Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 486 Nintendo is the first to release FC
……

After Tang Huan finished dealing with the gang of journalists who seemed to have been beaten to death, he walked into the banquet hall while muttering in his heart, "It seems that the most troublesome part of the aftermath of the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer quality gate is the public relations. "

"Don, you purposely stayed in London to entertain us, so you won't delay the time to go back to the United States to fight the fire?" Charles asked with concern.

"There is no need for that. As a listed company, the management of Fangyuan Computer Company is very formal, and it has its own procedures for such issues."

Tang Huan waved his hand nonchalantly, took a glass of beer from the waiter, and drank it proudly, then said with a smile, "I'm really thirsty after talking so much with the reporter just now."

After the applause, Viscount Chelsea Charles Cadogan made an interesting anecdote, "Recently, a metropolis in the beverage industry intends to acquire Guinness, but unexpectedly, it was disturbed by a group of Harvard Business School students. It seems that as a In return, Guinness sold its Guinness Top Co., Ltd. to the holding company of the other party, causing many people to laugh at how Guinness’s strength is so strong. As a result, Guinness argued very seriously that the Guinness World Records would not change its name. And it can be operated more professionally, the two parties are purely strategic cooperation. It is really surprising to talk about strategic cooperation with a bunch of brats!"

Tang Huan smiled playfully, but was a little speechless in his heart.This girl Zhuang Menghua is really a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers. In fact, her original intention is to obtain the operation authorization in the Asian region. She really swallowed the other party with a big mouth. Crazy, leveraged buyouts and other concepts that are small and big can be cleverly used to fake tigers.

"Tang, I hope that Fangyuan PC can solve the current quality problems as soon as possible. After all, your products occupy a large share in the education and commercial fields in the UK." Charles finally made a serious suggestion.

"Don't worry, Your Highness, this problem only exists in the latest generation of Fangyuan personal computer products, and the impact on existing users in the UK is minimal." Tang Huan nodded in agreement.

……

After the entertainment here in England, Tang Huan went to Milan, Italy to visit the ship queen.

Christina, who had been looking forward to having a daughter for a long time, finally got her wish and was happy.

Tang Huan said worriedly: "After AC Milan returned to the first division, it will involve more energy. You need to find a black-bellied and ruthless character as the general manager of the club to deal with the complicated local situation in Italy to share the work pressure. .”

"Anyway, AC Milan isn't worth much, whatever." Christina, whose attention had clearly shifted to her stomach, replied lazily.

"It's worth nothing!" Tang Huan was speechless immediately, thinking that it's best not to pass on the faults of you, a prodigal, to the next generation.

At this time, the problem of the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer has been identified, and the quality defects appear in two places-the circuit board components of the monitor and the graphics card are all substandard to some extent.

It can be said that the technical aftermath is much easier than imagined, but Tang Huan frowned, because the video module of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console that is about to be released also uses components from the same source.

Seeing this scene, Tang Huan couldn't help feeling a little annoyed. He got on Silicon Valley No. [-] and went straight to Baodao Xingshi to inquire about the crime.

……

Kyoto, Japan, Nintendo headquarters, President Hiroshi Yamauchi is holding an emergency meeting.

His son-in-law, Minoru Arakawa, the head of Nintendo of America, just received news that the cooperation negotiations between Nintendo and Atari on representing the North American market ended in vain.

The other party has completely lost confidence in the North American home video game console market, and has given up on introducing Nintendo's latest home video game console, the Family Computer, and even plans to follow the example of EA and Mattel and officially sell their own Atari 2600 to Japan.

For this result, Hiroshi Yamauchi was very disappointed, but it did not exceed expectations too much. After all, the depression of the home video game console market in North America is obvious to all.

"I didn't expect the industry's confidence to collapse to such an extent." Hiroshi Yamauchi shook his head disapprovingly.

"In recent months, EA CEO Trip Hawkins has frequently shuttled between the United States and Japan, showing consumers and game developers the latest second-generation Xiaobawang game console. This also shows in disguise that EA may also have lost confidence in the North American home video game console market, and then shifted its market focus to Japan." Junhei Yokoi reminded.

