Business of Esports TV: YouGov Insights – OLED Switch

(Livestream 139)

In this segment, we discuss some statistics from our friends at YouGov (yougov.com/gaming-esports), specifically a study on reactions to the new OLED Switch.

The Business Of Esports brings you news, debates, and all the information you need to know about the gaming sector, the world’s fastest-growing market. With Paul “The Profit” Dawalibi leading the charge, and a variety of special guests, BoE TV is the only place to find insider information on the esports industry!

Check out the full livestream here:

Paul Dawalibi 1:14:23
You guys put something here? What is this? Oh, yeah, this is interesting. Jimmy Jimmy just sent this to me. I should have I should have actually brought it up during the Nintendo Switch segment. But this is really good. From yougov actually. So yougov did research in the hours after Nintendo made their announcement for the new switch. And for nearly 40% of general consumers in the US. And a quarter like 25% in the UK who had heard at least or a little bit about the announcement are likely to pick up the newest version of the switch in the next six months. I mean, that us number is very high to me. 47% of general consumers, who had heard at least a little bit about the announcement are likely to pick up the newest version of the switch in the next six months. If that’s the case, these things are going to sell. I mean, they’re obviously going to sell as many as they can make. But the question becomes how many can Nintendo actually make? That’s a big number.

William Collis 1:17:40
Is there some big feature in this we’re missing? I just it makes me want to go back and listen again.

Lindsay Poss 1:17:46
The only thing that I’m that makes me pause here is that it was in the hours after. And once that doesn’t mess now that the dust is settled. And we’ve gotten a lot of Oh, there’s not that many great new features opinions. I wonder if that initial excitement has worn down a bit from 47%?

Paul Dawalibi 1:18:06
I mean, it’s one of those things where you’re obviously going to get more excitement right in the beginning, in that first hours. But no question that like the that doesn’t there’s no way that that drops precipitously, either, right? Like that’s gonna have some amount of holding power 15%

Lindsay Poss 1:18:23
drop is still a massive win for and and definitely not my point. It’s just I do think that there was a lot of initial excitement. And then as people kind of started to realize what the features were about. It was kind of like, maybe not,

Paul Dawalibi 1:18:37
but keep in mind. Did you guys watch the announcement? Sorry to go back to this. But Did any of you actually watch the announcement? It was like a two and a half minute video, something like that. And I would say two minutes and 10 seconds. Were just video of gameplay. But there was almost no focus on the actual hardware or console itself. Right. It was there was a little bit on the newsstand. There was a little bit on the OLED screen. And that was it and the rest was just gameplay.

Jimmy Mondal 1:19:08
Right and do the people being questioned know anything technical? Do they know what

Paul Dawalibi 1:19:15
Tech’s most Nintendo fans don’t care that to me that that proves that that? That? No, I

Jimmy Mondal 1:19:21
that’s why I completely agree with the stat making sense. But to Lindsay’s point, I think that also is because I think it’s really key that they indicated first few hours in that you asked someone in the first couple of hours, hey, you’re gonna get the new switch. Hell yeah, man. But to Lindsay’s point, maybe once they learn more about the technical aspect, they’ll be like, hey, it doesn’t really seem that different than the one I already own. And I think it’s really key that they define the first few hours but I agree with Lindsay, I think the 15% 20% drop off will be there. And yeah,

Paul Dawalibi 1:19:54
yeah, but every business guys has models for things like this. Right? You You know what you’re funnel looks like from, from attention, or any intention all the way to purchase, right and that funnel for most businesses, especially one like Nintendo, they understand this very clearly. So if they have a data point that says 47%, in the first few hours are going into the top of the funnel, right? Now they know again, in terms of actionable data, if I’m a, if if I’m head of sales at Nintendo, now I know what I need to do, I need to focus on keeping those people in that funnel, right. And in reducing the amount of drop off along the way, and taking action on that initial massive interest. I guarantee you, they’re thinking about how to follow up on this interest in those first few hours, not just in that, you know, putting out that first video. This is, I think, the power of these, this kind of having this kind of data in terms of how you take action on it, though.

Lindsay Poss 1:20:55
Knowing knowing that the interest was so high initially, like definitely makes me change my view on it. I just I do just wonder, I mean, the truth is

Paul Dawalibi 1:21:03
that the Nintendo audience, but it proves also that the Nintendo audience is relatively unsophisticated from a hardware standpoint, right? They probably don’t care what the hardware changes are. It’s a new switch. It’s a cool product from Nintendo. It looks good, right? This is enough to compel people to say I want to buy I’m gonna buy it.

