Game Development Giant

By mid-January.

Sony's PS2 has been on sale for more than a month. Although sales reached nearly 600,000 units on the first day, sales during the rest of the time can only be said to be average.

As of yesterday, there were a few more days in a month.

According to information announced by Sony itself, the total sales volume of PS2 is less than 1.6 million units.

It can also be seen from this that although fans were very enthusiastic about the new console at the beginning, the vast majority of fans still have a cautious attitude, although they are also very excited about the exquisite 3D graphics. .

However, there are many reasons for them not to buy it temporarily.

The first is that there are currently not enough games on the new consoles. Although Sony has made great efforts, after all, a console has just been released, so it is certain that there are not many new games.

The second is that compared with new consoles, the games on old consoles are really rich and all kinds of games are available. Moreover, with the release of new consoles, the prices of old consoles and games will definitely be reduced. This is not only It was Sony, even Mars Entertainment, who lowered the prices of their games by US$10-20 when Sony launched their PS2.

Under the temptation of a large number of cheap games, many players will have the idea that it is better not to buy a new console so quickly and to play some old games that they have not played before. Of course, there is another reason.

That is, the first batch of consoles will basically have some kind of problem. The first ones to buy are basically true fans and are considered test users. Although Sony must have done various stress tests, but this kind of Testing on a scale of millions has never been carried out and is impossible to carry out.

Basically, the first batch of shipments will not be too large.

It is a common method to wait for feedback from players and then make adjustments in various aspects based on the feedback.

It will basically be the same in later generations. Except for true fans and newbies, when players choose a console, they will not buy it immediately. They usually wait for the second batch. Even the third batch of goods.

Of course, there is not necessarily something wrong with the first batch.

For example, Microsoft's three-red problem is only once in the history of consoles.

The others are all minor issues, nothing serious.

For example, take the static electricity problem of PS4's sensor keys. This problem has been around since the beginning of its release. The specific manifestation is probably this. If you plug your machine into the socket for a long time, an electrostatic reaction will appear on your sensor keys. What does this electrostatic reaction look like? Generally speaking, when you are playing games, He will spit out the dish suddenly.

To be specific, when you were having fun playing The Witcher 3, he suddenly spit out your game disk.

Then your game is interrupted.

Of course, if you just play the download version, you won't have this problem.

Logically speaking, this is not a big problem. But in the end, Sony still didn't fix it. When the second version of the machine was released, it simply replaced the tall-looking sensor buttons with physical mechanical buttons.

Everyone is happy with this.

But even if you use the first version of the machine with a number starting with 1XXX, don't worry. As long as you pay attention when playing and unplug the power from the socket after playing, you still won't have this kind of static electricity problem, but these The fault is innocuous, and it is nothing compared to the three red problems Microsoft faced back then.

Regarding Microsoft's three red issues, although it is a topic used to criticize Microsoft in the industry and various game forums, especially in domestic forums. In fact, many black people don’t even know what the three-red problem is or what its specific manifestations are.

Of course. Many people say it’s just three red lights!

It is true that three red lights are on, but the question is, do you know where these three red lights are?

Basically, if you ask someone who takes the initiative to raise the issue of the Three Reds, you will immediately feel frustrated and unable to answer it at all. Because he has never seen what Sanhong looks like, how can he describe it to you?

The so-called three reds were actually a circle around the switch of the XBOX360 at that time, divided into four lights. If it were normal, these four lights should be green, but the problem with the XBOX was the three counterclockwise lights. turned red, preventing the machine from starting.

This problem has a great impact on XBOX.

Not only for the XBOX360, but also for the entire video game industry, this may be the most serious console problem that console manufacturers have ever encountered.

In fact, Jester has a sigh, that is, Microsoft. If it were not for Microsoft, any other host manufacturer might have encountered such a problem. It would probably not be strange for this host project to be completely abandoned.

In the past, many people were thinking about the three red issues.

There has been no official statement yet.

However, in 2015, after leaving Microsoft, Peter Moore, the former head of Microsoft's gaming business, took the initiative to talk about the three red issues that almost destroyed XBOX in an interview. To be honest, Jester was also surprised after seeing it.

IGN published this story at the time, and the title it gave the story was a great decision.

As we all know, the Xbox 360 had a three-red problem soon after its release in 2005, but Microsoft did not pay enough attention to it initially.

When the time came to 2007, the three-red problem became increasingly impossible to ignore. Microsoft spent US$1.15 billion in funds to replace Xbox 360 players who were troubled by the three-red death problem and repair the problem. Normal host.

Peter Moore explained in detail what happened to the disaster. Also participating in the show at that time were Phil Spencer, later the head of Microsoft's gaming department, and Seamus Blackley, one of the founders of XBOX. Therefore, Peter Moore's description of this matter should be accurate and unmistakable.

“At that time we started to receive a lot of crash reports and bad comments from players, but it was difficult for us to accurately estimate how serious an accident we were experiencing,” Peter Moore recalled. “I remember I found Robiie Bach, and I boss and told him that we were probably experiencing a billion-dollar incident. To make matters worse, as we began to analyze the problem, important relevant personnel in the company left, which undoubtedly caused a huge challenge for engineers. . We only knew that the three reds were related to the overheating of the console, and we tried many fixes at that time. I still remember players using wet and cold towels to cool down."

