Should Nintendo start publishing games on other consoles?

I have had a thought bouncing around my head this past while, and as the title suggests its, ‘Should Nintendo start publishing on other consoles’?  This would consist of Nintendo financing titles to come to the marketplace on their own primary consoles as well as the competitors.

Total Quality Management

Okay okay okay, this coursework that I did in the past is not totally based on the video games industry. But it does have a reference to it near the end :p
So here below is a piece I did for a module which turned out to be my best piece of coursework I’ve ever done, gaining me 78%. Also as a reminder, if you are finding this and want to use it, reference correctly, using the references within for the source material, or if it is my own work being referenced reference me properly. To download a PDF of this please CLICK HERE it has all the fancy bells and whistles that this text version doesn’t.

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.

Corporate Governance – A case in the Video Games Industry

Below is a piece of coursework that I produced for my final year degree program.  The module is on Corporate Governance and for this piece of coursework I had to find a case within an industry and company, apply corporate governance models and contrast with any other examples.  All this work is work of my own, if you come across this in the future I would advise you to use this in a responsible manner, reference and credit where due as well as using this as a guide for source material.

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)

EPIC Games and Unreal Engine 3

EPIC Games is a studio that to me epitomizes a singular studio that has the power to define a console. With their unreal engine tech, its usability and how so many developers license it to make their games on the list of Unreal Engine 3 games clearly show the sheer amount of developers working with the engine and the nature of the games that it is used to develop. With EPIC Games designing their engine for certain hardware it leaves the systems that they do not do this for with the choice, the development studio could try to shoehorn the engine or older versions onto the system that provides a less than ideal result and initiates what could be a costly exercise, or find some other engine. Finding another engine to develop a game on is mostly a non-choice because when its a multi-platform game it seldom works out the best, leaving then the systems without UE compatibility out of a multi-platform IP.

Why Northern Ireland is the BEST location for game development!

So yesterday I attended a guest lecture by Declan Kelly the US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland, and lets just say it was inspirational and gave me the drive to come and create this blog post!

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.

Nintendo is Still Testing the Marketplace!

Hey Guys, it has been a while… but I fully intend on bringing more blogivity from my crazy industry mind!

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!.

So the new DS wasn’t announced, yet!

Sorry about my hiatus from my usual commentary on events and the likes, but things have been a bit busy here in the “real world”. But onwards and upwards!

So GDC or other events didn’t bring the announcement of the new DS, but it did bring rumours from developers who are already developing on the system. Gamecube+ graphic capabilities (Tegra 2 confirmed), seamless dual screens, motion sensors and ease of development.

Other things did happen, one of which would be the announcement of the Playstation Move. I had a quick back and forth with a BBC correspondent, Maggie Shiels, over twitter.

Will the iPad encroach on DS?

Michael Pachter on his new GTTV show ‘Pach Attack‘ was asked a question;

Now that the iPad has been announced, do you think the device will impede on the console market space?

To which he give a reasonable response to about how maybe in 5 years it will start to contest in the space of the consoles but gives a “yes” to the case of the DS and how it is a better device to play portable games on. Well many of us would argue till were blue in the face about what is a better device to use for portable gaming. But that is not part of my counter argument.

The Guitar Hero Syndrome

Well, we hear it all over the industry, Music Genre is failing and this that the other. But what is causing such a decline? What’s stifling the market? And is there a future for the genre?

As for all music games they are peripheral driven, peripherals make up the majority of the expenditure for the consumer. What makes it worse is that these peripherals seem to change as often as the new games come out. I firmly believe that unless a new instrument is added to the roster the peripherals should remain the same through the majority of the consoles life span, this will allow the consumer to have more disposable income for the following parts of my idea of how the music games genre should work in the future.

4oD Coming To Games Consoles

For those who may or may not notice the interview below, maybe this post title will attract you to read said Interview Blog Post

And on my blog I posted about how the BBC commented on Nintendo releasing a Video on Demand Framework, would the 4oD team be actively going out to get this development platform to play with and hopefully build some sort of alpha version of a 4oD Wii player to test it’s viability?

> > We are actively exploring the opportunity in extending to new devices. That means that the business people are looking at them on the one hand and the tech team on the other hand. Behind the scenes the tech team has already been tinkering.

Ok well it’s not certainly set in stone to be coming but there’s no harm in wishful thinking. But the fact remains that they are exploring the opportunities, I don’t see the proposition to gain more revenue through advertising streams as something the network 4 will want to miss out on!