The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Chen Sheng, this is the number of orders that the United States is willing to buy Snake arcade machines in the last month, a total of 8,755 units." Early in the morning, just as Chen Zhiwen arrived at the office, An Qi followed him in, smiling happily. .

"8755 units? That's not much, not even 10,000 units." Chen Zhiwen lay leisurely on the office chair and said calmly. With the knowledge of ordinary players who have only seen bricks in this era, greedy for snakes This kind of game is obviously much more exciting.

The number of orders is less than 10,000 units. In fact, the big factor is that the price is too expensive. Many bar owners dare not take this risk. When they see other bars making a lot of money from this in the future, they will naturally rush in. .

You know, in the original history, in 1979, Japan’s Taito Corporation’s space invaders sold 100,000 arcade machines a year in North America. Although it is four years earlier, the U.S. economy has not changed in recent years. Not much, and the market demand should be similar. There is still a lot of room for development in this market size.

"." An Qi was silent for a while, but she knew the price of this arcade machine. One set cost 3,500 US dollars, but the price of only 8,700 sets exceeded 30 million US dollars, which is almost 150 million Hong Kong dollars. With so much money, even in Hong Kong. You can become a wealthy family, but your boss doesn't seem to care, and thinks it's too little.

"One more thing, according to feedback from the business department in the United States, many bars also want to buy our arcade machines, but the price is too expensive, and they dare not take risks, so some bars propose to put them in their bars first, and then make money Then slowly give us the arcade fee." An Qi returned to her normal state of mind and continued.

"If you don't make any money, return the goods, right?" Chen Zhiwen smiled and said, "Don't worry about them, 8,000 arcade machines are enough for our factory to be busy for a while. During this time, the American business team can still receive new orders. For the order, let’s see what happens and decide what to do.”

The new product has just been launched, just like the smart phone was just released, the production capacity can never keep up with the sales demand. In this case, the seller's market is naturally the seller's final decision. If there are always a lot of follow-up orders, it will definitely remain the same. If not, it will naturally "benefit" consumers.

Whether it is the current arcade machine, the future Apple mobile phone, or a certain tram, the price increase is because there are too many orders exceeding the production capacity, and the price reduction is because there are no orders. Capitalists have never had a conscience and only look at the market.

After all, it is not commodities such as basic necessities of life, food, housing, transportation or medicines. It is enough to only consider market factors when raising or lowering prices.

Arcade machines have been in short supply for half a year since they were launched, and they will be eliminated only when new games appear or people get tired of playing them. At that time, Midea will naturally give up the profits appropriately, or take risks together.

"Okay, then I will fax it to the United States later." An Qi continued.

Chen Zhiwen continued: "In addition, I roughly calculated that the cost of transporting an arcade machine to the United States by air is about 200 US dollars, but it can make the arcade machine enter the United States a month earlier. According to our estimation, an arcade machine can make a profit of at least 20 dollars a day. U.S. dollars, let the American side discuss with the bar, if the bar owner is willing to pay for the air freight, we will air transport it to them, and the account must be settled to the bar owner.”

"Okay." An Qi nodded in a daze and said, but thought in her heart: "Is this okay?"

The bar pays for the air freight, and maybe there will be a handling fee in the middle, and the early delivery to the customer can also make Midea’s capital turnover faster. It sounds like it’s taking advantage of the bar, but it’s true after careful calculation , after all, arcade machines can be profitable, as long as the money earned in a month is higher than the air freight, it is a good deal.

Smart bar owners know what to do, even if they seem to be cheated, they can indeed make more money, especially if there are arcade machines earlier, they can attract more people earlier. The profit of the arcade itself is It's the same thing, but it's impossible for those who come to play the arcade to only play the arcade, they always order something to eat and drink, right?

"Is there any news from Woz?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"Not yet. When I call him, he usually doesn't answer, so I can only wait for him to call back." An Qi said helplessly, although her position is not very high, representing the boss, everyone on her phone is very Pay attention, even if you don't receive it for any reason, you will come back immediately, but only this Woz, because of the time difference, she often gets no answer when she calls at night, and she doesn't call back very often.

"Technical people are like this. They don't shave their beards when they are busy, and they only take a few bites of food. Don't worry about it." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

Before, he asked Woz to develop "Magic Cube". This game seemed simple, but after it was developed, he discovered a problem, that is, how to control the difficulty?

In the early stage of the game, the difficulty must be low. Players must play smoothly for a while to gain a good impression. Otherwise, after half a minute, everyone will lose interest.

In the later stage, the difficulty needs to be increased, otherwise the player will play for too long, which will affect the profits of Midea's direct customers (bar owners).

In other words, the arcade has two customers with different demands, one is the player, and the other is the God who pays.

Chen Zhiwen disagrees with increasing the difficulty by increasing the speed. This will disgust players, and it will easily induce players to give up, resulting in no desire to play in the future. Therefore, Woz's team had to start investing a lot of energy in analyzing when to use 7 Which of the Chinese squares.

Woz thought it was very simple at first, but after the actual test, he found out that the data chaos caused them a headache, but there was no way to complain, the boss's request still had to be implemented.

In the original history, Tetris was only researched in 1984, and it took a few years to promote it. That is to say, when Tetris became famous, it was around 1990. At that time, the arcade market was early It has disappeared, and the carriers of Tetris are also handhelds, home game consoles or computers.

There is no profit time limit, and Tetris under these carriers does not need to study this logic at all. This is why Chen Zhiwen first launched Snake. It is really that "Tetris" needs more energy and cost to ensure success.

In the arcade market, it is not because the game is fun that it will be successful. The first factor of success is to be able to make money for the owner of the arcade machine.

"Manager Shen often communicates with Woz in the United States, but he is a human being and doesn't understand technology. How about we send a technology to the United States? Maybe we can learn some technology from Woz?" An Qi suggested road.

"Alright, let's find a few more, newcomers are fine, go to the United States to learn some technology, and participate in the new game development process of the Woz team. In the future, we will also need such a team in Hong Kong. You can't count on Woz for everything." Chen Zhiwen agreed after thinking for a while.

Although he has ideas for many classic games in later generations, not every game can be copied directly, especially those complex games that will be developed a few years later. Even if he tells Woz about his ideas, Woz may not be able to develop what he thinks Same.

In this case, a large number of people are needed to perfect the details of the game. Leaving aside the issue of high labor costs in the United States, if you rely entirely on the American team and put all your eggs in one basket, the risk is too great.

Hong Kong has to start cultivating relevant talents. If there is not enough talent, it is also a good choice to recruit people from the neighboring Wanwan. Since the 1960s, the Wanwan government has taken the electronics industry as the main support object for economic development. After so many years There are not a few high-achieving students in Wanwan and those who go to study abroad. These people are also the foundation of Wanwan's future electronics industry. The success of TSMC in later generations is the source.

Bringing Wanwan's electronic talents to Hong Kong is also in line with Midea's strategic security significance.