2. • The gaming industry is an oligopoly, which means
that it is owned by three different companies;
Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
• It’s a mass market, and is bigger than the film
industry in terms of revenue.
• The sole purpose of the industry is to make
money, first party developers do this by 1) getting
customers to stay loyal to them and 2) getting
customers to use their platform for other things
besides games and become home entertainment
hubs.
3. The key to success for a first party developer in the gaming
industry is creating a franchise. Franchises are essentially
sweetheart deals that then go on to create sequels. Each
first party developer has developed franchises:
Sony – God Of War, Uncharted, LittleBigPlanet, Killlzone
etc.
Microsoft – Halo, Gears Of War, Fable, Viva Piñata etc.
Nintendo – Super Mario, (Best-selling franchise of all
time in the gaming industry) Pokémon, The Legend Of
Zelda, Donkey Kong etc.
Dead Island is not a franchise as it belongs to three
platforms and two first party developers.
4. Technological Convergence means that consoles now are at the
heart of a lot of homes. Consumers can now use consoles to:
-Download games and expansion packs
-Surf web
-Watch Blu-ray DVDs (PS3 only)
-Download films and play films
-Download and play music
-Instant messaging and chat
-Store personal data like photographs
-Shop (buy goods online)
-Update your Facebook account with stats and achievements
5. • Blu-Ray is owned by Sony and Sony only.
• Blu-Ray has a massive capacity of 100GB
compared to DVD which has a capacity of
9GB.
• Microsoft want the Blu-Ray technology but
Sony don’t want to share.
• Blu-Ray gives Sony the upper-hand in the
industry as it will allow them to make bigger
and better games in the future.
6. -Up until the 80s, first time game producers such as
Atari and Namco dominated the Niche market.
-In 1982, however, Homebrew meant that anyone could
create a game in their bedroom e.g. Jet Set Willy
-In 1988 Atari, Sega, Commodore, Sinclair and BBC all
dropped out of hardware production.
-It was only in 1990 when the industry became a mass
market, as this was the year that the PlayStation 1
came out.
And today it is dominated by Microsoft, Nintendo and
Sony.
7. Dead Island
• Dead Island was developed by Techland and
published by Deep Silver – Third Party
Developers.
• Dead Island is a multi-platform game,
meaning it is available on more than one
console (Xbox 360, Ps3 and PC.)