"The release of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console is imminent, and our FC will not be ready for release until the end of June at the earliest. It's really getting more and more troublesome. I didn't expect Japan to suddenly become the forefront of market competition." Hiroshi Yamauchi Frowning hard to think about countermeasures.

You must know that in his plan, he has no intention of directly confronting EA, the world's largest video game manufacturer.

Hiroshi Yamauchi has his own way of doing business. After observing the success of the Atari 2600 and Xiaobawang game consoles in the market, he decided to develop a new home video game console - the hardware platform is better than the Xiaobawang game console. The price is lower than the Atari 2600, and the profit comes from the game software running on this new platform.

It can be said that Hiroshi Yamauchi's routine encompasses almost all the essence of home video game console operations.

In the original time and space, in order to promote its own XBox, Microsoft spent billions of dollars at the early stage. When it was a big success, the capital market, which only judged heroes by success or failure, had long forgotten this dark history.

To this end, Hiroshi Yamauchi's order to the head of the R&D team Masa Uemura was: "Develop a pure home game console that cannot be imitated by other manufacturers for at least a year!"

This "imitation" implies two levels of meaning; one is technology, and the other is price.

There is no doubt that developing a game console platform that is better than the Xiaobawang game console is not technically difficult for the Japanese who are best at summarizing and copying.
With the strong support of Mitsubishi, Uemura's team can be said to have successfully completed this research and development task.

虽然FC采用的CPU是基于MOS 6502的理光2A03微处理器，和雅达利2600、小霸王游戏机同属八位电子游戏机，但主存储器和显示存储器的容量分别达到了8KB和4KB，加上各个方面有针对性的优化。FC几乎可以说是目前八位电子游戏机当中最优秀的设计实现。

However, technology is not the absolute decisive factor to prevent "imitation". Maybe EA, which has a strong background, can come up with a better similar product in an instant.

Hiroshi Yamauchi focused on the cost factor to prevent "imitation" by his peers. His idea was almost crazy, that is, selling FC for 10000 yen, but it was soon proven impossible during the research and development stage.

Gein is only a PPU that assists graphics processing used by FC, and the unit price has reached 2800 yen.

The ambitious Yamauchi Hiroshi had to run around non-stop, and personally negotiated with Ricoh, the manufacturer of the PPU. He was fooled on the spot and assured the other party that he would sell 300 million game consoles within two years. The unit price is lowered to less than 2000 yen.

After this hard work, Hiroshi Yamauchi thought that the bottom line of the expected price that he had relaxed - 15000 yen, should be achievable, but the evaluation result given by his subordinates slapped him severely.If it is really sold at this price, it is estimated that Nintendo will close its doors in a year.

The helpless Hiroshi Yamauchi had to take back what he had said. After repeated research, he set the price of FC at US$19800.

Although compared with the original idea of ​​10000 yen, this result has almost doubled, but Hiroshi Yamauchi is a little relieved that it is still nearly one-third cheaper than the Xiaobawang game console sold in Japan.

Obviously, FC has achieved a complete victory over the Xiaobawang game console in terms of performance and price. As for other similar products, they are even more vulnerable.

But when Nintendo was concentrating on preparing for the product release, EA CEO Trip Hawkins personally took the second-generation Xiaobawang game console to Japan to build momentum, which surprised Hiroshi Yamauchi.

The CPU of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console uses a customized 68000-bit version of MC16, and the operating speed reaches 6 MHz.Such a strong power makes it perfectly simulated and compatible with a generation of Xiaobawang game consoles.

The forward and backward compatibility alone shows how strong EA's technical strength is. Other manufacturers, including Atari, can hardly achieve this smooth product transition.

Other hardware indicators of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console are also powerful, with 16 KB of main memory, 32 KB of video memory, support for 64 colors, 32 KB of audio memory, and support for stereo.

EA Japan and Taito organized intensive meet-and-greets to let die-hard players and developers learn about the various new features of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console.

"Rich second generation" is enough to make people fearful, but you still work so hard, how can you let others mess around.

Hiroshi Yamauchi was hit so hard that he looked up to the sky and screamed, wanting to cry but no tears.

