Reborn Tycoon Rise

Hong Kong Island, Prince's Building:

The sales of the new games Tank Battle and Pac-Man are also increasing sharply in the UK. Bao Fuda and others have also made considerable profits from it. In return, the Land Group rented the 19th to 25th floors of the Prince's Building to Midea at a preferential price. Electronics Company and Changxing Cultural Company.

The day after returning from Huo Mansion, Midea Electronics Company held a summary meeting.

Games have a lifespan, no matter how classic they are. Classic games only mean that people will still play them occasionally after a long time, but when it comes to being obsessed with them, it is no longer possible.

This is especially true for arcade machines. Every time you play, you have to spend a certain amount of money. Every time you insert a coin, the player will slowly be brought back to reality. Not to mention that the arcade itself also has certain market restrictions. When there is a shortage of such arcade machines, the market naturally shrinks sharply.

Orders for Xiangjiang Cubes and Snake are only 20-30% of their peak compared with last year, and there is a downward trend.

Xu Zhi looked at the report in his hand and said, "It has been popular for more than a year, and its lifespan is almost over!"

Xiangjiang Cubes and Snake have been sold for more than a year, and conservatively estimated that the profit brought to the company exceeds 50 million US dollars. Currently, orders from the US market have almost disappeared.

But the responsibility of the arcade machine was over, and the Gameboy came to an end again. The handheld console with Xiangjiang cubes and Snake was extremely popular as soon as it was launched. Handheld consoles follow the route of small profits but quick turnover. The net profit of a Gameboy is about one dollar, but the advantage lies in its large quantity. It also earns millions of dollars in net profit every month.

The remaining two arcade games, Tank Battle and Pac-Man, began to slowly decline after their sales peaked around Christmas last year. According to the company's internal estimates, by the end of this year, orders for these two games will also decline. Will hit rock bottom.

The development of new games is already imperative!

Xu Zhi asked: "How are Mario and Contra?"

He Guoyuan said: "We have established two branches in Silicon Valley and Japan and hired some professional software technical talents. The algorithm of the scroll is almost complete. The programs of the two games have also been completed and will be ready for internal testing immediately."

"Okay." Xu Zhi smiled happily.

Nintendo's most talented Gunpei Yokoi has been poached by him with a high salary. At the same time, Midea's arcade machines defeated Nintendo's arcade machines in 1978-79. Now he is preparing to copy the most classic game of later generations: Super Mario!

In later generations, Mario is a super popular character who stands at the top of the gaming industry. He plays the protagonist in many game projects, as many as dozens, and the cumulative sales of games exceed 310 million copies. By 2015, a total of Earned huge commercial profits of up to 33 billion US dollars for Nintendo!

If nothing unexpected happens, Nintendo will have no chance to rise in this generation. It will lose a strong competitor, which is very good news for Midea.

Another game, Contra, was later produced by the American company Cola. In the mid-to-late 1980s, its popularity was as famous as Mario's, and even more famous in mainland China.

The special thing about these two games is that they are both side-scrolling games. Compared with the previous games such as Tanks vs. Pac-Man, which were played on one map, Contra and Mario follow the movement of the characters. The map slowly unfolds, like a rolled-up map. This design greatly increases the playability of the game, but also greatly increases the difficulty for research and development.

There is a shortage of scientific and technological talents in Xiangjiang, but Midea has plenty of US dollars. As early as the beginning of the year, the company established branches in Silicon Valley and Japan at the same time, constantly poaching people from Nintendo and Atari, and also absorbed many top students from famous universities. Graduates provide fresh blood for training.

With the cooperation of many talents from the United States and Japan, various technical problems of scroll games have been overcome one by one, and finally two games are now about to take shape.

Xu Zhi asked again: "When will the samples be available?"

He Guoyuan said: "The game programming has been successfully designed, but the content has yet to be filled in. How to arrange each level will have to be studied by the technical department for some time. It is estimated that it will not be released until June."

