Technological Tying and the Intensity of Price Competition: An
Empirical Analysis of the Video Game Industry
Timothy Derdenger∗
Abstract
Using data from the 128-bit video game industry I evaluate the impact technologically tying has on the intensity of console price competition and the incentives for hardware firms to tie their produced software to their hardware. Tying occurs when a console hardware manufacturer produces software that is incompatible with rival hardware. There are two important trade-offs an integrated firm faces when implementing a technological tie. The first is an effect that increases console market power and forces hardware prices higher. The second, an effect due to the integration of the firm, drives prices lower. A counterfactual exercise determines technological tying of hardware and software increases console price competition; console makers subsidize consumer hardware purchases in order to increase video games sales, in particular their tied games, where the greatest proportion of industry profits are made. Moreover, I determine technological tying to be a dominant strategy for hardware manufacturers when software development costs are low. ∗Assistant Professor in Marketing & Strategy, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University. [email protected]
1 1 Introduction
In high-technology industries the availability and quality of complementary products can impact platform adoption. For instance, in the home video game console market a consumer must choose between a PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii before he is able to play any video games. Yet, many video games are compatible with multiple consoles and thus create little additional differentiation across consoles. There are also complements that are exclusive to one platform–to play The Conduit consumers must purchase the Nintendo Wii, and to play Gran Turismo 5 consumer must purchase a Sony PlayStation 3.1 Unlike complements that are compatible with multiple platforms, exclusive complements bring added demand to the platform. This raises a platform manufacturer’s market power and the incentive to increase its hardware price through greater variety of complementary products [Church and Gandal, 2000]. A console manufacturer can also replicate this effect by integrating with the software market and creating a technological tie between its console and games. A technological tie occurs when a hardware manufacturer produces software that is incompatible with rival hardware, a combination of exclusivity and integration. A consumer wanting that hardware manufacturer’s software must also purchase the console made by that firm, and only that firm. A few examples of technological tying in practice are Nintendo’s production of the Super Mario Brothers video game series or Microsoft’s production of Halo. These strategic moves by Nintendo and Microsoft–and as well as Sony–raise the questions of i) what role does technological tying have on console price competition and ii) how do software development costs impact this strategic decision? The focus of this paper is to determine the effects of and the incentives for hardware firms to integrate into the software market and elect to tie their software to their own hardware. I answer the above research questions using data from the 128-bit video game industry, which comprises Nintendo GameCube, Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox, and by employing a model that incorporates the durable nature of video game consoles and games. I allow consumers to be forward-looking and form expectations about the evolution of each market. The model timing for consumers who do not own hardware is they decide in each period (month) whether or not to purchase a console. Once consumers have purchased hardware they exit the console market and enter the software market. In each period post-hardware purchase, consumers decide which game to purchase, if any. Thus, unlike the hardware market consumers never exit the software market. The framework I use to estimate consumer demand for consoles and video games builds upon the dynamic demand frameworks of Hendel and Nevo [2006], Gowrisankaran and Rysman [2012] and Melnikov [2013]. These papers employ an approach that reduces the state space to a manageable number by forming an inclusive value term. This term embeds the possible variations in product availability, pricing and other unobservable factors that might evolve over time. To address the competitive response invoked by technological tying I employ several counterfactual simulations where I assume hardware and software firms are profit-maximizing entities with hardware firms competing in price. A manufacturer is willing to lower its console price in order to increase demand for its console and, in particular, its technologically tied video games, which is where the largest proportion of industry profits are made. I, therefore determine the adoption of technological tying in the home console market increases console price competition. However, it is important to highlight a key caveat in these simulations. Unlike my consumer demand model, which accounts for forward-looking consumer behavior, I abstract away the supply-sided dynamics due to the computational complexity. I assume hardware firms are myopic while software firms hold prices to those observed in the data. Consequently, my pricing results, which alter the availability of technological tying to hardware firms, are conservative estimates. This is because I underestimate the change in indirect network effects and the revenue hardware firms receive from game developers by not accounting for future software profits in counterfactual 1 Exclusive complements are a result of a formal contract between producers of complementary goods.
