Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 96
As the saying goes, the rich water does not flow to outsiders. After Zheru's scale exceeded [-] employees, Tang Huan asked Tang Wenmao to open a Chinese restaurant nearby to provide catering services for the company.

The boss Tang Huan not only satisfied his appetite, but also set a good example. Zheru's employees became more and more fond of Chinese food.

The place to eat with Bushnell was arranged in Tang Huan's office. The exquisite four meat and four vegetables, plus a soup, were prepared completely according to the Chinese food habits. Although there were many dishes, the amount of each dish was not large , while ensuring that two people enjoy it, it will not be too wasteful.

The problem of food waste in the world's most powerful country has always been serious, so there is no need to follow this bad habit.

Bushnell with a big beard was very free and easy. After sitting opposite Tang Huan, he took a big gulp of the appetizer soup made of tomatoes.

Tang Huan looked at the other party with a smile. He could tell that Bushnell was very open and selfish.

It's no wonder that this person is only 36 years old this year, and he has already turned from an ordinary person to a rich man by relying on his own business. He has tried the hippie lifestyle of hallucinogens and has experience in holding power. It seems that even his wife They have all been upgraded, and it can be said that this life is rich and colorful enough, and naturally they have the capital to be free and unrestrained.

"I heard that you have been away from Atari for a while, where are you making your fortune now?" Tang Huan asked the opening remark knowingly.

"Now I am in charge of Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters, which combines fast food, games and entertainment."

Speaking of this, Bushnell showed a resentful look on his face, "When I left Atari last November, I signed a seven-year non-compete agreement with Warner, otherwise, hmph, I have to, hmph..."

Tang Huan gave an unmoved expression, and felt disappointed. It seemed that his preferred plan was no longer feasible. In the next few years, it was impossible for Bushnell to engage in businesses that competed with Atari.

This is not surprising, how could the managers of Warner leave hidden dangers for Atari, which they bought at a high price, and their business methods should be so sophisticated.

As the third oldest established film company in the United States, Warner, which has changed hands several times, has expanded its business scope and is no longer limited to its old business. It is a clear proof that it has set foot in the field of video games.

In 1966, Jack Warner sold his shares in Warner Pictures and Warner Records to Seven Arts Productions for $3200 million, a company owned by Canadian Elliot Hyman and Kenneth Hyman. Kenneth Heyman, the brother-owned company.

Since then, Warner Bros. has changed its name to Warner Bros.-Seven Art Pictures, and Jack Warner has remained as the company's president.

Two years later, the Heyman Brothers sold their stake in Warner Bros. to Kinney National Company for $6400 million.

Ted Ashley Ted Ashley was the main messenger who prompted Steve Ross, the president of Kinney National Company, to buy Warner Bros. After the transaction was successful, he took the position of the new president of Warner Corporation, and then changed the company name. Back to Warner Bros. Pictures.

Faced with these consecutive transactions, Jack Warner was disheartened and decided to retire, becoming the last one among the four founder Warner brothers to leave.

Although the movie's audience was declining, the new managers of Warner Bros. still believed in the star's box office appeal, so they signed contracts with many box office stars at the time.

In addition, in 1969, Warner Corporation bought DC Comics and produced a series of hit movies such as "Superman" and "Batman".Box-office stars paired with the aforementioned comic book adaptations made the 1970s lucrative for Warner Bros.

Shortly after buying Warner, Kinney National changed its name to Warner Communications, or Warner Communications.

It was this company that expanded its business areas, acquired Atari, and later bought Six Flags Theme Park.

According to the historical development, at the end of the 1980s, the star-oriented Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., which is good at investing, and became the more famous Time Warner Corporation.

In 2000, Time Warner, with a fearless spirit, bought AOL, whose stock price soared during the Internet bubble, and changed its name to AOL-Time Warner.

The Atari that Tang Huan was facing was hidden behind these old foxes who were well versed in capital operations. It was normal for Bushnell to be tamed by others.

However, Tang Huan believed that Warner would definitely pay a generous compensation for Bushnell's resignation from Atari and the company he founded.

Of course, this is a matter of personal privacy, and Tang Huan is not interested in asking about it.

Although it is impossible to bring Bushnell under his command, seeing his unwillingness, Tang Huan decided to take advantage of the situation to increase the rift between Bushnell and Warner, so as to prevent the two parties from getting together again in the future. go.

So, Tang Huan asked sympathetically, "When you sold Atari to Warner, didn't you agree on a power distribution structure?"

"Of course there is an agreement. Long-term employment of me and other employees is one of the conditions. In addition, I negotiated a fairly favorable bonus plan, and I was guaranteed that after Atari was acquired, I will continue to work on the product have autonomy over the line.”