The release of the game frameworks of Mario and Contra does not mean that they will be successful soon. The logic control and difficulty control of the game need to be determined through multiple research and development. In order to study the psychology of players, Midea hired a team of experts from Harvard University in the United States. Two psychology professors came to study the topic part-time.

The two professors led their free students to play various games constantly, summarizing their own or other people's inner thoughts. In the end, Midea spent a lot of dollars, but also received a lot of rewards. For the game difficulty, time, music There has been a lot of progress.

For example, the skill of difficulty arrangement, if it is too difficult at the beginning, it is easy for players to lose interest. It is only simple and interesting at the beginning to make players addicted to the game, and then slowly set up traps and enemies in subsequent levels, and when a difficulty is over , players must be allowed to relax for a while, and the game must enter a relaxed state.

If a character dies, it is also important to resurrect somewhere. If the player resurrects to the starting point, all the player's previous ten minutes or more of the game will be invalidated, which will definitely annoy the player.

In fact, Xu Zhi also knows these things. After all, he has played a lot before. However, how to control these rhythms and the time of each period must be confirmed by professionals.

Xu Zhi nodded and said, "Okay, once the procedures are finalized, the motherboard will be produced in our own factory."

The production line imported from the United States has arrived in Xiangjiang and been installed. After several tests and production, the factory in Xiangjiang has now started producing motherboards for Pac-Man and Gameboy. However, the production capacity is still insufficient, and due to management and technical reasons, the cost is even higher than imported ones. The motherboard is even taller.

However, Xu Zhi is already very satisfied with the results. With his own motherboard factory, it will be easier to develop new games, and the factory can also train technical personnel to prepare technical reserves for larger factories in the future. As for the current high cost , that is also a normal phenomenon. Once the employees are familiar with it and the technical skills are in place, the cost will naturally decrease.

After the meeting, Xu Zhi talked with He Guoyuan alone for a while. After the game is released, Xu Zhi's main thoughts may shift to another thing, but no matter what, Midea is the cash cow of all development, and he has to Pay attention to.

Since the beginning of the company's wolf culture, although the technicians have been complaining, their previous comfortable life has been completely lost, and they will live under the intense pressure of unemployment at any time every year in the future, but their arms cannot twist their thighs. Everything must be based on the interests of the company first, and It's profit.

The entire Midea game development department has also gone through a lot of changes. New talents have been recruited, and some employees have resigned or even been abandoned by the company. This is a basic principle that the company does not raise waste.

In the development department, some highly capable employees will be specially arranged by the company to maintain or develop the games proposed by Xu Zhi. This department does not get a share of the games, but the advantage is that there is no pressure, and the bonuses after the game is successful are very considerable.

The remaining people are organized into 10 groups, each group is responsible for developing their own games. After successful development and review by the company, they will also enter Midea's arcade sales channels, and the entire group will also share the profit share.

At present, three teams have successfully developed their own games. Xu Zhi has also played it once. The playability is not very high, but compared with the various messy games on the market in this era, it should be okay.

After Xu Zhi agreed, three games quickly entered the market. One of them, the "Road Killer" game, sold well, with more than 700 units sold in a month.

According to Midea's internal regulations, the share of a game arcade is 10 US dollars. The development team of this game received a share of 35,000 Hong Kong dollars in the first month, averaging 7,000 Hong Kong dollars per person. This huge bonus shocked everyone in the company. People, this is not just a month's income, nor a bonus, but a long-term return. As long as the game can be sold, then you can get financial returns. Although the life of arcade machines is limited, many may only last a few months. .

But within the company, more resources will be tilted towards teams that have already had successful development experience. More resources mean more possible new games, so the entire game development department has become even more enthusiastic!

Xu Zhi is also very satisfied with this change. Even though he has endless golden fingers, a company must learn to make its own blood so that it can become more successful in the future!