Japanese electronics firm puts back launch of motion-sensitive controller by six months to enable software developers to produce more games for it
Sony has delayed the launch of its motion- sensitive rival to Nintendo’s highly successful Wii games console by six months and it will not now hit the shops until the autumn. The delay means that the Japanese gaming giant now has only a slim timing advantage over Microsoft, which is due to launch its revolutionary hands-free gaming interface – codenamed Project Natal – for the Xbox 360 in time for Christmas. But it does mean that by the festive season, video gamers will have the choice of three different devices, all of which will use motion-sensitive control, giving players a far more interactive experience.
The news is an obvious setback for Sony, which was plagued by delays when it launched the PlayStation 3 three years ago. It also comes after the company last week admitted that the launch of hotly anticipated racing game Gran Turismo 5 had had to be delayed yet again. It has been more than five years since the last instalment of the very popular franchise. But the company stressed that the decision to delay the launch of its
new controller was not linked to any particular hardware or design fault. Instead the company wants to ensure that there are enough games available that can use the new controller before launching it on the market.
The success of the Nintendo Wii, launched in 2006, has revolutionised the games market.
Allowing players to ditch their joysticks and traditional button-heavy controllers in favour of a wand they can wave at their TV screens has helped widen the appeal of video games, taking consoles out of teenage bedrooms and back into the living room.
Sony unveiled its answer to the Wii, a controller for the Playstation 3, at the E3 electronics show in Los Angeles last summer.
It uses a television-top camera to track a wireless controller held by the player. Sony claims it can track actions with ‘sub- millimeter accuracy’.
Microsoft’s Project Natal, however, is more ambitious and does not require players to hold a controller at all. Microsoft maintains it can track a player’s movements in three dimensions. It can also recognise faces and react to voice prompts, greatly expanding the range of actions which software developers can use in their games.
Source: The Guardian Unlimited, January 20, 2010
3.3.1 The organization as a political arena
Power and conflict need to be given special attention when it comes to decision making. An organization is a kind of coalition of participants to which each person brings his or her own specific demands. In this respect decision making is a political process.
Companies are usually split into departments or divisions and complex interdependencies often develop between these units. This often gives rise to conflict, especially when there is a scarcity of resources. Whether these potential conflicts lead to actual ‘control problems’ will depend on the importance of the issue and the degree to which power is spread throughout the organization.
In the ‘arena’ model of decision making, there is often so little agreement among the main players of the organization and such preoccupation with power and politics, that consensus on the main issues facing the organization may be very difficult to achieve.
power and conflict
consensus
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For decision-making processes to be truly dynamic, the following four characteristics of organizational processes should be kept in mind:
1 Organizational conflicts due to the diversity of interests and preferences of the coalition partners are usually not totally resolved, but are instead reduced to acceptable proportions by means of a variety of procedures. To reconcile the various partial or quasi solutions, the organization can use the mechanism of optimizing rather than maximizing results, and paying attention to the attaining of goals which are actually in conflict with each other at any one time, using the intervening time as a buffer.
2 Organizations try to control the environment as far as possible by means of agreements, contracts and traditions. Furthermore, they constantly adjust their decision-making procedures in response to reactions from the environment.
3 Organizations keep searching for solutions to specific problems and only when a problem has been solved or seems to have been solved does the searching stop. The search proceeds according to three patterns: looking for a direct solution to the problem, looking for indirect solutions in the form of known alternatives, and trying to pass the problem to organizationally weak sectors of the organization.
4 Organizations seem to learn. They appear to be able to adapt to changed circumstances during the course of time. Though they may occasionally do irrational things,
organizations almost always work along traditional lines. The organization operates according to an obvious hierarchy of preferences and a number of choice rules: avoid uncertainty, maintain rules and keep rules simple. An organization makes decisions in such a way that the results are satisfactory for the decision makers in that they attain a desired or target level (optimizing, rather than maximizing behavior).
3.3.2 The organization as a garbage can
According to the ‘garbage can’ model of decision making, organizations are seen as ‘organized anarchies’ characterized by unclear and inconsistent goals, complex and little understood technology, as well as a varying degree of participation by the members of the organization.
Universities and colleges are considered to be prototypes of such a model.