Peter Moore's team was overwhelmed by this problem at the time. If the matter was not under control, it would soon turn into a large-scale public relations crisis for Xbox products. The finance team at the time estimated that it would cost $1.15 billion to solve the problem. Peter Moore mentioned on the show that he would always remember that day.

"I called Robbie and held a simple meeting with Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer in Building 34. We had to tell Steve that we had to take action immediately. We needed to send empty Xbox boxes to players' homes. We will recall those Xbox 360s with the problem and have them repaired and returned to them. Alternatively, players can remove the hard drive and send it to us."

"My team estimated that it would cost $1.15 billion to resolve the incident, of which $240 million would be spent on FedEx postage. The company's hardware inventory was expected to be depleted within two weeks. I remember at that time I was shaking almost as I sat in front of Steve, but I still stated that failure to take action would be tantamount to slow suicide and those comments would destroy the Xbox brand."

"Steve is a terrible guy, but I have to say I love him to death. He asked me in detail what I should do. Then he asked me how much money it would cost, and he immediately said $1.15 billion. 'Just do it now' without any hesitation. I thought I was going to light a volcano, but nothing happened."

When talking about this experience, Seamus Blackley also echoed that dealing directly with people like Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates can be very painful. But they are also willing to help you solve your problems. "If all of us are angry, Peter Moore will definitely be dead. But if we stay rational, then we will naturally care more about how to help him solve the problem. This is also the reason why Microsoft has been able to achieve commercial success for a long time. One of the mysteries.”

Peter Moore is very grateful that Steve Ballmer gave him the green light to go ahead with such a huge budget drain, and in fact they succeeded in eliminating most of the bad reviews against the Xbox. He believes that every Xbox 360 player should also be grateful to Steve Ballmer to a certain extent for his firmness and courage on this issue. If the company had chosen to use rhetoric to smooth over this issue in an attempt to get away with it, Xbox One and even the Xbox brand would probably have disappeared.

"That's when I was absolutely devastated." Peter Moore continued to share his unique experience. "I had to frequently attend numerous briefings and speeches. It was not like the pleasant chat show we are here today. That terrible experience was unimaginable to ordinary people. Through working together with engineer Todd. Holmdah, we finally changed The lead-free solder joints of the GPU and the fan were removed, and thank God, thank Todd, we solved the problem."

Compared with the story of problem solving, Peter Moore was more immersed in Steve Ballmer's wise decision: "The moment Steve Ballmer made the decision is a sacred moment that I will never forget. At that time, in order to rescue the Xbox gaming platform The cost would have been three to four times higher now, so I firmly believe that Xbox One will not make a similar mistake again."

After Jester read this report, he had no doubts about the title of the report - The Great Decision.

This is indeed a courageous move made by Microsoft's top executives.

To a certain extent, they saved the XBOX brand. It also taught the development team enough experience and lessons, and these experiences and lessons converted from more than one billion US dollars were also reflected in the development of XBO.

For example, the first version of PS4 has many minor problems, and the static electricity problem on the sensor keys mentioned before is just one of the more serious ones.

But XBO really has never had any problems.

This is in a new product. It is extremely rare. Not only did the hardware engineers fully consider various situations when designing, they were also very responsible during quality control and production.

In this regard, Microsoft is much stronger than Sony.

Although Jester is a Suo Qing, he still admits this.

Of course, game consoles are still judged by sales volume. Sony's PS4 sales of 24 million are indeed many levels higher than Microsoft's XBO sales of 12 million.

Basically, the final result of this era has been laid down in the first two years.

When the time turns to January of the new year, the release of Sega's console Saturn is imminent. Their investment in publicity, especially in North America, is no worse than Sony.

Although Sega itself does not have the brand bonus of Sony's huge empire.

However, thanks to the addition of countless games from arcades to consoles over the years, their game fans are unmatched by Sony.

Therefore, when they were first released, the momentum created by players was no less than Sony's.

Even the sales volume on the first day was much higher than that of PS2.

This is also a matter of course.

Sega has more game fans, but PS2 supporters also found an attack point to attack Sega supporters. You know, this kind of mutual quarrel between camps is not something that only happens in later generations in China. It exists naturally in the United States. Many American producers have said this kind of thing in interviews, but they all thought this behavior at the time was stupid.

Later, after Phil Spencer became the boss of Microsoft's game department, he also said in an interview that any behavior between camps was SB - of course, this was because their XBO sales were soared by the PS4. Come on, they were the ones being sprayed, that's why he said that.

It's just that Sega didn't develop a 3D game specifically for the Saturn machine.

There is one that has been transplanted, namely Yu Suzuki's VR Warrior, but this game is not the first release. According to the news announced by Sega on the day of its release, it will take about half a year for this game to be released.

Jester watched all this quietly.

There is only one thing he has to do now, and that is to make his own games and develop his own console.

Then, a year later, counterattack. (~^~)