2 simulations. The literature regarding technological tying is relatively sparse. Yet, there are similarities to the literature covering tying and raising rivals’ costs. In addition, this study adds to several other areas of research: exclusionary strategies, network externalities, multiproduct pricing and two-sided markets. Indirect network effects play a vital role in the adoption and diffusion of video game consoles and many other platforms. Much of the literature (empirically and theoretically), however, has defined network effects as a function of the number of users who are in the same "network" [Katz and Shapiro, 1985] and has abstracted away from the fact that game heterogeneity may also play an important role in the formation of the network effect. Many empirical studies, however, elect to adopt Katz and Shapiro’s definition due to the limited availability of the necessary data to incorporate heterogeneity into the formation of the indirect network effect (See i.e. Nair et al. [2004], Clements and Ohashi [2005], Prieger and Hu [2012], Liu [2010], Dube et al. [2010]). I build upon the innovative research of Nair et al. [2004], Dube et al. [2010], and Liu [2010], by creating a structural demand model for video game consoles that accounts for game heterogeneity in the formation of the network effect by specifically connecting the consumer utilities in the console and software markets rather than using only the number of games. The primary contribution of this paper is to explain how technological tying impacts hardware competition in the 128 bit video game market. There are three main economic forces that impact the intensity of console price competition when a manufacturer technologically ties its software to its hardware. The first is a result of the tie foreclosing rival console manufacturers access to games produced by a console. The second is the consequence of console manufacturers electing to design and produce video games themselves. The third is the competitive response of its rival. Each of these three forces impacts hardware competition in its own way. The first force generates an incentive for the hardware maker to raise its console price since there is a relative increase in utility from the simple fact that rivals have one less available game. For instance, in order for a consumer to play a game produced by the hardware manufacturer he must purchase the respective console, an act that increases the console manufacturer’s market power. The second force, however, leads to a different effect. If we think of software as the input or upstream supplier to the production of the downstream hardware [Salop, 2005] then the “vertical” integration of these two products can produce efficiency effects similar to the elimination of the double marginalization; thus, an incentive to decrease console price is created [Cournot, 1838]. And lastly, the third economic force, the competitive response of the rival indirectly affects a tying console manufacturer’s incentive to lower or raise its console price. I also contribute to the make-versus-buy literature of Williamson [1971] and Coase [1937]. When hardware firms strategically decide to integrate and tie software to hardware their actions consist of a dominant strategy Nash equilibrium when software development costs are low. Furthermore, such an action is a dominant strategy because integration allows each hardware firm to recover larger software profits. By integrating and tying software and hardware, the hardware firm receives the difference between the integrated software price and the marginal cost rather than a royalty rate it would have received if the game was not integrated. Lastly, this paper is closely related to the work on video games (Clements and Ohashi [2005], Nair [2007], Liu [2010], Dube et al. [2010], Prieger and Hu [2012], Derdenger and Kumar [2013], Lee [2013] ) and in particular those that study exclusionary strategies. Prieger and Hu [2012] and Lee [2013] attempt to study the impact of exclusive titles on the console platform market and determine whether exclusive titles are anti-competitive. In Prieger and Hu [2012] they employ a static structural model to estimate the demand for video game consoles. They use a reduced form approach to model the indirect network effect from video games using a simple count of games available to each console at a given time. They determine exclusive games do not alter the demand for video game consoles nor create a significant barrier to entry. Lee addresses a similar question as Prieger and Hu but focuses on the welfare cost of software incompatibility. Lee implements a methodology that accounts for heterogeneity among software titles and consumer dynamics but also makes a strong simplifying assumption regarding the software
