The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Awesome, I admire it." Henry Morgan said with a thumbs up: "If I knew you were already prepared, I wouldn't have to worry so much."

"Actually, subversive technologies may appear in the market of electronic products at any time, so we absolutely cannot rely on one product to win the world. Besides, even if arcade machines can be popular for a lifetime, our games may not be able to do so." Chen Zhiwen Said with a faint smile.

In the past few years, Midea has developed four games successively, and he still knows that there are not many games that are sure to be successful, because in the past few years when the arcade was just born, there are only a handful of games that can be suitable, and even more Well-known games such as Mario are too complex and require too high an algorithm, and the current chips are not up to this capability.

And no matter whether it is him now or the few companies that seized the arcade success in his previous life, they all made a fortune quickly because few people entered the new market. The probability of the game will be greatly increased, especially after the chips become stronger and many brain holes can be realized, the advantage of Chen Zhiwen as a prophet may not be so strong.

Of course, there will still be advantages. For example, if there is no accident, Mario can be popular all over the world, but its market share will definitely decrease. Whether it is the future arcade market, home game consoles, handhelds or computer games so it is.

"Maybe it's because I thought it was too beautiful, and I expect to live in this industry for a lifetime." Henry Morgan said with a smile.

"In fact, it may not be so desperate." Chen Zhiwen said: "The arcade market will indeed decline, but it can last for a long time. In the future, even if Midea develops a home game console, future games will be released on the arcade first. Wait until the market is almost ready before launching home consoles.”

"Really?" Henry Morgan said with a moved face. The arcade mainly relies on bars. For this, Midea needs to cooperate with him, but something as small as a home game console is sold to end players, and it will definitely be placed in the supermarket. It doesn't matter anymore, but if Midea's games are released on arcades in the future, there will always be a certain market.

"Of course, and you don't have to worry about home game consoles for at least the last three years. We will manage the arcade market well in the past three years. As for the three years later, we will see the specific situation. It's just speculation." Chen Zhiwen said.

It is the process of Nokia being replaced by smartphones. In 2013, it was still the global mobile phone sales champion. The replacement also requires a process. It is necessary to seize new products and new technologies and squeeze out the last drop of profits from old products.

"That's right, do what's right now." Henry Morgan said with a smile, "And Eric, when is your next game, Pac-Man, going to be released?"

"The sales of "Space Invaders" are not bad at the moment, right? It probably won't be released until the second half of the year. The arcade market is limited, and releasing two games at the same time will only lead to infighting." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.

Not to mention the United States, even parts of Europe and Asia follow this strategy. The market for such expensive arcade machines is very limited, so they are all sold in staggered ways to ensure high prices and high profits. On the Japanese side, the games sold were two years ago, so they were much cheaper.

"Okay, I'm just asking. Since that's the case, I feel relieved." Henry Morgan said, "There is another piece of good news. I know that a trading company owned by you always wants to open up major supermarket chains in the United States. I have been taking this route recently. You also know that many big supermarkets also have a cooperative relationship with our JPMorgan Chase, so I know a lot of people. They have agreed to accept some of your trading company’s products. Try it first. Try it, if it’s good, there will be more cooperation in the future.”

"This is good news, thank you very much." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

He and Henry Morgan have always been in a cooperative relationship. During this process, Midea has gradually gained an advantage, but Henry Morgan has not given up. Although it is impossible for him to do anything in the arcade field alone, he has always been outside the arcade. Use his own connections to help Chen Zhiwen's other businesses to increase his value, the most important of which is that he has been using his connections to help Xinghe Trading open the door to European and American supermarkets.

The most successful one was when Henry Morgan entered Celtic, the largest supermarket in the United States, for the daily necessities of Midea Fan and Xinghe Trading.

Midea's electric fan orders doubled last year, relying on Celtic, Galaxy Trading also began to rely on high-quality and cheap daily necessities, and gained Celtic's approval, plus some special customer service, Kyle Celtic's share of orders in Galaxy Trade is close to 30%, but this is just a drop in the bucket for Celtic.

It is true that Wal-Mart, Costco and even Europe's Auchan Carrefour are the future of Galaxy Trading, but Celtic is the present.

"You are welcome, between you and me, we should help each other." Henry Morgan said with a smile. Chen Zhiwen has business ideas and cheap industries in Hong Kong. Many parties have become stakeholders, and that's what he's aiming for now.

Over the years, he has watched Chen Zhiwen reach the peak step by step. From a young entrepreneur who was not worth as much as him to today, he has far surpassed him. Whether it is Midea, Red Bull, Galaxy Trading, or Costco, anyone can become JPMorgan Chase. A big customer of the bank, and Henry believes that this is far from the end of Chen Zhiwen.

"Henry, if you believe me, you can transfer part of your funds to Hong Kong. The real estate market here will never let you down." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and then said, he actually understood what Henry Morgan meant, so If you help yourself, then you have to repay yourself. Not to mention anything else, it is still possible to tell the other party some opportunities to make a fortune.

"The real estate market in Hong Kong? I don't understand real estate, let alone Hong Kong, and I can't stay in Hong Kong forever." Henry Morgan said with a frown.

"You don't need to stay in Hong Kong, you can just invest in some companies. I will give you the names of a few companies later. You can think about buying the stocks of these companies. I am more optimistic about these companies. Part of the investment." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"Okay, let me think about it. It happens that I still have a sum of money in a Swiss bank, and I need to pay interest on it. I can invest in Hong Kong." Henry Morgan nodded and said.

