Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 411 If you want to buy, buy your company

"Why, are you worried that the crew of "007" won't be able to use the money?" Tang Huan laughed at Andy Albert's surprise, "I know a lot about "Octopus Girl", and there are many articles in it. Do."

"However, until now, the actor to play James Bond has not been determined. Due to Warner's disruption, Eon thinks that it is better to continue to use Roger Moore, the original team, for safety's sake." Andy Albert Trying out Tang Huan's thoughts.

"Their concerns are very reasonable." Tang Huan pondered for a moment, "The reason why Roger Moore doesn't want to renew his contract is nothing more than two reasons. Everyone is not happy with the cooperation, and he dislikes the low salary. In this way, you can go out and talk about it yourself. , to show our sincerity with practical actions.”

"The bottom line in terms of pay..."

"I remember Sean Connery's last two James Bond remuneration was a fixed amount plus royalties or a percentage of the box office, then give Roger Moore an increase in the basic remuneration, a few million dollars, you can figure it out , the method of dividing it should be avoided as much as possible.”

"Understood, I'll do it myself right away, time is a bit tight now." Andy Albert ended the call in a hurry.

"See, Warner has attacked us from both video games and movies." Tang Huan spread his hands jokingly.

Hawkins followed with a smile, "Atari will release the Atari 2600, the successor product of the Atari 5200, at this COMDEX. Although the detailed hardware specifications are not yet known, it is certain that the Atari 5200 is not compatible. Atari 2600."

"Is this way to regain the control of the hardware platform lost by Atari 2600?" Tang Huan thought for a while, "That's fine, since Atari is so eager to get ahead, let it explore the way. To see how the market reacts is also a good way to assess the chances of success of this approach.”

……

Influential large-scale exhibitions often play a positive and positive role in promoting the economy of the host city to some extent.

This COMDEX came to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island along the Atlantic coast. It is famous for its Boardwalk Hall-Esplanade Convention Center and Casino. It is the largest casino on the east coast of the United States.

After Tang Huan finished bragging to people from all walks of life on the COMDEX forum, he began to conduct private interviews in the exhibition hall on Weibo, because there were many new faces in this exhibition.

It has to be said that where there is money to be made, capital with a keen sense of smell will jump there.

As Hawkins mentioned, Atari released the Atari 2600, the next-generation product of the Atari 5200, and its performance made Tang Huan feel relieved, but also quite disappointed.

To put it bluntly, Atari really doesn’t have any dry goods in its stomach. The so-called next-generation home video game console, the Atari 5200, is just a modified version of its personal computer product Atari 400/800. .
What's especially terrible is that the Atari 2600, which is not compatible with the Atari 5200, has no ace games on the new platform except for a few demo games.

With this little thing, the Atari 5200 can't even compare with the 1981 version of the Little Overlord game console!
Could it be said that Atari in Silicon Valley just rushed to hand over a job to Warner's high-level executives in New York?This is too fooling father.

Tang Huan shook his head speechlessly. Originally, he had hoped that the Atari 5200, which started all over again to fight for the control of the game platform, would be able to find the way. Looking at the situation now, he was lucky not to die.

Compared with the sluggishness of Atari, ColecoVision, the new home video game console launched by Coleco Industries, is quite eye-catching.

Coleco can also be called an old-fashioned company. Founded in 1932, it mainly produced leather products at the beginning. After entering the 60s and [-]s, it switched to plastic products and toys.

In the 1970s when Atari pioneered the video game industry, Coleco keenly grasped this opportunity and began to enter this field in 1976.

Therefore, Coleco, calculated in this way, is quite qualified, and the ColecoVision product can be called excellent.

The CPU used in the current home TV game consoles basically has two options - Zilog's Z80 series and MOS Technology's MOS 6502 series. ColecoVision uses the former - the second supply source NEC version of the 3.58 MHz Zilog Z80A .

None of these specs count, but where the ColecoVision really shines is in what it claims to offer near-arcade-quality graphics and gameplay.

This also means that ColecoVision has spent a lot of thought on the hardware design of the entire system, and the mystery lies in the video processor it uses - TMS9928A from Texas Instruments, and the 16 KB graphics memory on board.

Tang Huan took a closer look. The selling point advertised by ColecoVision is not exaggerated, and the effect it achieves even poses the most direct threat to EA's 1981 version of the Little Overlord game console.

At the same time, Coleco has carefully prepared supporting games that can run on the hardware platform of the new game console. A total of 12 new games have been launched, and another 10 new games have been announced this year.

"It seems that in the North American market, Coleco's ColecoVision will become the fourth important game console platform after EA's Xiaobawang game console, Atari's Atari 2600, and Mattel's Intellivision."

Tang Huan nodded and smiled playfully, "It's just a pity that this product is not produced at the right time. It's hard to get a good market for a year."

After sighing with regret, Tang Huan continued to browse, and soon he saw a product worthy of his eyes-Vectrex from General Consumer Electronics.

Unlike Xiaobawang game consoles and Atari 2600, which are connected to TVs and use raster graphics, Vectrex is a home game console with vector display. In addition to providing game consoles, manufacturers also have supporting vector displays.

Vectrex, which only supports black and white, simulates colors, various static graphics and decorations by covering the plastic screen.

In fact, many types of mainstream arcade games at this stage use vector graphics. Vectrex has also obtained authorization for such high-quality games while introducing this technology to the field of home video game consoles.

