Game Development Giant

Time flies very quickly. To make a racing simulation frame game, except that all the processes of making games for other game platforms are the same, all that must be done is to complete a large number of physical effects.

Physical effects are completed through a physics engine. As for what an engine is, as the name suggests, a game engine can actually be compared simply with a car engine. It refers to the program required to complete a certain effect. To give the simplest example, such as Say, I want the character in the game to jump, and the program that completes the jumping effect is called an engine.

But what is a physics engine? In short, still using the previous example, I want this person to jump, but how high can he jump, how many seconds does it take to complete the jumping process, how long does it take to stay in the air, and how long does it take to land? These things are closely related to physical factors. To complete these things, a physics engine is needed.

To be precise, the core of the physics engine is the physics engine library. It can be simply imagined as a database that stores a large amount of physical experiment data. When a condition occurs, it will be retrieved from this database. Data is extracted inside, and then based on the extracted physical data, it is determined how this condition will occur. Games developed for microcontroller platforms do not need to worry about the same functional issues as when developing games for home consoles, ordinary arcades and PCs. On the simulation frame, you can basically use the best hardware at the moment. for development.

Of course, it is definitely inferior to later generations, but it is not difficult to achieve the simple polygonal 3D effect of the early 1990s.

To completely simulate various physical effects is unrealistic under the current CPU processing power. It is not that it is impossible. It can certainly be solved by using n CPUs in parallel to perform calculations like a supercomputer. But this approach is meaningless.

However, some necessary physical databases still need to be established, and completing such a database does not happen overnight.

These are only the conditions required to complete the physical effects. As for how to achieve perfect coordination and synchronization between the game and the hardware simulator, it is a matter that requires a long period of experimentation. Therefore, the development progress of "American Rally" cannot be discussed. Get on quickly. Now within Mars Entertainment, the development of sixteen-bit game consoles is basically known to everyone, and the speed is very satisfactory. Jester, with his idea of ​​perfection, does not want to give orders to the sixteen-bit development team. For any tasks that are on schedule, just let them proceed step by step according to the plan.

As far as Jester knows, he is currently at the forefront of the research and development of 16-bit computers. In fact, this situation is somewhat abnormal. The so-called ruler of the current battlefield share of eight-bit game consoles cannot possibly want eight-bit consoles to be eliminated so quickly.

However, Jester, who comes from a later generation, is well aware of the speed at which game consoles are being eliminated, and eight-bit machines are being eliminated. It is an irreversible trend. It does not depend on whether you think about it or not. This was the case with Nintendo at the time, so much so that Sega was caught off guard after the release of d. So much so that the new console that I developed was simply not powerful enough for Sega, so I had to go back to the drawing board and redo it, and it took a week until 1991 to launch my own new console. However, unlike FC, which has been a bestseller for nearly ten years, the emergence of PS in just three years has completely brought the video game industry into the 3D world.

Jester, who knows this period of history, knows that even if he does not develop a 16-bit machine, Sega will soon carry out full-scale research and development. It is true that the function of S is very good, but no matter how good the function is, it will only Relying on its own game without the support of other third-party manufacturers, this game console has no future.

However, the current game market is like this. It is difficult to find a place for a third game company to establish itself. And if you want to snatch such a Japanese third-party company from Nintendo, even Jester can't do it at present, let alone Sega said that its market share is basically negligible.

Jester doesn't know how Sega will break the situation, but judging from the current situation, if the situation of S cannot improve in another year at most, then it is inevitable that Sega will start to fully support the development of 16-bit game consoles. .

As for Nintendo, they haven't even thought about the next era. In their eyes, the most important thing is to compete for enough market share from Mars Entertainment.

As for Mars Entertainment, Nintendo, which now has a very deep foundation in Japan, unless they make unforgivable mistakes themselves, it is impossible to completely defeat them just by relying on the quality of their games. Their hope of defeat, Jester felt, was to take advantage of Nintendo's lack of attention to the 16-bit consoles and create a time difference in the first place.

In fact, Jester himself knew that there was no point in doing so. Even if Nintendo fell, Sega would take over. Even if Sega had a good relationship with him, he would take over as soon as possible. Then Even if Sega cannot support Adou, there are many giants in the video game industry who are jealous of him.

But what Jester knows is that in the history he is familiar with, the famous Nippon Electric has been deeply involved in the video game industry, not to mention Sony, which later shared the world equally with Microsoft.

Sony is now at its peak. As a world-class electrical appliance giant and electronic component supplier, and the most important electronic component supplier to Nintendo, it may have been interested in the video game industry for a long time, but according to According to Jester, Sony may not just roll up its sleeves and do it on its own like NEC did at first, but may want to cooperate with Nintendo.

There are different opinions about the eventual collapse of talks between Nintendo and Sony in his memory. Whether Nintendo betrayed their alliance with Sony, or Sony set a trap in their cooperation agreement with Nintendo and angered Nintendo. There are all the sayings.

However, based on Jester’s understanding of the industry during the period after his rebirth, it is much more likely that Nintendo will take the initiative to betray the alliance.

Because with Sony's scientific research strength, if they want to build a home game console with performance that far exceeds that of its peers, it will be effortless at all. There is no need to trap it in the cooperation agreement just for the so-called experience in developing game consoles. In fact, , after Nintendo suddenly betrayed its alliance and used the guise of Philips to make Sony angry, it brokered a partnership with Nintendo.

In order to avenge their shame, Ken Kutaragi and Sony immediately launched a challenge to Nintendo, which seemed to be unbeatable in the field of video games.

This is the birth of PS.

In fact, regardless of these things, Jester also believes that the reason why Sony cooperated with Nintendo is very convincing. They just wanted to promote their optical disc system, at least in the early 1990s and late 1980s. In fact, Sony is far more interested in optical discs than home game consoles.

But as for the concept of making their own game consoles just for revenge, these are just some extreme ideas. For such a large and formal company, although Sony has also made many low-level mistakes, such as the establishment of Sony Computer The entertainment division's official start of game development must have been carefully considered by the entire board of directors.

After all, they have worked closely with Nintendo for many years and have a deep understanding of how profitable the video game industry can be.

However, the failure of Nippon Electric, a giant in terms of scale and scientific research capabilities, in the electronics industry also made Sony not want to rush into it, and Nintendo's betrayal just made it so that it had not yet made a final decision. Having made up my mind, it’s just a game console, so I just did it.

In fact, when looking back on this period of history, Jester also admired Sony's courage. He knew that Sony had deep pockets, but without its own core development capabilities, the act of forcing a game console was unreasonable for any company. All extremely risky.

After the successful development of PS, Sony also discovered this problem. They suddenly found that they did not have enough games to support their game console. Kutaragi Ken, the father of PS, had to go to Namco in person to talk to Hudson. These developers of any department begged them to make games for PS.

However, I had just witnessed the excitement surrounding Nintendo due to the Nippon Electric incident, and the vassal developers around me were frightened by Mr. Yamauchi’s thunderous methods, but they did not dare to take another step beyond the limits.

If it weren't for the fact that the performance of PS really surpassed SFC and D, the realistic 3D effects, especially the incredible 3D effects of "Mortal Kombat" on PS, really shocked those game developers, maybe Sony's PS It will also follow the footsteps of NEC's PC-e.

It is precisely because Jester knows the impact of the next era on the video game industry, especially home game consoles, that he spares no effort. When the development of the previous era has just ended, he can’t wait to start the development of the next era. .

Because Jester doesn't want to be replaced by a changemaker.