3 market and prices. The model assumes software titles are neither substitutes nor complements to one another and that hardware and software prices are not allowed to change when addressing the impact of software exclusivity. Lee does model and recover porting costs, which permits him to allow independent software to re-optimize their platform decisions when running counterfactual simulations. This paper is quite different from Lee [2013] in the questions that are addressed and the model that is estimated. I specifically analyze the pricing implications of integration and technological tying as well as the incentives for such actions. In doing so, I allow console prices to be re-optimized; yet, I do not allow independent software to reconsider their platform decisions when running counterfactuals. 2 Data
The data used in this study originates from marketing group NPD Funworld, which tracks sales and pricing for the video game industry. It is collected using point-of-sale scanners linked to a majority of the consumer electronics retail stores in the United States, and NPD extrapolates that data to project sales for the entire country. Included in the data are quantity sold and total revenue for three consoles and all compatible video games for each month of the data set, which covers 48 months from November 2001 through October 2005. During the 128-bit video game console life cycle (2000-2006) the industry saw three of the most revolutionizing consoles come to market, the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. These consoles brought larger computing power, more memory, enhanced graphics, better sound and the ability to play DVD movies. In addition, the producing firms each launched an expansive line of accessories to accompany their platforms. Sony enjoyed a yearlong first mover advantage with its launch of PlayStation 2 in October 2000. Its success was attributed to debuting first, but more significant was its large catalog of games exclusively produced for its console. Many of its biggest software hits were exclusive to PlayStation 2 but only one was produced by Sony. Microsoft Xbox was launched in very November 2001 and was by far the most technologically advanced console, with faster processing speeds and more memory than the Sony Playstation 2. Microsoft, however, struggled to gain market share as a result of its inability to attract developers to produce software titles exclusively for its console [Pachter and Woo, 2006]. The inability to secure third party exclusive games forced Microsoft to design and produce video games internally. Within weeks of the Microsoft Xbox launch Nintendo introduced its GameCube (November 2001), which was the least technologically advanced of the three consoles. Instead of competing in technology with Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo targeted younger children for its console. "The GameCube’s appeal as a kiddie device was made apparent given the fact that the device did not include a DVD player and its games tilt[ed] towards an E rating" [Pachter and Woo, 2006]. The GameCube’s limited success was a result of Nintendo leveraging its "internal development strength and target[ing] its loyal fan base, composed of twenty somethings who grew up playing Nintendo games and younger players who favored more family friendly games" [Pachter and Woo, 2006]. General statistics of the home video game industry are provided in the tables below. In Table 1 I present statistics regarding the release date, prices and sales (average, min and max in each month) for each console. In Table 2 I present the total number of games, total number of integrated and tied games, average sales, and average prices by console.
4 Table 1: Console Summary Statistics
Nintendo Microsoft Sony Release Date Nov. 18, 2001 Nov. 15, 2001 Oct. 26, 2000 Installed Base (Oct. 2005) 9,728,789 13,212,844 29,832,232 Price Average $127.80 $185.49 $189.23 Max 199.85 299.46 299.54 Min 92.37 146.92 147.36 Sales Average 204,833 277,559 534,632 Max 1,158,229 1,079,382 2,686,288 Min 42,416 77,456 188,670 DVD Playability No Yes Yes Max Number of Controllers 4 4 2 Total Number of Observations 48 48 48
Table 2: Video Game Summary Statistics
Nintendo Microsoft Sony Release Date Nov. 18, 2001 Nov. 15, 2001 Oct. 26, 2000 Number of Games 484 737 1156 Number of Integrated Games 43 56 105 Overall Average Price 24.1332 24.1768 23.7821 Average Sales 6,523 7,460 9,434 Integrated Games Average Price 33.8752 23.6240 22.7546 Average Sales 25,650 14,562 11,946 Total Number of Observations 12,085 16,568 30,752
In Figure 1 I present the number of games available on each console over time, the average price of a game given its age, the average software price for each console and the price of hardware over time. Figure 1a illustrates the number of software titles available each period. It is quite evident the number of games increases with time, generating greater demand for the console, all else constant. Figure 1b shows software prices declining with age. Particularly, software prices fall faster in the early stage of its life cycle than later. Figure 1c and Figure 1d present declining software and hardware prices over time, respectively. Each of these figures provides support for a model that accounts for forward-looking behavior by consumers. Below I also present statistics regarding the introduction of technologically tied games. These statistics also lend further support for a dynamic model of console and software demand.