Vectrex游戏主机所使用的CPU是摩托罗拉的8位微处理器——1.5 MHz的MC68A09，外部设备为光线笔和3D imager。

After playing the random built-in game "MineStorm" in Vectrex for a while, Tang Huan nodded with satisfaction. Although this thing is a bit niche, it definitely has a market and is full of creativity, which is worthy of recognition.

After glancing at the $199 retail price tag, Tang Huan casually ordered his followers, "Record it, find a suitable opportunity, and acquire this company."

Because there are not many people watching the excitement at this booth, the service personnel of Vectrex are not very busy. Seeing that Tang Huan is very interested in their products, they find an opportunity to come over to strike up a conversation, and they seem to have heard Tang Huan's words Content.

"Sir, you are so interested in our products, are you going to buy one?" The other party asked happily.

"It's so boring to buy only one game console. If you want to buy it, you can buy your company." After the assistant replied with a smile, he caught up with Tang Huan's departure.

"Crazy..." The employee of General Consumer Electronics, who felt that he had been teased, cursed angrily in a low voice.

……

This year, EA did not make major adjustments to the hardware of the first generation of Xiaobawang game consoles. It only optimized external devices such as handles. I can wait for the second generation Xiaobawang game console.

Of course, it is impossible for EA to sit idle and do nothing. Its work results are mainly reflected in the software field. Except for the Japanese company Shigeru Miyamoto and others who continue to launch games on the Xiaobawang game console platform, the American company has been cooperating with Philosophy. Ru's graphics processor project, as well as the Fangyuan computer platform, perfected the game engine and launched video games on the personal computer platform.

That is to say, EA wants to turn Fangyuan Computer into its second game platform. It has transplanted a large number of best-selling games on the Xiaobawang game console platform. "Monopoly" and "Great Voyage".

Therefore, an interesting phenomenon appeared on COMDEX. Many people used the demo disks of "Monopoly" and "Great Voyage" as a standard to choose the Fangyuan computer and its compatibles that suit their wishes.

This shows how popular these two games are, especially "Great Voyage".

You know, the Fisher treasure hunting fleet under the name of Tang Huan not only found the wealth left by the Spanish treasure ship in the age of great navigation, but also discovered the Titanic this year, which has become a legend.

Against this background, the "Great Voyage" video game launched in a timely manner, has become the focus of attention of the industry and game fans since EA released the product rumors.

EA's "Monopoly" and "Great Voyage", even compared with the first version of similar games in the original time and space, the visual effects are still much worse, after all, the performance of the current personal computer system is there.

However, players at this stage are not demanding in this regard.

Therefore, "Monopoly" and "Voyage", which are full of playability and content, immediately touched the hearts of the public as soon as they appeared.

Ordinary people can only lament that EA, the leader in the video game industry, is really diligent in innovation, but insightful people have noticed that EA is increasingly investing resources in the personal computer platform, and thus launched various developments. This kind of analysis can be regarded as supporting a large number of media people.

Compared with EA's business strategy that makes people look at flowers in a fog, the intentions of Fangyuan Computer and Zheru Software are upright and clear at a glance, that is, to actively expand the sound processing capabilities and application fields of microcomputers.

To this end, Zheru has launched two softwares: audio editing software Audition and composition software CompositionMagic, which makes the MIDI function of Fangyuan computer very intuitive.

Almost all the hackers who teamed up to create a product acceptable to the public were music lovers, and the pursuit of freedom represented by personal computers breaking through the monopoly privilege of mainframe computers also won the favor of artists.

Therefore, personal computers have always had a delicate relationship with avant-garde artists, and the creation process of Audition, CompositionMagic and MIDI itself has professional support from musicians.

then.Fangyuan Computer, which increasingly showed its excellence in sound functions, was quickly recognized by people in the American music industry.

Of course, this benefit is not unique to Fangyuan Computer, and its increasingly powerful compatible machine camp has also shared the benefits.

However, Tang Huan was not satisfied with these progresses, and he decided to make a big push in the second half of the year.

……

As for the opponent of the Fangyuan computer standard camp - the IBM-PC standard camp, it is a little lonely on COMDEX.

Compared with the lively atmosphere where Fangyuan Computer has compatible machine allies such as HP and Japanese manufacturers, Big Blue is still singing a one-man show.

Fortunately, the troika on its platform - spreadsheets, word processing, and databases - is thriving, which can be regarded as the harvest of Don Estridge's previous active layout.

Because except for the purpose of attracting customers, Zheru will not develop products with the same functions as the Fangyuan computer platform on the IBM-PC platform, so there are fewer suppressed software providers, and the competition on the IBM-PC platform is very fierce.

For example, in the field of spreadsheets, VisiCalc, which took advantage of its first-mover advantage to gain technological advantages, raised its product price from $100 per copy to $250 to increase profits, while latecomers such as SuperCalc and Multiplan also unceremoniously launched fierce competition.

In particular, Microsoft's Multiplan, under Gates' painstaking efforts to learn from others everywhere, has increasingly shown its advantages in learning from others.

However, Tang Huan still couldn't see the achievements of these entrants, and those who could survive in two years were called real heroes.

In this way, Tang Huan still quietly continued his plan to purchase all kinds of fresh meat on COMDEX.

(End of this chapter)