Jimmy Baratta 1:21:25
Also, I just want to say, you know, we’re, we’re hype, we are harping on one statistic, and I see Paul dropped in the chat for everyone listening that you can go check out the other insights that you have offers on first impressions from the Nintendo Switch, uphold yesterday, July 6. So I mean, a lot of interesting things there in terms of like interest in the kickstand or interest in the OLED display, not just the overall will they buy it that we’re talking about here. So really nuanced, I think and detailed insights here.

Paul Dawalibi 1:21:57
I mean, if you guys want, I can bring this up if you want to, if it’s worth the, I think it might be worth just taking a quick look at. But if I put the if I bring this up here, the most exciting features for those likely to purchase the switch Oh LED, obviously, the improved display size and quality, obviously, the increased storage. The ones that were the least I think what’s interesting is the least exciting were the improved audio, which they did also highlight in that launch video.

William Collis 1:22:31
You know, looking at this, it makes me completely rethink my take on this product. Why my original take was correct, by the way, but it makes me completely rethink like it looks to me, like Nintendo probably almost had some internal marketing about what could we do to freshen up the switch? The number one user complaints where there’s not enough storage, and I wish the display was brighter, right? They recognize the switch is ready to go. Let’s just spruce it up. How do we keep it cheap, $50 incremental increase. And then here you’re seeing it reflected in the consumer sentiment back?

Jimmy Mondal 1:23:03
Right. I think this is a survey asking them about the alleged switch specifically anyways.

Paul Dawalibi 1:23:09
But guys, like look at this next step, because this next step, I think, is coming back to our point that we I think, intuitively we all felt, which is when they asked when they looked at people who were not likely or not likely at all to purchase the switch, oh, led in the next six months, right? The reasons that they gave the number one reason was, and this is 21% of people in the US, the updates to the system over the original switch aren’t substantial enough. So for in the US, for people who were not likely to purchase it. The reason they’re not likely to purchase it was it’s not enough of an upgrade. What’s interesting is, it’s totally not the case in Great Britain in the UK, where they don’t seem to care that it’s not enough of an upgrade. Their biggest concerns were cost. And their current console was perfectly fine. Any thoughts on why the US compared to the UK like the most of the other stats trend relatively close? Why do we think that the Americans are not getting? Why do we think Americans care so much more about the updates to the system being substantial enough and that being you know, the reason they’re not buying it?

Jimmy Mondal 1:24:28
consumer culture iPhone culture?

Paul Dawalibi 1:24:32
I think it’s a good thought.

Jimmy Mondal 1:24:35
I think that would be my initial thought

William Collis 1:24:37
that that in the fact if you read into the British numbers, there seems to be some sense of their withholding judgment on like, I need to do more research before I buy is higher, right? Like things like that. I don’t play video games is much higher, which is Yeah, yeah.

Jimmy Mondal 1:24:55
also kind of interesting.

Paul Dawalibi 1:24:57
Ramsey says isn’t the third row basically the same As the first updates aren’t substantial enough, so I’m happy with the one I have. Yeah. Well, I mean, there are different thoughts. There. They are different than distinct thoughts. I can see how they’re definitely correlated potentially. But like you can, you can be happy with the system you have

Jeff Cohen 1:25:19
not yet did enough to get another one.

Paul Dawalibi 1:25:22
Yes, yeah. Or vice versa, you can be happy with your current console, but still think the updates aren’t good enough to buy or still think or Yeah, exactly, still think the updates aren’t good enough to buy. So the other big, the only other big difference or that like the area where there was separation between the numbers is I need to do more research before I buy, which was definitely higher in the UK than in the US. So we’re more impulsive consumers in the US maybe. Or just because something’s new. So that was and just in terms of the methodology guys, this was really interesting. And Jimmy, you brought it up, they pulled 12 191 us adults online on July 6, so that was yesterday when it was announced between 12:12pm and 1:45pm. Eastern time. So literally, in the moment, and the margin of error is 3.7%. So you know, even with the margin of error there you are talking about a huge number of people who essentially are saying we intend to buy this thing after seeing the announcement similar to the the British adults about the same size sample. So I posted this guy’s the the whole sort of data set that they put out on the switch. It’s a lot of cool stats in here. A lot of cool facts. Definitely go check it out the links in the chat. There you go. We ended up doing a small yougov insights segment, after all, on the switch, which is great video by the video. The video from the beginning.

All right, all right, let’s let’s get you You are not going to make that a thing. You got juiced. This. We are going to get these videos will get demonetised for

Jimmy Mondal 1:27:20
surely that.