5 Figure 1: Hardware and Software Statistics
1200 45 Gamecube Gamecube Sony Sony Microsoft 40 Microsoft 1000
35 800
30 600 25
Number of Games 400 Average Game Price ($) 20
200 15
0 10 Dec 01 Dec 02 Dec 03 Dec 04 0 10 20 30 40 50 Month Game Age (Months) (a) Software Variety (b) Average Software Prices per Game Age
55 350 Gamecube Gamecube Sony Sony 50 Microsoft Microsoft 300
45
250 40
35 200
30 Console Price 150 Average Game Price ($) 25
100 20
15 50 0 10 20 30 40 50 Dec 01 Dec 02 Dec 03 Dec 04 Month Month (c) Average Software Prices (d) Hardware Prices
I now briefly discuss three important facts regarding the industry. The first: it exhibits a large degree of seasonality in both console and video game sales. Figure 2 illustrates the total number of consoles and video games sold in each month, both of which increase considerably in the months of November and December. Since it is important to account for the large degree of seasonality in estimation, I deseason the data with the use of the X11 program from the US Census.2 I am able to do so without much bias to the estimated model parameters from the fact hardware and software price do not differ between holiday (November and December) and non holiday time periods.3 2Similar to Gowrisankaran and Rysman [2012]. 3I run two price regressions to determine if prices differ over holiday periods than from the rest of the calendar year. For software, I regress software prices on a vector of product characteristics, firm fixed effects, console fixed effects and a seasonal indicator variable. The regression finds no statistically significant seasonal effect on game prices (the seasoanl parameter estimate is 0.1325 with a standard error of 0.1124). As for hardware, a similar procedure is used regressing console prices on hardware charactersitics, firm fixed effects and a seasonal indicator variable for the months of November and December. Like software, there is no statistically significant seasonal effect on hardware price (the seasonal parmeter estimate is 5.5089 with a standard error of 4.1841).
6 Figure 2: Seasonally Adjusted Sales for Hardware and Software
6 45 Seasonally Adjusted Console and Bundle Sales Seasonally Adjusted Software Sales Console and Bundle Sales 40 Software Sales 5 35
4 30
25 3 20
2 15
Total Monthly Quantity Sold (M) Total Monthly Quantity Sold (M) 10 1 5
0 0 Dec 01 Dec 02 Dec 03 Dec 04 Dec 01 Dec 02 Dec 03 Dec 04 Month Month
The second fact is there is a large variety of video games; have a look at any consumer electronics store’s video game shelves. There are seven genres of games, ranging from action to simulation. Action games have the largest share of the market with 24%, and simulation games are the smallest genre with 1%. Sales for individual games also range in the number of units sold. There are "hits" such as “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,” which has cumulative sales of more than six million on PlayStation 2, and "busts" such as “F1 2002,” which sold only 48,000 units on the same console. It is this characteristic that is the driving factor for the construction of a console demand model that accounts for video game heterogeneity. Tables 2 and 3 present statistics regarding technological tying in the video game market to further support a model that accounts for video game heterogeneity. Table 2 highlights the make-up between overall and integrated video games for each console. From this table, it is evident that Nintendo has the fewest number of video games and on average sells the fewest units, with Sony selling the most–this could be a result of the differences in the number of consumers who own a console over time. However, even though Sony produces the largest number of integrated and tied games, the firm sells the fewest on average, while Nintendo sells the most (at a substantially higher price). Further evidence of the role of integrated and tied games is found in Table 3. This table indicates the total units of technologically tied games for each console sold in January of the reported years as well as the number of technologically tied games and a "pseudo" HHI, calculated by summing the squared market shares of each integrated and tied game.4 The HHI index measures the concentration of tied games for each console. A small index indicates technologically tied games have little impact on total video game sales while a large index