The ‘garbage can’ model views organizations as consisting of four elements: problems, solutions, participants and selection opportunities. Selection opportunities are situations in which participants are expected to match a particular problem and a particular solution and in so doing, make a decision. These four elements exist in many different and totally
unpredictable combinations. Solutions can precede problems, or problems and solutions can await the right occasion for a decision. This decision-making model turns the phase model described in Section 3.2 – identification, development, selection and decision making – completely on its head.
In the ‘garbage can’ model the organization is seen as a collection of relatively autonomous departments and interest groups whose only link is the overall budget to which each must adhere. This does not mean, however, that there is no system at all to the decision making in this type of organization. On the contrary, from the decision-making point of view, the apparent anarchy has a structure which can enable a relatively good, if not optimal, response to be made to any insecurities emanating from the environment that decision makers and departments have to deal with.
Decision making can only progress if the organization’s stakeholders appreciate the problems involved. The stakeholders usually have more to worry about and decisions may be put off or are made without due consideration of the problem by the stakeholders. However, it is the task of the board of directors or the divisional or departmental management to involve the stakeholders in the decision-making process and to direct decision making along the path desired by the organization.
garbage can
selection opportunities
apparent anarchy
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3.3.3 Recommendations for better decision making
The degree to which decision making in an organization is rational, ordered and logical depends on all sorts of factors. Koopman et al. (1988) compiled a list of the main limiting factors.
• Lack of information. Decision makers seldom have all the relevant information at their disposal. They will often not have the time, tools, techniques or resources to gather all the relevant information.
• Lack of courage and internal stability. Information of a negative nature often leads decision makers to close their eyes to important aspects of reality. Stress can result in decision makers avoiding problems and risks as a defensive action. Both will lead to bad decision making. Group thinking can reinforce this further. The perception of the environment is false; deviating views are not taken into account.
• Lack of consensus. In the ‘arena’ model of organization the opposite of group thinking occurs – that is, a total lack of agreement on the main issues tears the organization apart.
Power processes and conflicts between the important players or coalitions threaten the lucidity of the decision making.
• Lack of policy and insight into organizational processes. According to the ‘garbage can’
model of organizations, decision makers often have to work with unclear and inconsistent goals and an insufficiently understood technology, resulting in a wide range of decision- making problems. Insufficient vision and a lack of policy can reinforce this.
• Lack of guidance and control. Highly complex decision-making processes demand well-considered phasing and process handling. This involves good management skills, both in diagnosing the problem and handling the politics of the organization. Logical and political aspects must be carefully integrated.
• Lack of attunement to the strategic situational factors. Some situations will demand an approach that is directed towards participation and negotiation; others will require a one-sided policy direction, formulated at the top. A flexible, step-by-step approach is sometimes necessary; in other cases, detailed planning and supervision of time and cost constraints will be the most important factors.
With these limitations on decision making in mind, we can draw up a list of recommendations for improving decision making within the organization.
1 Define the problem and plan the decision-making process carefully.
2 Consider all the alternatives.
3 Use your intuition when necessary (a high level of uncertainty, little experience, no objective data).
4 Adopt group decision making when appropriate (complex problems requiring specialist knowledge, need to build up trust and acceptance).
5 Avoid group thinking otherwise; use the ‘devil’s advocate’ technique.
6 Delegate wherever possible.
7 Strive for consensus as far as possible.
8 The diagnostic and political skills of decision makers should be respected.
9 Adapt the decision-making strategy to the demands of the situation.
10 Ensure that the choice of decision-making process gives equal weight to both technical content on the one hand and socio-political aspects on the other.
3.4 Decision making: techniques and approaches
In the individual phases of the decision-making process, various techniques can be used to help solve the problems at hand. Some techniques promote creativity and so can be of help in Phase 2. Others can be used in Phase 4 to ensure a responsible choice will be made from the available alternatives.
‘arena’ model
recommendations
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3.4.1 Techniques for improving creativity
When there is an open organizational culture, several techniques can be used to stimulate creative ability and to make optimal use of it. We will cover two of these techniques:
brainstorming and lateral thinking. These techniques are based on the premise that human beings are more creative the less they feel pressured by others.