web news article] accessible at http://www.next-gen.biz/news/zampella-west-accuse-activision-of-fraud accessed 1-4-11
• Electronic Arts Inc [website] accessible at: www.ea.com accessed 1-4-11
• Financial Reporting Council [website] accessible at: http://www.frc.org.uk accessed 1-4-11
• Game Informer – Infinity Ward Vs Activision Phil Kollar [web news article] accessible at: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2010/03/01/news-what-s-going-down-at-infinity-ward.aspx accessed 29-3-11
• Games Thirst – Activision vs Former Infinity Ward Devs West And Zampella Case Takes New Direction Dean Kent [web news article] accessible at: http://www.gamesthirst.com/2011/04/04/activision-vs-former-infinity-ward-devs-west-and-zampella-case-takes-new-direction/ accessed 30-3-11
• Gamespot UK – Top Infinity Ward devs fired for ‘insubordination,’ lawsuits ‘expected’ Tor Thorsen [web news article] accessible at: http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6252657.html accessed 29-3-11 accessed 30-3-11
• Gamespy – Activision Pulls Electronic Arts into Lawsuit Against Former Infinity Ward Bosses Mike Sharkey [web news article] accessible at: http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/114/1141486p1.html accessed 2-4-11
• Gamespy – Objection! #1: Activision v. West & Zampella Eric Neigher [web news article] accessible at: http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/108/1083587p1.html accessed 30-3-11
• Journal of Business Law November 1992 – Board Performance and Cadbury on corporate governance Vanessa Finch [accessed online] accessible at: https://login.westlaw.co.uk/maf/wluk/app/document?src=toce&docguid=IC3C3FF70E72111DA9D198AF4F85CA028&crumb-action=append&context=5 accessed 1-4-11 [Pages 581 – 595]
• Joystiq – Activision claims EA and former IW execs schemed to ‘inflict serious harm on the company’ Christopher Grant [web news article] accessible at: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/12/21/activision-claims-ea-and-former-iw-execs-schemed-to-inflict-ser/#continued accessed 30-3-11
• Metro – Activision says Infinity Ward leads ‘obsessed by jealousy’ [web news article] accessible at: http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/games/851224-activision-says-infinity-ward-leads-obsessed-by-jealousy accessed 31-3-11
• Nintendo – Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2010 [web based report] accessible at: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/csr/en/index.html accessed 4-4-11
• Pinsent Masons out-law.com [website] accessible at: http://www.out-law.com accessed 1-4-11
• University of Connecticut Department of Economics RePEc IDEAS [website] accessible at: http://ideas.repec.org/ accessed 2-4-11
• VG24/7 – Activision seeking $400 million in damages from West, Zampella, and EA as Black Ops exceeds $1 billion in sales Stephany Nunneley [web news article] accessible at: http://www.vg247.com/2010/12/22/activision-seeking-400-million-in-damages-from-west-zampella-and-ea-as-black-ops-exceeds-1-billion-in-sales/ accessed 30-3-11
• VG24/7 – West and Zampella add charges of fraud to suit against Activision Stephany Nunneley [web news article] accessible at: http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/02/west-and-zampella-add-charges-of-fraud-to-suit-against-activision/ accessed 30-3-11

With all the Project Cafe rumours running about, one of them is very intriguing to me. A rumour dictates that Cafe is poised to developers as a system that is very easily portable from the Xbox360, this to me seems to be a direct statement at Unreal Engine 3. EPIC have been very vocal in the past about how Nintendo’s systems cannot run EPIC technology so they will not alter or “downsize” their engine to suit their systems. The rumour is backed up with more information that a certain publisher (ahemmm Ubisoft) is planning to take full advantage of this and port a ton of content onto the system. The aforementioned publisher is my opinion and speculation as it seems to be really in their style of being able to take advantage of launch periods.

So what will EPIC Games have to say about Project Cafe, I have to admit I’m highly anticipating what Mark Rein has to say about the system. Will they cater Unreal Engine 3 to Cafe? If they did it would give the system a big boost within its early life cycle. I don’t know everything about development costs, but I would assume it would be a better financial investment having the same team of developers working on a same engine port to Cafe at the same time of original development than to hire another group of developers to create a different version of the game on another engine like has been the practice for Wii ports. I would also wonder if Cafe had been out or if Bulletstorm was still in the pipeline for a later release, would it have a Cafe version? Maybe this could be answered if there if a Bulletstorm 2 or another multi-platform project that EPIC Games spearheads, with Cliffy B as director.

