MARKETING STRATEGY FOR THE XBOX IN CHINA
Home video games have progressed considerably since they were introduced a quarter century ago. Adventure games once relied on complicated text-based commands such as "go north" and "pick up crystal ball" with no graphics. Graphics-based games lacked plots and tended to focus on simple arcade games such as Pac-Man. Today's game consoles are capable of high-quality graphics with intricate story lines that can follow nearly limitless paths so that the gaming experience is different every time the game is played. Three companies dominate the video game console market: Microsoft, which markets the Xbox, Sony, which markets Playstation, and Nintendo, which markets the GameCube. This research considers a marketing plan for the Xbox in China, including a marketing analysis, competitive analysis and environmental analysis.
Product Policies. The Xbox requires few modifications in order to be marketed in China. Indeed, the product is already marketed in many countries without modification to the core product. Modifications occur with regard to the instructions, for example, to accommodate the various languages that are used, and certainly the documentation for the Chinese market would need to be written in Chinese·most likely Mandarin·for the market. However, one of the product's strong selling points is that it is essentially the same hardware regardless of the market in which it is sold. This makes it possible for software developers to create software that can run on the Xbox in various markets (Bishop 2004). In this way, the company would not need to invest heavily in modifying the product for the Chinese market.
Pricing. Pricing in the Chinese market would be a key consideration for Microsoft. The company has had difficulty with the Pocket PC in China, where it was introduced at a price that was the equivalent of approximately one month's salary for the average Chinese worker....