Bushnell shrugged helplessly, "But those capitalist promises, you know, turned out to be bullshit in the end."

Tang Huan sighed regretfully, "To tell you the truth, I took the liberty to invite you here today because I want you, a pioneer in the video game industry, to help me manage the Xiaobawang game console. By the way, I will prove that since you can create Atari, then you can also beat Atari. But you have already reached a non-compete agreement with Warner, so you can only let it go."

"Since Atari can be created, Atari can also be defeated." Bushnell said excitedly several times, then slapped his thigh dejectedly, "Well, what you said is what I want to do, but My current scope of work has been restricted by Warner, so there is nothing I can do about it, those damn capitalists."

Tang Huan smiled wryly in his heart, now you and I are both bosses and capitalists, I don't know who exactly you want to scold.

"However, even if I can't do it myself, you can still defeat Atari, it's just a matter of time." Bushnell said with a big sword.

"Why do you say that?" Tang Huan put on a posture of listening attentively.

"Ray Casal, a businessman who sells shirts, went through a personnel purge after he took office. The outstanding technical strength I had accumulated was quickly weakened, and many people left." Bushnell told himself His successor looked disdainful.

Although it felt normal for Cassar to adjust personnel after taking office, Tang Huan naturally had to do everything in his acting, and echoed, "That's really a broken arm. If this happens, the company's creativity will definitely be affected."

"Don, although we met for the first time, we are bosom friends, and I think so too." Bushnell showed an expression of acquaintance resentment, "After several of the best programmers left Atari, this year Activision was formed in early October, and most of Atari's organization and work came close to collapsing."

Seeing the schadenfreude look on Bushnell's face, Tang Huan suddenly realized that Activision is the well-known Activision company.In the original time and space in 2008, Activision and Vivendi Games merged to form a new "Activision Blizzard" company, making Blizzard Entertainment a subsidiary of it.

The founders of Activision are Jim Levy in the music industry, and Atari's four top programmers, David Crane, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, Alan Miller, Bob Whitehead is Bob Whitehead.

It can be said that Activision, as the first third-party game publisher, was born out of Atari.

Because of this deep pedigree, the first product released by Activision was a game cartridge for use on the Atari 2600 game console.

Because of complex conflicts of interest, Atari sued Activision, but finally lost the case. Other manufacturers took the opportunity to land on the Atari 2600 platform and developed a large number of games of varying quality. grab food.

In the previous life, the collapse of Atari had a lot to do with the loss of control over its own hardware platform. It simply couldn't stop all kinds of low-quality games that caused dissatisfaction among users. However, Nintendo learned a lesson and created a strict margin system , thus maintaining the orderly and long-term development of game consoles.

"Although those people are the core technical force, I'm afraid you have more than that." Tang Huan complimented.

"Indeed." Bushnell nodded triumphantly, "But what's the use, this guy Klein doesn't care about the follow-up upgrade development of the Atari 2600 at all."

Speaking of this, Bushnell smiled, "The actual game performance of the Xiaobawang game console is so good, I bought a few out of curiosity, took it apart and looked at it, and found that it beats the Atari 2600 in terms of hardware specifications. When I was developing the Atari 2600, the memory was relatively expensive, so it was only equipped with 128 bytes, which was too far behind the Xiaobawang.”

As soon as the subject changed, Bushnell scolded angrily: "Casar is a short-sighted guy, he doesn't understand the current development level of the semiconductor industry at all, and he has not improved the Atari 2600 for a long time. It is inevitable that he will be defeated. What’s more, Xiaobawang’s family is not the only game console competitor in the market. The newer the product, the better its performance.”

"According to what you say, I can rest easy."

Tang Huan laughed, but there was no joy in his eyes.

What Bushnell said is just one-sided words. The current game console market has just taken shape, and it is a mess, and conventional theories cannot be applied.

Therefore, the popularity of products may not be guaranteed only by relying on technological gaps.

Isn't Microsoft's DOS in the past life an example, although it lags behind, it still makes a lot of money.

It would be naive to believe Bushnell's rhetoric.

However, the other party let him know a lot about the current situation of Atari, and it was not without gain.

One of Tang Huan's strengths is talking about people when he sees people, talking about people when he sees ghosts, and dealing with all kinds of people.

Bushnell was very satisfied with the hospitality. When he was parting, he put Tang Huan's shoulders and said: "When you have time, go to my Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters to visit. It is very interesting there."

"We will definitely visit at that time." Tang Huan agreed to come down, and personally sent Bushnell to the car, watching him leave.

When Tang Huan was walking back from the side of the road, he happened to meet Trip Hawkins again.

"It seems that God's will is so, and EA must be born in his own hands." Tang Huan's eyes flickered, thinking secretly in his heart.

(End of this chapter)