signifies the opposite. The HHI is a more encompassing measure for technologically tied game importance than the measures of number of games or total units sold, which do not account for the quality of available games; nor does the latter indicate the quantity of available games. Table 3 also brings light to the relative importance of integrated and tied games for Nintendo and Microsoft. In January 2002 both Nintendo’s and Microsoft’s HHIs were roughly 50 and 30 times the size of Sony’s and by January 2005 the magnitude decreased to only eight and six times, respectively. An explanation for that sizable variation over time can be found in observing that Nintendo and Microsoft each sold a large number of technologically tied games over time and more instrumentally at the start of each console’s life cycle. As the console aged, however, the introduction of more independent games led to a decrease in the HHI 4Market shares are determined using the raw sales data and are calculated from within market sales; no outside option is included
7 Table 3: Integrated and Technologically Tied Game Statistics
Units Sold of Technologically Tied Games 2002 2003 2004 2005 Nintendo 179,011 193,347 427,153 427,449 Sony 267,545 925,290 546,351 553,758 Microsoft 382,599 234,258 414,433 454,117 Number of Technologically Tied Games Nintendo 5 12 21 33 Sony 24 45 66 87 Microsoft 10 20 38 48 Pseudo HHI of Technologically Tied Games Nintendo 535.94 59.49 54.44 38.10 Sony 10.28 55.29 8.02 5.37 Microsoft 305.02 17.39 29.09 29.97
Note: Statistics calculated for January of the corresponding year.
even though total units sold of tied games increased. The relative role of integrated and tied games consequently decreased with time for Nintendo and Microsoft.5 3 Demand Model
In this section I discuss the structural model that captures the complementary relationship between consoles and video games and the forward-looking behavior of consumers in both the hardware and software markets. The interconnectedness of hardware and software can play an important role in product adoption in platform markets [Nair et al., 2004]. Before entering the hardware market consumers may consider the number and quality of software titles that exist for the platform as well as how the number and quality of titles is expected to evolve in the future. Consumers not only form expectations about these software characteristics over time but also about hardware and software prices. Dynamics thus play a crucial role in consumer adoption. Given that I study a market consisting of durable goods it is important to specifically model a consumer’s forward-looking behavior. The timing of the model is as follows: for consumers who do not own hardware they decide whether or not to purchase a console in each period (month). They continue to make such a decision in each period until they elect to purchase a console. Once consumers have purchased hardware they exit the console market and enter the software market, where, unlike in the console market, they remain. In each period after the purchase of hardware, consumers decide what piece of software to purchase, if any. In order to estimate a model of demand that incorporates the discussed model timing and a consumer’s forward-looking behavior, I use the frameworks of Gowrisankaran and Rysman [2012] and Melnikov [2013]. These papers employ an approach that reduces the state space to a manageable number, by using the inclusive value term as the state variable. This term embeds the possible variations in product availability, pricing, and other unobservable factors that might evolve with time. The linkage of the software demand back to hardware is also a very important feature of the model. I connect consumer utility in the console and software markets through the use of an indirect network effect. Consumers are assumed to have expectations over the evolution of the software market and the value provided by software in determining whether to purchase a console. The expected value function accounts for the future evolution of the software market, which incorporates changes in software availability through the entry of new and the exit of old 5 Sony’s HHI is relatively small because in January 2002 the console was over a year old and already had a large number of independent games associated with its console causing the market share of these games to be small.
