Game Development Giant

The full name of ces show is consumer-electronics-show, which means consumer electronics show in Chinese. It originated from the Chicago Music Show, which was the largest consumer electronics show in the world at that time.

The first CES exhibition was held in New York in 1967. Although there were only a dozen companies participating in the exhibition, all of them were famous names, such as Motorola and Philips. The exhibition hall area at that time reached 100,000 square feet. , and for the first time, an exhibition guide appeared, which is what we now call shoegirl.

As time goes by, the influence of the CES exhibition is becoming more and more important, more and more companies are participating in the exhibition, and the number of exhibitors has reached new highs. It has basically become the largest event in all consumer electronics industries in the world. Whether it is Panasonic's 1.5-inch TV or Sony's Walkman, these epoch-making products were the first to be unveiled at the CES show.

And for game manufacturers, before the real birth of the e3 exhibition, the ces exhibition was also their most important, or even the only exhibition.

Atari once brought their home pong to the exhibition, which is also the predecessor of vcs2600. It is precisely because of the success of home pong that Atari will study home game consoles. For example, Nintendo will bring them this year nes came to participate in the exhibition, which was later considered to be one of the most important exhibits in the decades-long history of ces. Also, in the history that Jester knew, it was at the exhibition in 1989 that Henk. For the first time, Rogers brought the world-famous "Tetris" to the world.

Today is the opening day of the ces exhibition.

Jester woke up early, washed up, and went to the hotel restaurant to dine.

Howard Garfield, the barrister he had made an appointment with earlier, was already waiting for him in the restaurant. He took a plate and chose some breakfast from the buffet, and Jester sat down in front of Howard Garfield.

"Did you have fun at Caesars Palace yesterday?" Jester asked as soon as he sat down. He knew that Howard had brought his family to Las Vegas for vacation before and arrived two days earlier than him, so he had This question.

Howard just smiled, picked up the wine glass in front of him, took a sip, and said indifferently: "I won a little bit. Coming to Las Vegas without going to the casino is basically a waste of time, but I come here more often. It's not interesting, what? Are you interested? I can take you to gamble tonight."

Jester shook his head and said calmly: "I don't like gambling."

"That's such a pity." Howard's tone contained a hint of pity.

Jester cut off a small piece of tender veal steak and put it in his mouth. He chewed it carefully and swallowed it before continuing: "Howard, if Nintendo sues...well, actually if I do this, they will sue. Inevitable, then, it’s still the same old question, how long are you sure you can hold this case?”

"Jace, don't forget, we are an American company, Nintendo is a Japanese company, a Japanese company is suing an American company on American soil, and - in essence, you are not making profits from this, at most it is just infringement."

He had discussed this with Jester, so he did not go into details again, but simply repeated his conclusion again.

"This matter is conclusive, so you can't win the case. It's even very simple. If you need me, I can let the judge close the case in less than a week. But as for how you lose this case and when you lose this case. There is a lot of room for maneuver, and for a lawsuit like this, as long as you are willing to spend money, the case can be settled quickly, and of course it will not be settled for three to five years."

...Howard said with full confidence. He has handled too many such cases. In the United States, it is certainly not impossible for a foreign company to sue an American company for infringement. Of course, it is not up to them, the lawyers, to decide how the case will be tried. If it drags on for a few years, so what if they lose the lawsuit, they will just lose some money.

As long as you have money, there is nothing you can't do in the United States.

"That's good." Jester nodded and did not continue to say anything. In fact, he had already asked Howard once before, and the answer he got was exactly the same as now. Now he asked again, but it was just to give him some time before he prepared to carry out his own plan. Just confidence.

But after finishing speaking, Howard pondered for a moment, seemed to have thought of something, and then sighed suddenly.

"What?" After eating all the food on the plate, Jester raised his head and glanced at his barrister with some confusion. He rarely saw Howard's expression like this.

"Nothing." Howard shook his head, shaking the wine glass in his hand.

"You said you don't gamble, but in fact you gamble more than me. I can only win or lose tens of thousands of dollars at a time, but you can only win or lose..."

Howard didn't finish his words, but Jester understood what he meant.

Jester was noncommittal about this.

His tone was very calm.

"Actually, this is not gambling. Just like this time, I am making sure that you can drag out this lawsuit for three to five years before I do it. If you said before, I will make home games without hesitation. Machine..." At this point, Jester paused, an inexplicable look flashed across his eyes, and then he continued, "It's just because I know it will succeed, but others don't know."

"Maybe." Howard picked up the glass and clinked it with Jester's champagne. After taking a sip, he said, "Jess, you know? Sometimes, I always feel like you can see the future."

