Comparative Analysis: PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch Marketing Mix

This report offers a comparative analysis of the marketing mix strategies employed by PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of the marketing mix for business success. The report delves into the target markets of both consoles, identifying key demographics and consumer behaviors. It then examines the 4Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) for each console, detailing their respective strategies and their effectiveness. The analysis covers product features, pricing models, distribution channels, and promotional campaigns. The report includes an STP analysis and concludes by assessing the competitive advantages of each console. The conclusion emphasizes the strengths and weaknesses of each company's marketing approach, offering recommendations for improvement and suggesting that PlayStation has a better competitive advantage than Nintendo. The report is supported by references to relevant marketing literature.

Running head: ANALYSING MARKETING MIX
ANALYSING MARKETING MIX
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1ANALYSING MARKETING MIX
Executive summary
Marketing mix and its strategies is a key factor for any business. It is important that before
launching any of the products all the aspects must be kept in mind. The main of this report is
to make a comparative analysis of the marketing mix of both the companies and the
observation done here is based on the secondary data that is already gathered. This report tells
about the two different strategies of marketing mix used by the companies and based on these
analysis has been done. Also the STP analysis of both the companies is done and based on
this a conclusion is drawn which states that Play station has a better competitive advantage
than that of Nintendo.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
TARGET MARKET..................................................................................................................3
Target market for Play Station:..............................................................................................4
Target market for Nintendo Switch console:.........................................................................4
MARKETING MIX...................................................................................................................4
Marketing mix for Play station..............................................................................................4
Marketing mix for Nintendo Switch......................................................................................6
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................9

3ANALYSING MARKETING MIX
Introduction
The brand Play Station also known as PS series was first introduced in the year 1994
in Japan and then it was released world-wide the following year. Play station was produced
by Sony Interactive Entertainment. When PS-4 was released the whole market was covered
rather belonged to Sony and the sales reached up to 14.59million units. It saw great success
both in the physical as well as the online segment. Play station 4 also known as PS-4 was
released in the year 2013 and was developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment which was
based on the type home video type console.
Nintendo Switch console was developed by Nintendo Platform Technology
Development and was manufactured by Foxconn, Hosiden in the year 2017. This was based
on the Hybrid video game console and is also known as NX-HAC. This game can be used as
both stationary console and like a portable device too which also means the player can use it
at home or even outside based on the way they want.
This report discusses about the target market, brand, and the marketing mix which
includes the 4Ps f both the companies and their effectiveness.
TARGET MARKET
It is very important that a company has a target market only then it will be able to
cater the need of the certain people who can be their loyal customers in future (Haider et al.
2017). This helps an organization to reach out to more number of people and then increase its
sales by satisfying them (Burns, Bush and Sinha 2014).
Target market for Play Station:
The target audience or the gender that s attracted more towards PS 4 is men and
includes the age-group of people who are 18 years and above and less than 40 years of age.

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This game is fun for people who have a strong addiction of games, are the problem solvers, t
may also include gamers who are competitive and are casual too. The social class served by
this particular game is the higher and the upper middle class of the society.
Target market for Nintendo Switch console:
Most of the people who are keener towards gaming or are interested in gaming are the
people more focused by this brand. Earlier the brand targeted those who really wanted to buy
the products but now it has become straight forward and the people who come within an age
group of 15 to 30 is now usually targeted. It may consist of men, women, kids who have an
interest towards gaming (Inoue and Tsujimoto 2018).
MARKETING MIX
Marketing mix consists of 4Ps which are equally essential for branding and promoting
any product or service. The 4Ps is the combination of Product, Price, Place, and Promotion
(Huang and Sarigöllü 2014). Let us understand the strategy of marketing mix of both the
console games that is Play station 4 and Nintendo switch.
Marketing mix for Play station
PRODUCT:
Play station have been manufacturing home consoles basically and primarily for video
games. When Play station 4 came, it came out to be the one which is slimmer than other
variants by about 30 percent and was 16 percent lighter than the variants which came
previously. It also had a visual that was excellent and the capacity of the storage was 1TB.
This changed the aura of all the video games already present in the market. Hence, it
provided an experience that was great and people enjoyed using this as it had graphics of 4K
level. This was one thing which not every gaming console provided plus it proved out to be a
very handy one.

5ANALYSING MARKETING MIX
PRICE:
After knowing about the product the main thing that comes in mind is the price and
the real worth of the price paid for that very product. The price offered by PS4 was a
premium one and it also dependent on how the competitors were putting on their price. The
final price of the console was dependent on the cost of the processor, graphics controls and
many more and after combining all these the price was set accordingly. Although the price of
the games kept changing and it varied time to time, yet using the differential pricing strategy
PS4 was able to be in profits by making the customers pay according to the products (Nagle
and Müller 2017).
PLACE:
PS4 was made available across the globe as it was a SONY product. It was sold
mostly in the stores which had a franchise of SONY and was also available online. Play
station collaborated with many e-commerce platforms which includes amazon, flipkart and
others. However, the rate of discount didn’t vary much and most of the people were
interested in buying the products from the stores only. PS had a strong distributing channel
which helped them to be in profits always.
PROMOTION:
A huge amount of revenue generated by play station is spent on the promotion and
advertising of the product. It has come up with many campaigns that helped the promoting
their products on a greater extent. The strategy used by Play station is an aggressive one
which includes entering the market comparatively new and then involving in active programs
that help to stimulate new opportunities for the brand (Knight and Thomas 2014).
The primary segment for this company is the hardcore gamers which include men
who do not mind spending money and has played Play station in the past. The other segment

