Top of the big era

In the "Purple Star Global" project, Zhou Buqi mostly made suggestions and requests for the acquisition of many film companies. He did not need to be too involved and left everything to Son Zhengyi to operate.

This is SoftBank's old business, and they are best at this.

Zhou Buqi is more concerned about the design of the development strategy after the successful establishment of Ziweixing Global Group, as well as the possible stunning development in the business.

At the moment, one of the things he is most concerned about is the copyright related to the "Spider-Man" series held by Sony Entertainment.

It's not easy to take it back.

In a previous life, when the "Amazing Spider-Man" series launched by Sony Pictures in 2014-2015 failed miserably and could no longer continue, Disney offered a sky-high price of US$4 billion to US$5 billion to buy the rights to "Spider-Man" return.

As a result, Sony opened its mouth and demanded US$10 billion.

Of course Disney did not agree, so it had no choice but to choose another way of cooperation, which was to let Marvel Studios be responsible for the creation of the "Spider-Man" series of movies. Marvel received 5% of the profit share, and the remaining 95% % owned by Sony Pictures.

At that time, Marvel dominated the world, and the net profit earned by a "Spider-Man" movie from theaters and peripheral channels could easily exceed US$500 million.

Disney became working for Sony.

Fortunately, Disney controls the copyright of derivatives, and shooting the "Spider-Man" series of movies in conjunction with Disney's values ​​will be more conducive to Disney's sales of authorized products of the "Spider-Man" series, with sales of up to 1.3 billion US dollars in a single year.

Zhou Buqi knows how important the copyright of the "Spider-Man" series is, but it is difficult to take it back. According to incomplete statistics, the "Spider-Man" trilogy, released from 2002 to 2007, has created a profit of US$1 billion for Sony over the past few years, which is a cash cow.

Especially after the bubble crisis, the "Sony Shock" occurred in Sony. The stock plummeted continuously, with a market value of only US$10 billion. Various businesses caused huge losses and almost went bankrupt.

At that time, there was only one business that was profitable and gave Sony a glimmer of hope: the entertainment business. In the entertainment business, it mainly relies on "Spider-Man".

Due to the bubble crisis, the performance plummeted, which led to the early resignation of Nobuyuki Idei, the chairman and CEO of Sony at the time, and the emergence of the first foreign chairman and CEO in the history of Sony Group - Howard Stringer.

He was the chairman of Sony America and the CEO of Sony Entertainment at the time. The "Spider-Man" series was developed under his leadership. Such a huge contribution helped him break Sony's tradition.

This shows how important the "Spider-Man" copyright is to Sony.

I want to buy the copyright back, but it’s useless even if Columbia Pictures’ parent company Sony Pictures agrees; it’s useless even if Sony Entertainment, the parent company of Sony Pictures, agrees; it’s useless even if Sony Entertainment’s parent company Sony Entertainment agrees; it’s useless even if Sony Entertainment’s parent company Sony America agrees It’s no use agreeing.

"Spider-Man" is too important, and their authority is too low!

It would have to get the approval of Sony Group's top executive, Howard Stringer.

This requires operating this business from a higher perspective.

This matter cannot be left to Son Zhengyi.

Even if he succeeded, he would still have to pay an unimaginable cost.

Sony is a belief in Japan, and Masayoshi Son grew up in the "shadow" of Sony. He may not be able to straighten his waist when discussing business with Sony.

Zhou Buqi is different. He is a foreigner and can do business with Sony on an equal footing. It is more appropriate for him to step forward.

Howard Stringer was born in the entertainment industry. He was a news reporter at CBS in his early years, and then entered management and rose through the ranks. He is an American and has a typical American business mindset, which makes communication much easier than businessmen from Europe, Korea and Japan.

Before that, Zhou Buqi entrusted Tang Binchen to collect information about Sony. Only by knowing yourself and the enemy can you analyze the business, discover and solve problems.

Tang Binchen said: "I entrusted a consulting company to do this, but they haven't come over yet."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "I have to go back to Beijing today."

"Quick, we'll be there in another 20 minutes."

"Okay, let's talk about your side of things first?"

"Where to start?"

Tang Binchen was very proud.

The current Ziweixing Japan is no longer the Caotai team it was last year. Under his leadership, a number of phenomenal products have been produced.

Tang Binchen said with emotion: "Last year, I was the one looking for the operators hard and wanted to establish contact with them. Now it's different. It's the operators who are looking for me hard, hoping to develop more versions of our products. , promoted to more mobile phones.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Leverage SoftBank's momentum, right?"

"Yes, the rise of SoftBank's operating business and the arrival of the smartphone era have put great pressure on traditional operators." Tang Binchen pointed in a direction, "There is a SoftBank operating store over there, with a queue of tens of meters."