Chances of EPIC catering UE3 to Cafe, I’d say are 50/50. They are constantly developing the engine to future iterations so why would they not at least explore compatibility with Cafe. It would mean more license fee remuneration to them for funding their engine and games. Reason why I say 50/50 is that EPIC have went on record to say that they expect UE4 to launch in 2012, same year as Cafe. The big question is, is Cafe capable of running UE4.

Above is the Unreal Engine 3 “Samaritan” Real-Time Demo in HD, this is what I would assume as a ‘target render’ for what UE4 will be able to do. Now will Cafe be able to produce this? If EPIC releases this version of UE3 on Cafe, it would be a massive deal for Nintendo, they are trying to recover relationships with 3rd parties, now if 3rd parties have access to the tools they are familiar to produce the core content that consumers are looking for on a regular basis, I can’t see much more that Nintendo can do for 3rd parties than offer advice and assistance. At the end of the day it is up to the developer to create compelling content for the game to make people buy it, I personally see that as the biggest flaw within the Wii’s life cycle. Developers exclaimed that 3rd party software did not sell on Nintendo systems, this was a cop-out, they did not create compelling content for the system or on multi-platform titles 90% of the time the Wii version was missing key components that just convinced consumers to buy it for the other systems if they were fortunate enough to own a 2nd system.

EPIC Games and Unreal Engine 3/4 isn’t the end all be all for core mechanic games on future Nintendo systems, but it is a key contributing factor. The tell of the tale will be the support given to the systems by Crytek and CryEngine3 or future iterations, and if DICE bring their Frostbite 2 engine to the system, these to me are two of the most promising engines out there within the development community. {note: Capcoms MT Framework is another but as it’s ‘Capcom Exclusive’ and not licensed to other developers I excluded it}

I have for a long time believed that Nintendo would release a new console in FY 2012/2013, tending towards the end of the year rather than the start. So if Nintendo did in fact announce a new home console between now and E3 in July, looking at the usual 18 month cycle between console announcement and release, that would give us a release date of between October 2012 and January 2013. Leaving an announcement now completely plausible, even though with the recent release of the 3DS I find myself a bit stunned by the rumours already, I wasn’t ready for it.

Now moving onto the nitty gritty, here are a few “rumoured specs” taken from GoNintendo

• launch titles from third-party developers are in the works right now
• all-new controller
• controller features a built-in HD screen
• Blu-ray as the main optical drive

“Nintendo’s plans sound unreal. Publishers are already planning launch titles and it’s all very exciting. The hardware is even more powerful than current HD consoles and backwards compatible with Wii. The controller will be all-new and has a HD screen on it.” – inside source

LINK

• console is significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
• Nintendo is looking to recapture the hardcore market
• 1080p resolutions
• Nintendo will release a pre-announcement this month
• full reveal expected at E3
• backwards compatible with current Wii software

Well there’s a really interesting bit of information. If the system is backwards compatible with Wii games, that either means you can use a Wiimote/Nunchuk on the new system, or the new system’s control scheme will be able to mirror that of Wii.

LINK

• new system is capable of running games at HD resolutions
• system may either fall short of or surpass 360/PS3 in graphics, but it will be competitive
• Nintendo is already showing publishers the system
• late 2012 launch
• no word on backwards compatibility
• no word on ‘Wii’ being in the name
• when Nintendo was approached with this information, they were told that Nintendo won’t comment on their E3 plans, but “stay tuned”

“Nintendo is doing this one right. [It's] not a gimmick like the Wii.” – anonymous source

LINK

Well, that’s quite a bit of information, to me its 100% unverifiable so should be taken with a HUGE grain of salt. But what is to me more or less confirmed from corporate history and previous statements;

• Console will utilise the 1080p display ratio
• Console will have backwards compatibility
• The console will NOT receive a full disclosure any time soon

Working with 3rd party developers, that is what is being said, Nintendo are working close with 3rd parties.  They did it is 3DS, so why not?  Well they say they do these things but Nintendo tend to work with 3rd parties who say good things about Nintendo.  If you say something bad, or run their systems/company down, they don’t give you these privileges.  But that is where Nintendo need to consider maybe biting the bullet bill and just going for it, be outreaching and changing attitudes.  One company I think Nintendo need to get into their pocket again is EPIC, Mark Rein and that crowd don’t exactly have the most colourful things to say about Nintendo’s systems.  For instance Mark ran down the 3DS even before he had gotten hands on with the device.

But that’s where Nintendo need to step in, EPIC recently have started showing off their latest version of the Unreal Engine for the next generation.  What I believe Nintendo should have done is to visit them, with their technical team, gotten hold of the engine and tested it, spoke to their tech team and say “what would we need to do to run this engine on our system?”.  Plain and simple, go to the guys who make the engines that run the majority of cross platform content out there and say, what does our console need to do to play your games.

Have fun gaming!