8 games as well as software price fluctuations. Next, I outline the utility specifications for hardware and software, first discussing the associated utilities for consoles and then software. Console Utility
In this section I develop a model of console choice, where each consumer i ∈ I considers whether or not to
purchase a console from the available set Ct, in each period (month) t ∈ T. Once a consumer purchases a video game console he exits the market for consoles. I assume consumers exit that market entirely; The North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study determines the fraction of the U.S. gaming population that owns two or more video game consoles of the same generation is less than 4.5%. Multihoming in consoles is therefore not an important factor. Consumer i determines in period t whether or not to purchase console c. Consoles are assumed to be durable and receive a stream of utility in each period post-purchase. Since I do not allow consumers to replace a previously purchased console with a second, the idea of a flow utility is moot and instead can be thought of as a one-time lump sum of utility in the period of adoption. If consumer i decides to purchase console c in period t , he obtains utility given by h x,h p,h ui,c,t = αc + α xc,t + α pc,t + ϕΥi,c,t + ξc,t + i,c,t (1)
where xc,t are observable console c characteristics, pc,t is the price of console c in period t, and ξc,t is an unobservable characteristic (to the econometrician) that varies both over time and across consoles.6 Examples of physical console characteristics are processing speed, graphics quality, volume of the console, CPU bits, and the number of controllers. Unobserved characteristics include other technical characteristics and market-specific effects of merchandising. I control for both the unobserved and observed product characteristics, which do not vary over
time, with the inclusion of console specific fixed effects, αc. Furthermore, the utility of a gaming console is also related to the expected value of optimally purchasing software associated with console c for consumer i in period t
and is captured with the term Υi,c,t. The functional form of Υi,c,t will be discussed in the next subsection, which is derived from the software demand model. The coefficient αx,h indicates the effect of console characteristics on the consumer’s utility. αp,h is the consumer’s
price coefficient. Lastly, I assume i,c,t for c ∈ {0}∪Ct to be distributed as a Type I Extreme Value random variable, which is independently and identically distributed across consumers, products, and time periods. Video Game Utility
Now consider a consumer who owns console c and is in the market for compatible video games. The potential market for games is thus driven by the number of consumers who currently own console c. I do not allow consumers who do not own a console to purchase video games. I denote the choice set of video games available for purchase in
period t for console c as Sct, which includes the no-purchase option 0. I assume each video game competes with all others compatible with console c. This implies consumers substitute across games but are restricted to purchasing only one video game in any given period t. For consumer i, the utility from game g on console c in period t is
s s w,s s p,s ui,g,c,t = αi + α wg,c,t + α pg,c,t + χg,c,t + i,g,c,t (2)
s where wg,c,t represents the observable characteristics of the game g on console c in period t–including age, game rating, genre, the creating firm, exclusivity of the game and the log number of games in period t. I include the last 6 Let superscript h denotes utility for hardware.
9 covariate because of the potential bias associated with the estimation of demand with a large choice set and a logit assumption. Ackerberg and Rysman [2005] shows that this feature implies logit-based models “will perform poorly in contexts where consumers face different numbers of products over time” and recommends researchers include a suitable transformation of the number of products as a regressor to alleviate this issue. I follow Ackerberg and Rysman [2005] and employ the log number of video games available in period t in a consumers utility function to correct for the large and growing choice set. Like above, the unobservable software characteristic is represented
by χg,c,t. The price of the software title g compatible with console c in period t is captured by the variable pg,c,t.
