The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Photoshop? Modify photos?" After hearing this, Lei Shengli guessed the general meaning from the literal meaning.

"Modifying photos is also one of the functions. Although the resolution of digital cameras is very poor, they can definitely replace film in theory. This is also a big market, but my other purpose is to facilitate many people who specialize in painting. The market is not as good as Word or Excel, but many professions are still in high demand, such as painting and advertising.” Chen Zhiwen said.

The digital camera was invented by Kodak in the mid-1970s, but it is a laboratory product with extremely poor resolution. However, from the perspective of technological update and iteration, the future of digital cameras is promising. Therefore, many Japanese electronics companies They all began to study this direction. Kodak is also very smart and knows the future of this thing, but is limited by the huge profits of its own film and the entire industrial chain, so it decided to hide it. Instead, Chen Zhiwen dug the entire team into Midea a few years ago. A laboratory in the United States.

In the 1980s, several Japanese companies and Midea also launched their own digital cameras, but they were still new gadgets, more expensive, and their resolution was not as good as that of film, but they were much better than a few years ago, and they are still in a continuation. In the iterative stage, Chen Zhiwen still gives a lot of financial support to ensure that it can maintain a certain degree of preemptiveness in this market.

But before the 1990s, this market would not be able to rise, so there is no need to pay too much attention.

However, another function of photoshop is that it can be used to design pictures, advertisement pictures, etc. Although the market volume is not as large as Word and the like, it can increase profits at a high price. As long as customers who use this software are guaranteed, it is cheaper than using people. Painting is more cost-effective.

Originally, he didn't think about robbing Adobe's business, and the same will be true for direct investment in the future, but now Disney will produce a large number of animation movies or TV series a few years earlier than in the original history, so it is worthwhile for Midea to invest manpower and material resources in Photoshop.

"There are indeed some simple drawing software on the market, but they can't meet the requirements of advertising design or comic drawing. If we design this software, the first thing we need to know is what are the needs of these people." Lei Shengli said , Technical problems can always be solved, but if you don't know the requirements, you can only be blind.

"That's no problem. I'll let Disney send some painters over, and Midea's technicians will communicate with them, and let them put forward the requirements from a professional perspective, and then the technicians will design according to the requirements." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

For this kind of professional technical software, he can't do much at all, the only thing he can do is to guide the direction and provide funds, and Midea's company has reached its current scale, and it really doesn't need much of his direct participation.

The future benefits of Photoshop may not be as good as the three-piece set of Word, but if it is done well, the annual profit of hundreds of millions or even a little more can be regarded as a small cash cow.

"That's fine. I'm going to set up a special project team to plan and do this." Lei Shengli agreed.

"Well, we, Midea, really need to develop into other fields during this period of time. We can't just rely on games. The biggest advantage of software is that after it is developed, as long as it is easy to use, it can quickly occupy the market, and then rely on patents. No matter how good the subsequent products are, other companies will have no chance of protecting and cultivating user habits.” Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

Human habits are hard to change. Once you get used to using a certain thing, there is no huge benefit, and it is very difficult to change, whether it is Photoshop or Word three-piece set, etc., it is the same. Once it occupies the market, as long as it does not die, or there are no new reforms in the market, or new players launch similar software for free/exceptionally low prices, it will basically be as stable as a mountain.

This is different from changing games. Explosive games are very profitable, but they are basically eliminated in a few years. Of course, even Word needs to be constantly updated according to user needs, that is, to collect customers. complaints, optimize the cost of using the software, and keep improving to satisfy customers.

"Then this is indeed a good product. Fortunately, you bought Disney, so you can cooperate and develop it together." Lei Shengli said with a smile.

"Then let's arrange it first, and let me have a look when we have some results in the future." Chen Zhiwen said.

This kind of professional software with complex functions takes far longer to develop than games or Word. The time is definitely in years, and the cost of long-term research is also very high, but this is also necessary for development. A company cannot rely solely on creativity. The research and development of a large number of technologies takes a long time, and there will always be various higher returns.