US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland Declan Kelly @ University of Ulster Jordanstown

Well this blog post is about the gaming industry, and why NI is the ideal location for developers to locate in the future.  I say this at a time where there are 0 games developers located here, there may be a small number of idevices developers that also provide other services like web design and marketing graphic design.  But in Northern Ireland there are no games developers here what so ever.  Now in Mr. Kelly’s speech he does identify that the Creative Industry is has a key role to play in the development of NI, and as what I see as the current leader of the creative media it is a shame that anyone who wants a job developing games has to move away from NI.  I would like to remind you that one of the old gaming developing greats David Doak who was studio head for RARE back when they were under the control of Nintendo is from NI, he set up Free Radical Design and the Timesplitters franchise.  Northern Ireland has such raw talent in its students, and it is recognised by American corporations as identified in MR. Kelly’s speech that they show more drive, fore thinking, ambition and they work harder to get what they want.  Northern Ireland it focuses on the creative industries, business and financial services as well as the high tech arena such as cloud computing and personalised health as identified by Mr. Kelly as well as having 2 world class universities, University of Ulster with its 4 campuses and Queens University Belfast.

So lets move into the reasons as to why NI should be the target location for game studios to locate in the near future.

Communications

Northern Ireland has the highest speed connection in transatlantic fibre cables to North America, which is the fastest communications link in the world, this couldn’t be more ideal for communication between development studios in NI and those in North America.  Especially with a large development community in Canada communication would be coast to coast without the need for large distances of travel across mainland for data.  In business communication is key, it is what we are taught every day, the businesses that succeed have the most effective means of communication.  With the fastest link between Europe and NA being located in NI, the sharing of resources would be more efficient, data is transmitted at the highest rate so down time waiting on resources being downloaded is minimised.

Another point to look at is one that is evident within the financial industry, Northern Ireland is keenly situated to be the bridge between the UK and the Euro-zone.  In financial terms this meant that NI was the key location to providing assistance to organisations who wanted to move from the UK market into the Euro-zone, and vice versa.  But this experience can be used in many other ways to aid organisations in operating in all of the Euro-zone countries.

Student Education

In Northern Ireland there are 2000 students a year leaving university with a business related degree, there are a further 1000 leaving with an ICT related degree.  There aren’t enough jobs to facilitate these educations and to make the most of them, majority of students either don’t get a job that makes high use of their skills and education or they move away from NI to another country that has the jobs.  American employers who partake in the US-NI Mentorship program comment regularly about the quality of NI students and their dedication to the job.  With the youngest population in Europe, under the age of 25, there is a mass pool of potential employees that will give their better years into making things happen!  Northern Ireland is seen as the only place in Europe that if you pre-select the skills that you want an employee to have and give the government 5-6 months before you even get the business here they will train the employees for you!

The LOWEST Cost Operating Environment

Now this is a point that Declan made in his speech that kinda threw me back!  Northern Ireland has the lowest cost operating environment in all of Europe.  This means that it costs less for an organisation to set up and operate its daily activities in NI than it does anywhere else in Europe.  I then think to myself why doesn’t more developers recognise this?  Dundee in Scotland has a high development community, but recently several studio closures were forced by operation costs.  THQ were reported as looking into setting up a “super studio” in the UK but withdrew its plans for this studio which would have facilitated 400-600 jobs due to the collapse of the planned industry relief system that was a keen to the one the film industry gets for tax reliefs.  Why didn’t they look into NI, when large organisations want to move into the UK they seem to forget about NI as a potential base, only when their attention is drawn to the location by business and economic summits in Washington do things happen for NI.  There has to be a reason that 2 months ago during the height of the economic uncertainty that CitiBank in Belfast created 500 jobs on top of their already existing workforce, they know that now is the time to invest!

Corporation Tax doesn’t even come into it, Declans research deems that NI still has a lower operating cost when corporation tax is taken into account even compared to the UK and Ireland.  Simply, this alone should make NI the key location, nothing further is needed to say on the point.

Fastest Growing Economy in The Next 5 Years

“the only thing holding back Northern Ireland today is this inability to understand how great it could potentially be, I believe that Northern Ireland could be one of the fastest growing economies in the world on a per capita basis over the next 5 years”

Northern Ireland has more potential for growth in a short period than that of the mainland, any investment made now into the region would potentially be worth a small fortune.  The above quote from Declan is just how important NI could become to worldwide investors, for the gaming industry I see it as a point to get a foothold in an economy that is only growing.  Build relationships with 2 world leading universities and get the best from what is on offer before things go that little bit crazy and to set up within a rapidly expanding economy from any business standpoint can be quite the challenge.