“Waiting in line to buy an iPhone?”

"Yes, the new iPhone." Tang Binchen said jokingly, "The popularity of the iPhone is also related to our products. After all, Helo, YikYak and "My Farm" are only available on smartphones, especially It's "My Farm", which is now only available on iPhone, which has helped them improve their competitiveness."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Farming games are very popular all over the world. Do you know what Ziweixing's highest-grossing business in the United States is?"

Of course Tang Binchen knew, and he laughed and said: "The revenue of the farming game launched on Facebook's open platform in the first quarter of this year exceeded 100 million US dollars."

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, but your idea is right. We must transform as soon as possible. Mobile is the future world."

He did not grasp many things in advance, but that didn't matter, as long as he understood the strategic direction of the times.

It's easy to make the right decision.

In the previous life, without the interference of Ziweixing, the American game company Zynga launched the farm game "Farmville", which was launched on Facebook's open platform and became an instant hit. In just three years, it accumulated 100 million users and annual revenue exceeded 1.1 billion. Dollar.

After listing, the market value is close to 10 billion US dollars.

However, Zynga made a strategic mistake. They thought they could make a lot of money by cooperating with Facebook, so they focused all their attention on the computer and failed to respond to smartphones.

Two years after its listing, Zynga was hit hard by the mobile Internet era, and its market value shrank to US$300 million. Fortunately, it was later transformed into board and card games, and it recovered somewhat.

Zhou Buqi has already made plans for card and board games and handed over this business to Changyou. At present, Tang Binchen "takes his own initiative" to transform the farm game into a mobile game, which is also on the right path of development.

Tang Binchen was proud of himself and did not dare to take credit for himself, because all his business decisions relied on the strategic vision of Boss Zhou. Because the big boss said that mobile Internet is the future, he made his bold transformation.

Tang Binchen said sternly: "The performance of current smartphones is relatively poor, well... you said that the performance of mobile phones will get better and better, and Moore's Law will be brought to the extreme. But the current processor level is not enough, and smartphones only It can run some lightweight casual games. I think the transformation from social web games to lightweight smartphone games is a promising direction."

"What about the profit model?"

"Free + paid. Many apps on the iPhone now require money to download. I don't think it is necessary. We should still make them free, expand the market size, and then use embedded endorsements and game props to make profits."

Zhou Buqi asked, "Paid downloading is also due to cost, right?"

Tang Binchen smiled and said, "Yes, there are not many iPhone developers now, most of them are individual developers and small entrepreneurial companies. It is indeed very difficult to operate a product of a certain scale."

Operating an app is just like operating a website.

Servers and broadband fees are required, which is a huge expense.

If it is a free product, the number of downloads will be large, there will be many users, and the expenditure will be large. A weak team cannot operate at all.

There is no other way but to pay to download.

Many individual developers and start-up companies are like this. They are afraid that there will be too many users and cannot operate, so they can only take various measures to limit the growth of users.

Payment is an effective measure.

In fact, Netflix has the same logic.

Streaming video consumes too much server resources and broadband resources. If Netflix adopts a "free + advertising" model, it will be miserable. The sudden increase in users will greatly increase Netflix's operating costs. died.

Reasonably reducing the number of users is an effective guarantee for survival.

Zhou Buqi knew what he meant. It was just that if Japan succeeded, it could be promoted to the American market. He agreed, "Okay, the American farm game must also transform, and we must seize the bonus period of the early entry of smartphones. There are relatively few fun apps now, and as long as they are interesting, stable and free, they can almost stand in the market, so don’t waste this opportunity.”

Tang Binchen said with a smile: "This is also a boost for our cloud computing business. As long as our free social farm games make money, the market will definitely follow. By then, there will be more and more Developers and small startups have emerged, specifically targeting the Apple Store and Google Store. It is more cost-effective to buy services on cloud computing platforms than to buy servers and bandwidth."

Zhou Buqi said: "The Internet is an asset-light industry, and Internet startups in the future should become increasingly asset-light. Domestic websites are already moving to the cloud. When will you start?"

Tang Binchen said: "It is expected that the first phase of construction of the cloud data center will be completed in August. It is estimated that...by the end of the year, some businesses will be moved to the cloud."

"Um."

"I think……"

"If you have something to say, just say it."

Tang Binchen boldly suggested: "I think we should focus on the game business. I am talking about lightweight games for smartphones. The game market is very large. Lightweight games are mainly for leisure and entertainment, and they are not as immersive as those large games." It’s the same, there aren’t that many negative public opinions, and it won’t affect Ziweixing’s values. Another very important point is, aren’t you working on Ziweixing Global? Casual games are the most suitable.”

"Oh?" Zhou Buqi was very interested, "Tell me carefully."