The PVI Model in Action
A True Story
Don't wait. The time will never be just right.
—Napoleon Hill American author specializing on achieving success
Howard Lincoln woke up in his hotel room in Las Vegas. He was heading to the world's largest consumer technology trade show, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), at which he was going to be the main speaker. As chairman of Nintendo, Lincoln was to make a major announcement that had the place buzzing with anticipation: Nintendo was going to partner with Sony to create a new home video game console. Many Sony executives couldn't wait for the announcement and had been promoting the product the night before while bragging about the partnership between Nintendo and Sony.
The announcement, however, didn't go as Sony employees had hoped or claimed. Instead of partnering with Sony, Nintendo announced that it was partnering with Philips N.V., the Dutch electronics giant. The news sent shockwaves throughout the conference. Nintendo had betrayed one Japanese company (Sony) for a European company (Philips), a breach that violated the cultural norms of the Japanese business world. Not only that, but Philips was actually Nintendo's rival. Nintendo's reputation took a big hit as a result.
The Impact
This event directly affected a 38-year-old Sony engineer named Ken Kutaragi. As the Sony project leader who led the effort to design a home video game product, Kutaragi's dreams nearly died when Nintendo turned down the partnership with his company. ...