Local Government

I understand that not everything can be perfect and ideal, but that is why it is vital that IF you represent a developer in research for a location for a new studio. Talk to the local councils within NI, talk to the local NI Executive Assembly.  You will find that NI will be keen to bring any business to NI.  The local government is there to help, talk and inspire.  But until you talk to us, you will never know how much we want these opportunities here.

If you want to hear Envoy Kelly’s speech, you can do so here, because he states the information about in a much better way that I possibly can.  I found the presentation as a Northern Irish student highly inspirational, and only more so makes me want to be at the forefront of actively bringing this fantastic industry to NI.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2010. That’s about 29 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 16 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 68 posts. There were 9 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 17th with 97 views. The most popular post that day was Ireland 5 Year Tax Holiday!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were gonintendo.com, neogaf.com, google.co.uk, boards.ign.com, and youtube.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for 4od wii, 4od on wii, ireland flag, wii 4od, and irish flag.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Ireland 5 Year Tax Holiday! October 2009

Channel 4oD – No Wii Plans October 2009
66 comments

4oD Coming To Games Consoles December 2009
7 comments

Nintendo Updates Opera Browser! (iPlayer suffers) September 2009
5 comments

What Tech could we find inside the Vitality Sensor? December 2009
1 comment

So, Nintendo. Yes. Them guys.
They are still at it would you not believe!
They know how to capture the hearts and minds of the casual market, they bring forward new ways of experiencing gaming and this enthrals the imagination of the public. Yesterday I was telling my store manager about the 3DS, he hadn’t heard of it yet, and he genuinely got excited about it, the idea of glasses-less 3D. Maybe because it was the idea that it would bring a burst of sales revenue to the store but maybe it is a trigger showing that Nintendo have yet struck gold in capturing the minds of a casual gamer!.

But if they have the know how on how to capture the casual audience, in a way that would guarantee the popularity of the device how are they testing the market? Nintendo have churned the ‘Blue Water’ they have stirred up the market and drawn from the woodwork the audience that will sustain their business needs. The ‘Blue water’ in essence has become murky, dies a little more shade of red than it used to. Meaning that there is little more room for expansion within it.

I believe that their strategy now, with the 3DS is to see what they can do to recapture the core gaming audience. They are exploring several strategies with the 3DS, things that should attract gamers as well as the developers. Higher processing power this is probably going to appeal to the graphics audience out there, because simply put Resident Evil: Revelations looks beautiful as well as Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, two of my highly anticipated games.

Lets put it this way, Nintendo need to grow the high returns market. The core audience are the ones who buy 10-12 games a year if not more they drive software attachment rates. So by playing to the ideas that this audience want, in Nintendo’s own way, they are testing the market as to what will work and what wont. By making such a piece of tech that ALREADY has key developers franchises being developed for the system is a vital component. They have won the minds of developers, they are getting support that they could only have dreamed of a generation ago. By having this, it will bring in those gamers who want to play these games and franchises. If growth and developer support can be sustained, Nintendo would be in key position to expand its offering to the core audience while still maintaining the casual crowd with evergreen software and unique ideas.

But the question remains, can Nintendo satisfy the core audience as well as the casual consumer?

Yes I’m prepared to accept that this will get more thumbs down than up for this post, but trust me I’ve been preparing a couple of blog pieces but have just hit a writers block on them. I’m trying to improve my writing styles and whatnot.

Please if you are prepared to do it, go back and rate my previous blogs with thumbs up or down, I’ll probably replace the icons with my own custom ones soon.

Following my own logic for this data from last time. There are:
(807,028 / 6.68)

120813 (rounded) users reporting data on the BBC iPlayer channel. Each one viewing the channel for 6+ hours on average, this is almost double the amount of users and average usage time increasing by approximately 60% (401{mins} / 250{mins}). Each user has again increased the amount of times they’ve used the iPlayer from 3.75 times to 5.51 times (with the first month’s usages being 2.92 times).

My own personal usage of the channel has slowed this past couple of months in my own opinion but the tally for 4 months usage is a total of 54Hr(s) 52Min(s), and it has been booted 19 times, with much more content being added each week Rugby 6 Nations being hosted for a week after games have been played and with Formula 1 starting the season again I can see the iPlayer regional usage continuing to climb.

Again it seems that when I goto post my usage stats I’m beatin to it with even more in depth source data (from the BBC) so with news from MCVUK after the jump.

- Wii iPlayer usage saw a rise in February
- Wii iPlayer traffic accounts for four percent of the service’s total usage
- iPlayer requests from Wii owners grew to 3.2m last month
- iPlayer requests from Wii owners were at 2.8m the month prior
- the PS3 is seeing a higher usage, but iPhone is seeing lower

Summary by GoNintendo