Fortunately, his right-hand man, Hiroshi Imanishi, was very considerate, and quickly reminded him in private: "It is said that the price of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console in the United States may be as high as 349 US dollars, so although its price in Japan has not been disclosed, it is absolutely impossible It will not be lower than the current generation of Xiaobawang game consoles. Therefore, our FC still has an absolute advantage in terms of price. You don’t always think that consumers’ requirements for game consoles are not the most powerful in terms of hardware, but the game The aspect is the most fun. FC has condensed so many people's hard work and is so good. When facing the second-generation Xiaobawang game console, it is not without the power to fight."

After calming down, Hiroshi Yamauchi thought about it carefully and found that it was indeed the case.Moreover, Nintendo has invested so many resources in FC that it can be said that it has almost been forced to a dead end and can only continue to move forward without hesitation.

The atmosphere in the conference room was gloomy, and the secretary with a happy face hurriedly delivered a newspaper, "President, the latest news from Tokyo, EA CEO Trip Hawkins has just stated that due to the second generation Xiaobawang The components of the video module of the game console may come from the same supplier as the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer that has quality problems, so the official release of the product will be delayed until July.”

Hiroshi Yamauchi quickly took the newspaper, read it carefully, and finally had a smile on his face, "I didn't expect that EA would be dragged back when it was about to kick the door. God helped me!"

"We can release the product as early as June 6 at the earliest." Imamishi Hiroshihui reported that he was equally excited.

"Then we will release our FC on this day." Hiroshi Yamauchi immediately made the decision and told Hiroshi Imanishi, "You will be responsible for the promotion of FC full-time."

With Hiroshi Yamauchi's order, Nintendo, which is full of expectations for the brand new product FC, immediately started, and almost all 800 employees devoted themselves to intense preparations before the release.

Finally on the day of June 6th, Nintendo released the long-planned new generation of home video game console FC, ahead of EA and Taidong, with three games at the same time - "Popeye", "Five Eyes", "Popeye". Sparrow”, and the other six games will also be completed within this year.

Nintendo, which has a history of nearly 10 years, really has a profound foundation. The first 6300 FC units sold out quickly, and the Japanese stock market fully affirmed Nintendo’s achievements, and the reaction was very enthusiastic, pushing its stock price to a historical high of [-] yen per share. .

……

Tokyo, the headquarters of Taito Corporation and EA Japan Company, Trip Hawkins read the report in his hand, then looked at the FC that was dismantled by the engineer, and couldn't help but swear, "This is simply It’s a super-enhanced version made everywhere for the Xiaobawang game console.”

Shigeru Miyamoto scratched his head, "But it is still far inferior to the second-generation Xiaobawang game console."

"Nintendo is one step ahead, and FC is very popular in the market, we can only launch the second-generation Xiaobawang game console as soon as possible." Nakanishi Akio said tentatively: "Maybe we should formulate a more aggressive game console for the second-generation Xiaobawang game console." As long as we defeat FC, we will have no opponents worth caring about."

Trip Hawkins didn't express his opinion right away. He understood what Nakanishi Akio meant, and he was just hurting people with his own heart, just like the current Japan-US semiconductor war.

But Trip Hawkins didn't have the right to make a profit at a loss, and the big boss Tang Huan had to nod in this matter.

In fact, Trip Hawkins has frequently visited Japan recently, as long as it is to implement EA's latest royalty system and win the support of the most extensive game developers for the second-generation Xiaobawang game console.

Through the success and failure of the first generation of Xiaobawang game consoles, Tang Huan, Tripp Hawkins, and other EA executives have reached a consensus that game console developers monopolize game software development as before, which is not conducive to the development of the platform. bigger.

Since third-party game developers will be introduced sooner or later, it is better to decisively cooperate with the release of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console and organize and manage them in the form of a royalty system.

At present, powerful companies including Activision in the United States and Namco, Hudson, Capcom, Konami and other Japanese companies have joined this camp.

It's just that because of the impact of the third-generation Fangyuan personal computer's quality gate, an accident occurred in the release schedule of the second-generation Xiaobawang game console, and Nintendo took advantage of the loophole.

Listening to Akio Nakanishi talking about how price wars are commonplace and feasible in Japan, Tripp Hawkins, who was furious, was finally tempted and decided to ask Tang Huan for instructions on this matter.

(End of this chapter)