Don’t Look Back? Backward Compatibility in the Video Gaming Industry

Joe Cox, Paul Crosby, Jordi McKenzie

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Articlepeer-review

    1 Citation (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Backward compatibility is a governance strategy that can be adopted by platform owners to build indirect network effects and encourage owners of older compatible software to update to newer hardware models. Previous research shows backward compatibility has a positive effect on hardware sales. However, there is limited evidence concerning the other associated costs and benefits. In particular, there is a lack of evidence on the effect of backward compatibility on software sales despite its importance in understanding the full range of possible network and sales displacement effects associated with the strategy. Using weekly software-level sales data from the U.S. video gaming industry, we find that backward-compatible hardware associates with increased sales of software released for the previous hardware generation. However, we find that the introduction of backward compatibility may not increase the sales of new hardware if the feature is not available immediately at launch. Further, we show that the increased sales of software for the old hardware platform may cannibalize software sales for the new platform. Overall, our results suggest that backward compatibility is time-sensitive and involves several important trade-offs. We, therefore, conclude that the use of backward compatibility needs to be carefully considered by platform owners prior to implementation.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)387-404
    Number of pages18
    JournalStrategy Science
    Volume8
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Sep. 2023

    Keywords

    • backward compatibility
    • innovation
    • platform governance
    • product development
    • two-sided markets
    • video games

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