"Haha." Jester just chuckled, and Howard didn't take it seriously. This was originally his joke.

At 8:30 in the morning, in a hall of the Las Vegas Convention and Exhibition Center, Nintendo's stage had been set up long ago. Under the stage, reporters from all walks of life gathered and many people who may have come here because of it or were just passing by. A tourist that won’t miss it.

Arakawa Minoru stood in the center of the stage, with many TVs lined up behind him to form a large screen. The press conference had not officially started yet, and he was constantly adjusting the sound of the microphone.

Jester found a position on the periphery, not too far from the stage. Although he couldn't see the appearance of Minoru Arakawa on the stage with the naked eye, he could still see it clearly through the big screen behind him. of.

After another ten minutes, everything seemed to be adjusted well. Arakawa made a gesture in the middle of the stage to quiet everyone.

Then, Minoru Arakawa's extremely standard New York accent came out from the live speakers.

Jester had been in contact with Minoru Arakawa before, and he was quite surprised at that time. He never thought that a child who grew up in a traditional Japanese samurai family could speak such fluent and authentic American English. There is no hint of Japanese flavor at all.

"Welcome to Nintendo's product launch event."

Arakawa opened the event very briefly, saying a few words of welcome and explaining that President Yamauchi originally planned to come in person, but was unable to go due to the cold, so he will host this Nintendo press conference.

Jester is not interested in these, he is interested in the game console that Nintendo is going to release.

Fortunately, Nintendo's products at this CES show were only game consoles, so Arakawa Minoru didn't delay for too long, and the staff who had been prepared early carried a white shell with a gray background, which looked like a video recorder. When they reached the stage, they were handed into the hands of Minoru Arakawa.

..."This is the home entertainment system we are preparing to sell in the United States, nintendo-advanced-video-system, or n**s for short. Now let me make it clear that this is not just a game console!" Minoru Arakawa told the people in the audience. Showing the appearance of their game console, the large screen behind him also gave him close-ups of the machine in his hand from all angles.

But this name made Jester a little surprised. Didn't he remember that it should be called nes? How did you become a n**s?

In fact, this is just because Jester's understanding of the history of video games has not yet been refined to this extent. When nes was released at the Nintendo CES in 1985, it used the nintendo-advanced-video-system. name, but later found that the name was too different from the actual functions of their game console, so it was changed to nintendo-entertainment-system not long after. The name of Nintendo Entertainment System, after all, the word entertainment can still have something to do with games. What?

To be honest, the appearance of NES is pretty good for this era.

So the people in the audience kept cheering in agreement.

And the configuration is indeed good. As soon as Minoru Arakawa took over the NES, he started to boast about the configuration of the NES, and claimed that the performance of the NES is currently the most powerful of its kind in the world. This machine is so powerful that it can display up to fifty-two colors. , it can display sixteen colors on the same screen, and it has a dedicated sonic processor, which are advantages that other similar products simply do not have.

Then, in order to prove that what he just said was not a lie, Arakawa Minoru asked someone to connect the device in his hand to a TV, and at the same time plugged in a game cassette. When Arakawa Minoru picked up the game cassette, the big There was also a close-up on the screen.

The cassette is gray and larger than the Japanese cassette on FC. From the English on the sticker, we can tell that this is the "Pac-Man" model that Namco just released last month. A port of the classic arcade game.

At the same time, a game screen also appeared on the big screen.

The picture was very rough and the colors were extremely monotonous. At first glance, Jester knew that this was definitely not the picture on NES. Because of the dedicated PPU, the picture on NES was much more refined than the one that appeared now. Although they are all mosaics, there is a big difference between mosaic and before mosaic.

Sure enough, Arakawa pointed to the picture displayed on the screen and said with a smile: "This is the picture of a popular home game when running the game "Pac-Man"." Although he did not name it, Those present could basically guess that he was talking about the Atari vcs2600.

Because many people have personally played the pac-man on the Atari 2600 machine.

Arakawa Minoru's joke also made the audience burst into laughter.

Then, Minoru Arakawa made a gesture, and the picture on the big screen changed to the picture of "Pac-Man" running on the NES next to him.

I have to say that Namco was quite attentive in transplanting Pac-Man, and because NES has a separate PPU, the picture processing is indeed several blocks ahead of the Atari 2600 game console. And in terms of sound effects, NES uses three dedicated processors, which makes it richer.

At the same time, Minoru Arakawa showed the people at the scene that the NES's unique controller is completely different from any other game console. rs