Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 454 Only EA Stands Standing

The essence of the spreadsheet software war is the standard battle between Fangyuan Computer and IBM-PC, two personal computer platforms standing behind.

Tang Huan predicted that the new personal computer equipped with the Intel 80286 microprocessor will be the focus of the next contest, and it may also be a node where the rules of the game will change.

But Tang Huan does not intend to be led by the nose by IBM. Multimedia functions, a mass consumer application field, are what he expects from the concept of personal computers for microcomputers.

For this reason, Tang Huan recruited Jay Miner, who was born in Atari, and his team, which was developing the multimedia platform Amiga, into Cupertino.

The reason why he didn't call Jay Miner's team, which had been under his control for a long time until this time, was mainly because Tang Huan was too lazy to get into the trouble of non-competition—you know, Jay Miner is an Atari 2600 video The core developer of the module.

Last year, Atari and Mattel fought and sued each other simply because they poached a few of each other's programmers.

In Tang Huan's view, it is short-sighted not to seize the time to squeeze the profits of this wave of home video game market in North America, but to waste precious energy to bullshit.

Now Tang Huan officially brought Jay Miner's team into the system, because first, he had finished obeying the rules, and second, Atari was too busy to take care of himself, even if he wanted to bite himself, he didn't have the strength to bite him.

Atari's video game "ET: The Extra-Terrestrial" was a real hit during the Christmas season, and loyal fans of "ET: The Extra-Terrestrial" paid for it one after another, and the number of copies sold has exceeded 100 million copies.

Seeing this scene, Atari and Warner threw off their arms excitedly and worked overtime to produce nearly 500 million sets of cassettes, intending to make a fortune on their own Atari 2600 and EA's Xiaobawang game console platform .

It is a pity that due to unexpected events, the North American home video game console market began to show obvious slow-moving phenomenon.

Most video game manufacturers, including Atari and Mattel, sell their products in a similar way to traditional toys. Simply put, they let the sellers pay for the order first, and when the sales are no longer available, they sell the remaining goods in some form. products are returned.

But this operating mechanism with the nature of "pressing goods" has begun to fail now, and terminal merchants cannot return goods to the upper-level channel, so they have to sacrifice their capital for a big fire sale in order to stop losses to the maximum extent, and this may not necessarily be possible If it can be sold, the gloomy clouds in the market can be imagined.

Seeing that nearly 400 million sets of "ET Alien" video game cassettes were about to fall into their hands, the management of Atari and Warner were collectively in a mess, desperately thinking about remedial measures, and they couldn't care less about other things.

Of course, the current performance of EA's home video game console business in the North American market is not much better, but EA's business is not completely hanged in the North American market.

First of all, the long-term careful cultivation in the Japanese and European markets has played a good buffer role in the performance share contributed by it, and the small-scale Australian and Latin American markets have also formed a benign nourishing effect.

Moreover, EA has also successfully developed the game platform of personal computer. This potential prospect alone can make Wall Street investors maintain relatively stable confidence.

In addition, EA has grasped a lot of income from the non-video game industry when the market is at its best, which also provides it with a large number of cotton coats for the winter.

More importantly, Tang Huan, EA's largest individual shareholder and absolute controller, made it clear that if EA's stock fell below $50, he would increase his holdings without hesitation.

Such a firm statement is enough to ensure that EA can stand firm in this uncontrollable industry crisis. After all, the upstarts in Silicon Valley are too qualified to speak boldly in terms of financial resources, so that they also have no choice but to use Jay Miner's team. There is no need to worry too much.

……

Jay Miner, who has successfully participated in the development of the Atari 2600, did not expect his Amiga project to burn so much money.Investors who initially took a fancy to his reputation in the industry, saw that the stall was getting bigger and bigger, but they could not produce benefits according to the agreement, so they retreated one after another.

It has to be said that this is the most common dilemma entrepreneurs encounter, and not everyone can survive such difficulties.

Therefore, when Tang Huan funded Jay Miner's team in the form of convertible bonds, Jay Miner was like a drowning man catching a floating log and immediately hugging him tightly.

Originally, Jay Miner thought that he would not be troubled by financial problems in the future, but he did not expect that the home video game console industry is now showing a trend of great depression, especially the American media, which is extremely exaggerated, clamoring "The Video Game Boom Is Over!" - "The trend of video games is over!", the noise was frightening.

Being called into Cupertino this time, Jay Miner is faintly worried that his Amiga project is very likely to face a situation where it will eventually die. The big bosses have always had a common side of decisiveness and ruthlessness in terms of stop loss measures. .

The Cupertino headquarters is a little crowded, as you can see from the parking spaces, so it's no wonder EA and even Fangyuan Computer are rumored to be moving out.

Jay Miner, who had this thought flashing through his mind, finally parked the car, clapped his hands, and shouted: "Mitchy, come here."

A cocker spaniel immediately jumped out of the car and ran towards Jay Miner affectionately.

Jay Miner can be said to love dogs like his life. Almost no matter where he goes, this cocker spaniel named Mitchy will be with him.

"Mr. Miner, this is Mitchy's ID badge. From now on, he can play freely in the Cupertino headquarters." The staff in charge of the reception handed over a delicate aluminum alloy pet badge Card.

Jay Miner took it with satisfaction, and bent down to put it on his pet dog, "Mitchy, don't be naughty, I'm going to work first."

Seeing Mitchy being taken away by professional staff, Jay Miner came to see Tang Huan in peace.

The meeting place is not in the office of the chairman of the board, but in the heavily guarded research and development center.

In fact, as long as you pass the identity check by the security personnel, the working atmosphere in the area where the R&D center is located is quite relaxed.

Seeing that Tang Huan was concentrating on playing a new home video game console he had never seen before, Jay Miner couldn't help but sink in his heart. Gein's image quality and sound effects displayed by this game console were exactly what he had. Hope the Amiga project achieves that.

(End of this chapter)