Are Game Console firms Oligopolists? ECON gaming

invic

Well, depends on what criteria you use, right? If you use four firm concentration, or that thing where you take the square of the market shares, what do you get?

Obviously, there are high barriers to entry, since game developers are not going to spend a lot of money making games for your console before you get significant market share. You either need a platform that becomes popular for other reasons (iPhone), or a big company that is willing to take a huge initial loss to build their initial market share (Microsoft).

Anyway, if you are using this for homework, you should probably change the wording a bit in case your teacher does Google search...

nixie24

Hi all, Was wondering if gaming console firms are Oligopolists , if yes- what according to you are barriers to entry, Thanks,

suyash1989

ohai Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, depends on what criteria you use, right? If
> you use four firm concentration, or that thing
> where you take the square of the market shares,
> what do you get?
>
> Obviously, there are high barriers to entry, since
> game developers are not going to spend a lot of
> money making games for your console before you get
> significant market share. You either need a
> platform that becomes popular for other reasons
> (iPhone), or a big company that is willing to take
> a huge initial loss to build their initial market
> share (Microsoft).
>
> Anyway, if you are using this for homework, you
> should probably change the wording a bit in case
> your teacher does Google search...


Thanks for your inputs Ohai. I was unable to think of other barriers apart from cost & expertise for this type of firm and I would change the wording if I was in college but am not unfortunately ;)