Nintendo Copies Sony Who Copied Apple With Retail Store Plans
from the sounds-pointless dept
A year ago, Sony decided to mimic Apple's widespread success with their retail stores by setting up more retail stores of their own (the company already had a few). Now, it appears that Nintendo seems to think this is a good idea as well, and will be creating a Nintendo store in NY. Of course, it's still questionable how well these stores work for anyone other than Apple. Remember, computer maker Gateway tried the same thing and ended up losing a ton of money before closing the stores down. It works for Apple for a few reasons: mainly, that the company prefers to sell direct and has been de-emphasizing channel resellers for some time. This isn't true of Sony or Nintendo -- and the stores either upset their resellers greatly, or have to be priced way over the regular going retail price. At the same time, Apple's stores work because of the culture (maybe we should drop that trailing "ure") surrounding Apple products. The stores are designed to play up that culture and the whole concept of the Apple experience. It's not clear many other consumer electronics makers can pull off the same sort of success without the same level of devoted followers.
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re: nintendo
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Sony Store
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Re: Sony Store
In fairness to Sony, the Sony Store, a Sony owned and operated store stocking only Sony products has existed in CANADIAN malls and downtowns longer than there has been an Apple Computer company.
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Re: Sony Store
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Re: Sony Store
From:
http://www.sony.ca/sonyca/about_chronology.shtml
1981 - ... Acquisition of Miller Electronics Limited, western retail chain subsequently renamed The Sony Store.
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Not sure if its just the cult that visits the Appl
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In A Related Story
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Re: In A Related Story
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No Subject Given
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Re: Sony Store
Apple was founded in 1976, so it sounds like Sony was close to their founding (compared to, say, the mid 1990s) but not quite "before" them.
But if we're going to play THIS game, let me say that Nintendo has them ALL beat. From a Nintendo History site:
"It was 1889, and a Japanese man named Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai, a Kyoto-based card manufacturer. The cards being made were hanafuda playing cards, each one hand crafted and painted. The hanafuda game consists of 48 cards in 12 suits, and display natural symbols used in gameplay. The cards were sold in Kyoto and Osaka in Yamauchi's own Nintendo stores."
1889, bitch! That's 88 years before there's an Apple Computer! (But only 57 years before Sony, founded in 1946).
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There also were about a million or so stores that have done this a long time ago. We call them common brand names now - but back then you had to go to a specific store to buy em.
Stores and the like specilised in 1 or mabey 2 brands MAX. However most of the time it was only for upmarket clients. Kind of compare it to the current day Ferrari/Masserati stores......you will never see a Fiat parked in those stores/showrooms. But we all know who owns them.
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