Faith + Reason = Truth

Two of my favorite blogs have entries that tie into an audiobook I checked out from the library yesterday.  The posts at Seth's Blog (here) and Infectious Greed (here) discuss risk-taking types vs. safe types and interactive exercise ala Wii, respectively.  The audio cd is Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant, and the big idea is strategy to create new markets that haven't existed rather than competing against others in tired, existing theaters in the eternal corporate war of attrition.  While Sony and Microsoft were spending years and (hundreds of) millions on trying to out-speed or out-graphic each other with their "next gen" game systems (as Seth might observe, though it seemed the safe thing to do, it was the exact opposite, especially considering the virtually unlimited resources of the competitors in the space), Nintendo took the "blue ocean strategy" of creating an entirely new market for true, physically interactive/engaging video games.  Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed blog commends an exercise equipment company for trying to follow this path and capitalize on the trend of exertainment (I just coined that term right now).  And just over the weekend at SeaWorld San Antonio with my kids for a few days of spring break fun in the Texas Hill Country, there was an interactive Wii exhibit on the SeaWorld map.  Could Nintendo have possibly competed with the likes of Sony and Microsoft if they had played it "safe" and tried to out-processor or out-dvd them?  Not a chance.  But by "riskily" dreaming up and creating an entirely new realm of video game-based entertainment, they've vaulted the entire world into the REAL next-gen gaming incarnation.  Well done.