"Okay." Lei Shengli nodded, and then said, "Chen Sheng, the project department has already developed the first version of the Mario game project. Would you like to take a look?"

"It's been developed? Of course I'm going to have a look, let's go." Chen Zhiwen stood up straight away.

Mario can be said to be a turning point in the history of human video games. Since then, various games have become more complex than before. The emergence of horizontal axis games has given designers of other companies more room for development, and Mario In itself, it would also be a super-selling game.

Even if I wanted to use the Disney team to build a small theme park before, I could introduce Mario, because when Mario became popular, its reputation may be second only to a century-old brand like Mickey Mouse, plus Disney There is absolutely no problem in being the main brand of the theme park for the cartoon characters and some other games of Midea in the future.

Of course, although they are all their own companies, they still need to be separated financially. If Disney wants to use Mario or other game characters, they also need to pay licensing fees. , If someone else buys the license fee, they won't make much money, but if the theme park is their own, it will all go into their own wallets.

Midea's research and development departments are all in Yuen Long, and Chen Zhiwen and Lei Shengli can only go there by car. In Yuen Long, but today is a special situation. In the future, things can be delivered in advance, but how to say, it will be more or less inconvenient.

Of course, there is another possibility, that is, as Hong Kong's economy shifts from reality to demand, Midea's departments will either be transferred overseas or go to the mainland, which may be even more inconvenient, but the market trend, no one can reverse it!

More than half an hour later, Chen Zhiwen and others arrived at Midea's R\u0026D laboratory. Several Mario arcade machines were ready, and several employees were already playing games.

When Chen Zhiwen came here, he didn't ask any more questions, but kept looking at several screens of the game.

In the previous meetings, Chen Zhiwen also described the game framework, function settings, background map, etc. in his mind many times, and the current game is similar to what he asked for.

The very beginning is the blue sky interface, there are some wall bricks on the sky, and some benefits, jumping up on the head, you can take the benefits, either the person becomes bigger, you can have an extra life, or you can change into a bullet, you can It is convenient to destroy the enemy in front.

And as the characters move forward, they will also encounter some pipelines. These pipelines either have monsters with scissorhands or are passages to other background worlds.

After entering the new world, it is naturally an underground interface. Although the background is different, the gameplay is the same as before, but there are not many wall tiles on the top. Apart from the most basic welfare tiles, there are also some welfare tiles hidden in countless tiles. Yes, this requires the player to search slowly, especially in some settings, if the hidden brick is not found, it may be impossible to win and pass the level when encountering bosses and the like.

Finding these kinds of bricks is also a major joy in Mario games, which is not found in other games.

There are also some backgrounds, which are in the water, and the gameplay is similar, but the settings of various backgrounds are different.

Focus on the background mode, because of the infinite possibilities of the horizontal axis game, it adds a lot of fun to the game.

Although it seems to be a little different from the previous life in Chen Zhiwen's memory, it is enough to set the same gameplay, and it is impossible for anyone to make the same thing.

"How many levels have we developed so far?" Chen Zhiwen asked after watching for a while.

"A total of more than 360 kinds, but not all of them are placed in the arcade. You also know that because of the characteristics of the arcade, we need to find a balance between fun and cost, so the game settings on the arcade are not yet available. A lot of testing needs to continue, but if it is put on the red and white machine, it is not necessary." Lei Shengli said.

"That's right, if we want to win the profits of the arcade, we can only abide by the market rules of the arcade." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

Arcade machines have a large space, and the requirements for chips may be lower than those of red and white machines, but the requirements for gameplay are very high, which requires a lot of testing.

Although the market for red and white machines is much larger than that of arcade machines, there is no need for me to give up the arcade market for nothing. After all, the arcade machine is over and the popularity has gained. When the red and white machines are launched, maybe the sales will be better.

This may also be the glory of arcade machines in the last few years. When most people have home game consoles in their homes, the customers of arcade machines will drop off a cliff, but because of the decline in chip costs, the cost of arcade machines will also drop. The game hall can appear, which is another business model with great potential.

"Actually, many people we recruited from Atari played a very important role in the development of Mario." Lei Shengli added.