The error term i,g,c,t is comprise of idiosyncratic shocks that are distributed as Type I Extreme Value random s variables, independent across consumers, games, consoles and time periods. The coefficient αi represents the value that individual i attaches to playing video games (a gaming preference), whereas αp,s denotes the price coefficient. In order to combine measures of hardware and software utility, as I do in the above hardware utility function with the variable Υ, I scale the standard deviation of the error term for software by ψ. An alternative way to interpret ψ is on the extent of consumer utility based on unobservable factors. This scaling allows for the comparison of hardware and software utilities, which is required because I assume that the error terms for both hardware and π2 software have the same variance ( 6 for a Type-I extreme value random variable)
s 1 s w,s s p,s u˜i,g,c,t = ψ α˜i +α ˜ wg,c,t +α ˜ pg,c,t +χ ˜g,c,t + ei,g,c,t. It is typical to assume consumer i who purchases game g in period t exits the market for game g; when consumer i decides to not purchase game g in period t he remains in the market for game g and receives a utility
of ui,0,0,t = i,0,0,t. In order to introduce software competition I assume consumers are able to repurchase an already owned title. I make this assumption for the mere fact a multinomial logit model of game demand becomes computationally infeasible to estimate when a more precise tracking mechanism of each game’s potential market size is accompanied by the assumption of competition among games. The downside of this assumption is that consumers may purchase the same game multiple times during the data period. Like Derdenger and Kumar [2013] I believe this to be unlikely to happen frequently for two reasons: “(a) consumers in general have a low purchase probability for any game title, given that there are hundreds of titles. (b) software titles reach their peak pretty early in their life-cycle and decline in sales beyond that, so if a consumer hasn’t found a high-enough utility in
an early period, she’s not likely to obtain a high utility in later periods.” Software gc´s potential market size is therefore the cumulative sum of console c sales up to and including period t. As a result, I do not adjust the potential market size downward to account for software previously sold. An alternative to the above assumption is to model the market for each video game separately, leading to monopoly markets for each game [Lee, 2013]. This assumption would enable the tracking of the number of consumers who have purchased the specific software. In doing so I could update the potential market in each period to include the number of households that own the product. However, the biggest drawback for this alternative approach is that competitive interactions between software titles would not be accounted for, leading to overestimation of quality if one believes competition is an important feature.7 Consequently, I elect to introduce competition into the software model but allow consumers to possibly repurchase software titles, an approach that conservatively estimates the quality of software driven by the larger-than-actual potential market size. Lastly, in estimation I impose a restriction on the model to fix a consumer’s price sensitivity to be equal p,s αp,h for hardware and software. This restriction takes the form α = ψ . From a structural viewpoint, the price coefficient for consumers would be different for hardware and software only because the purchase of a hardware console would cause a change in wealth effects leading to a change in price sensitivity. I assume this is unlikely given video games are no more than six times more expensive than games, which are roughly $50. 7See appendix for test of importance of competition.
10 3.1 Consumer’s Problem I now formally outline the consumer’s decision process for hardware and software, which incorporates the interdependence of hardware and software as wells as a consumer’s forward-looking behavior. I focus on a consumer’s decision problem for hardware first and software second.
To rehash the timing of the model, in period t, each consumer makes a discrete choice from the set of Ct available consoles. After purchasing console c he exits the market for hardware and enters the market for software, where he may purchase one video game compatible to console c in period t and repeats the software purchase decision in each future month, again purchasing only one game each month. Console Market
Consumer i’s decision problem for a console in a specific period t equates to an optimal stopping problem; he determines whether to buy a product now or wait until the next period. This is a consequence of the fact that the model does not allow for a consumer to purchase a second console.8 Each consumer anticipates the evolution of all h state variables Ωi,t that will affect the value of his hardware adoption decision. Such variables include the future evolution of console characteristics (both observable and unobservable) and future price levels, as well the video games that might be released in the future. For a consumer in the hardware market, the Bellman equation that describes the consumer’s value for being in h a current state Ωi,t prior to his realization of is:
h h h h h h h h h EV (Ωi,t) = max{i,0,t + βE EV Ωi,t+1|Ωi,t, it , max ui,c,t}g( )d (3) ˆ c∈Ct
where the first term is the utility associated with the decision to not purchase any console and the second is that of purchasing a console in period t. h Given that Ωi,t encompasses a large number of state variables it would be computationally demanding to estimate the demand model with the above equation 3. I follow Gowrisankaran and Rysman [2012] and assume consumers h do not concern themselves with all possible state variables included in Ωi,t. Rather they concern themselves only h h with a consumer-specific logit inclusive-value state variable δi,t that captures the effects of all the variables in Ωi,t. The logit inclusive value term is the ex-ante present discounted lifetime value of buying the preferred console, as opposed to holding the outside option. Note, given consumers exit the market after the purchase of hardware and are unable to replace/upgrade their console, the logit inclusive value is also the ex-ante current lifetime value. With the employment of the extreme value distribution for and the inclusive value, I can transform the above function into a much simpler form: