Product performance in eras of varying technology based competition

Technological imbalances that emerge from the evolution of technological systems act as focusing devices and firms subsequently engage in closing the imbalances with product development efforts resulting in technology based competition. In this paper we empirically study the measurement of technological imbalances and in turn derive a framework that distinguishes between differing dynamics of technology based competition. We then illustrate the application of this framework in the empirical study of the PC technological system, focusing specifically on its function as a computer gaming platform. In our empirical illustration we study the co-evolutionary technological imbalance formation of the PC game software in relation to the CPU and GPU hardware sub-systems, respectively, between August 1995 and 2008. Our results show that the co-evolution of the PC game and hardware sub-systems progresses successively through eras marked by differing dynamic properties of technology based competition. We in turn explore the market performance of products that are first to introduce higher levels of technological performance with respect to these different eras of competition. We finally elaborate on managerial and theoretical implications of our developed framework as well as the empirical illustration.