6ANALYSING MARKETING MIX
deals with the set of casual gamer which include women and play these games as hobbies
during the spare time they have (Ciesla 2019).
The target audience is mostly men who are involved in hardcore gaming and who
enjoy playing games anytime. Mostly suited for the upper middle and rich class of the
society.
Play station is known best for the graphics and controls it provides and also for the
exclusive-console content. It is for those who want a live experience virtually and also want
the highest quality console (Ali 2017).
Marketing mix for Nintendo Switch
PRODUCT:
Earlier, Nintendo was a manufacturer of playing cards and then it decided to make a
shift to the video and interactive games. Donkey Kong was a great success under this
segment and this gave the company that spark to manufacture more of these. DS (Dual
Screen) handled system was developed by Nintendo and many other games like role playing,
virtual reality and also augmented games were also developed by the company.
Advancements were made in the graphic card, hardware of the game and others. Nintendo did
a partnership with Niantic who was the developer of Pokemon Go, this has helped the
company to increase about 33 percent of the profit together.
PRICE:
Being in the technological market it is must be kept in mind that customer loyalty
cannot be taken into consideration as the requirement of them depends on the trends in the
markets. The strategy of pricing is light different in case of this company as they keep
different price for a particular product throughout its life cycle (Nagle and Müller 2017).

7ANALYSING MARKETING MIX
PLACE:
A very strong networking is observed in case of this company and it believes in
making their product available to everyone as per the convenience of the customers. Physical
and online distribution both is available under different chains of gaming stores. It has a
mature distribution strategy overall and make the products available accordingly (Acir 2019).
PROMOTION:
Nintendo is known best for the type of advertising and the promotion tools it uses to
make the customers aware of the product, its features and attributes. The launch campaign
that Nintendo makes is usually huge and attractive. They have dedicated and special days for
lunching of any of the products for the company. Free goodies are distributed along with T-
shirts are given to the crowd and are invited to come and experience the products that have
been launched. They believe in the strategy of brand awareness (Ciesla 2019).
The main strategy for segmentation used by the is the demographic one as it
segregates people of age group 15-35 and the behavioral segmentation is done on the basis of
who likes to play games but are not intense gamers.
This company targets people who are really interested in playing games in their spare
time and is more concerned with the generation Y that includes men, women, and kids also
older folks are included.
Unlike SONY which make consoles for hardcore gamers, Nintendo is mostly
positioned and known for the designs made for casual and non-casual gamers. They believe
that game consoles are made for fun are people do not play it for competing (Clow 2016).

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CONCLUSION
Play station has applied the marketing mix well and helps users to play games that is
beyond the imagination of anyone making it people’s favorite. Also the graphics used is very
well and the power of processing these graphics is incredible.
Thus, from the above discussion it can be concluded that the strategy of marketing
mix of Play station is better and convenient than Nintendo and they are able to put thing
correctly after analyzing the situation and current trend of the market.
However, Nintendo must look at ways for developing strategies that would help them
getting stabilized n near future. The more focus should be on delivering the quality and the
problem of overheating should be mitigated. The distribution channel must be made a more
networking one and the convenience of the customers must always be considered.

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REFERENCES
Acir, E., 2019, July. VIDEO GAMES, VIRTUAL REALITY AND AUGMENTED
REALITY APPLICATIONS IN TOURISM PROMOTION AND MARKETING. In 9th
ADVANCES IN HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT
CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS (p. 171).
Ali, W., 2017. Evolution of the Video Game Market. Journal of Game, Game Art, and
Gamification (JGGAG), 1(1), p.34.
Burns, A.C., Bush, R.F. and Sinha, N., 2014. Marketing research (Vol. 7). Harlow: Pearson.
Ciesla, R., 2019. Promotional Strategies. In Game Development with Ren'Py (pp. 325-337).
Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Clow, K.E., 2016. Integrated advertising, promotion, and marketing communications.
Pearson Education India.
Haider, A.A., Zafar, A., Khalid, A., Majid, A., Abdullah, M.A. and Sarwar, M.B., 2017.
Marketing Management. Head, B, p.22.
Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand
equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132).
Springer, New York, NY.
Inoue, Y. and Tsujimoto, M., 2018. New market development of platform ecosystems: A case
study of the Nintendo Wii. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 136, pp.235-253.
Knight, J. and Thomas, P., 2014. Reaching audiences: Distribution and promotion of
alternative moving image. Intellect Books.

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Nagle, T.T. and Müller, G., 2017. The strategy and tactics of pricing: A guide to growing
more profitably. Routledge.