In the evening, Chen Zhiwen took Lei Shengli and Henry Morgan to have dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Henry got excited and tasted a little white wine. After that, he was so drunk in the afternoon that he was sent to the hotel.

Chen Zhiwen and Lei Shengli were much better off, but they also went back to rest separately. Early the next morning, when Lei Shengli arrived at the company, Chen Zhiwen smiled and said, "Old Lei, you drink quite well. I'll call you in the morning." I went to ask Henry, he is still sleeping."

"It's no good. It's not as good as Chen Sheng. I went back to bed last night and felt a little uncomfortable when I woke up in the morning. It's better now." Lei Shengli smiled awkwardly.

"I have to drink less in the future." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile, cigarettes and alcohol are not good things, he will never touch cigarettes in his life, and try to control alcohol as much as possible. You must drink with someone, and you won't drink a lot, but Henry has a good relationship with him, so I made an exception once.

"Sometimes I still can't escape, but I heard that there are some mysterious hangover medicines in many places in Southeast Asia, next time I will drag someone to find some to try." Lei Shengli said with a smile.

"It's better not to touch those things." Chen Zhiwen shook his head, and then said, "You know about Henry Morgan's visit to me yesterday, what do you think?"

"Henry Morgan was the first to discover the potential of arcade games, which shows that his vision and business sense are very strong. This time he also discovered the potential of home game consoles. He is really capable." Lei Shengli nodded and said.

"So it's useful to cooperate with him." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile: "What I told him yesterday is also true. The arcade is estimated to have two to three years of glory time. By that time, home game consoles will definitely It becomes popular on a large scale, and even countries like Europe and the United States will become like household appliances, every household has one, or at least several households have one."

"Atari's home game consoles cost five or six hundred dollars a set. European and American families can afford this price. If there are only a few of them, this is probably a market worth billions or even tens of billions of dollars. It is." Lei Shengli said.

"So next, our task is to develop such a similar home game console. The American team has almost disassembled and analyzed it. The follow-up is to study our own." Chen Zhiwen said.

As far as Chen Zhiwen knows, when Atari was at its peak, its annual sales of home game consoles in the United States were as high as 10 million units, and almost three families had a game console. Such a market is much larger than arcade machines. The existence of computers in the future will impact home game consoles, but this is not a relationship where only one person will live like a smartphone replacing a feature phone, but a relationship similar to a mobile phone and a computer.

Smartphones of later generations will impact the computer market, but they will not destroy computers. Similarly, the relationship between computers and home game consoles is the same. Furthermore, developed countries can popularize computers on a large scale, but developing countries are far behind. Yes, the market here is also huge.

A market that has existed for a long time, Chen Zhiwen will naturally not let it go, this is actually more significant than arcade machines.

"For research and development, I have also discussed with the engineers in Hong Kong. I am afraid that their ability cannot do this, and they can only rely on the United States. However, this investment is huge. Atari previously spent 2,000 I didn’t research it for 10,000 U.S. dollars, and I sold my body to Time Warner to get the follow-up funds, and developed 100 million U.S. dollars one after another, and I’m a little worried that so much money is going to the United States.” Lei Shengli was a little worried. .

"Your worries are very reasonable, so I am not going to develop a game engine like Atari. Our first-generation game consoles only need to be able to adapt to a few of our own games." Chen Zhiwen said.

"Only for our own game? In this way, the cost will indeed be much lower, and the technical difficulty will be much lower." Lei Shengli said after thinking for a while.

"Yes, our games have proven their success on arcade machines. Putting these games on home game consoles can also be successful in theory. When this first-generation game console makes a lot of money in the international market, Then use these proceeds to develop a second-generation universal game engine." Chen Zhiwen said with a light smile.

In the development of the semiconductor industry, the existence of games is a very important guiding factor. For example, in the 21st century, when the performance of computers can meet the business needs of most people, people's desire to replace them will be greatly reduced. It will also be greatly reduced, and there will not be enough funds for iterative production. At this time, the existence of the game can stimulate a large number of players to purchase high-end computers. These computers require high-end chips and complete the commercial closed loop.

In the same way, the same is true for the smartphone industry, which often sells high-end mobile phones based on the gimmick of being able to play a certain game.

But now, the game engine is actually a similar computer. Atari's original idea was to make it a platform. In the future, it only needs to write the game software into the card, and it can be played directly, including all games.

This requires very strong compatibility. At the same time, the signal transmission with the TV and the signal transmission of the handle must be considered. The difficulty is so great that it is far from being comparable to an arcade machine that welds a game in a big iron box.

Moreover, the arcade machine has a large space and a dedicated large cooling fan. The research and development of home game consoles is a problem of heat dissipation in summer, which can kill countless people. This also requires the application of the chip's capabilities to the extreme. Consider manufacturing costs.

To sum up, the difficulty of developing a game engine is no less than that of developing a state-of-the-art computer, and it is far more complicated than the current Apple Computer 2.

The success of Apple 2 was actually the first to propose the concept of personal computer. Other big brands didn’t realize it, but when they did, it took several years to develop their own products, and the price-performance ratio of Apple 2 was not so high. , according to the original history, after going public in the 1980s, Apple’s hundreds of millions of dollars plus annual profits were thrown into it, but two failed products were developed, which also led to Jobs being kicked out of the board of directors and Apple’s follow-up The decline lays the groundwork.

Chen Zhiwen is well aware of the high risks of high-tech research and development, so he would never take this strategy when the initial funds were insufficient. After the acquisition of Wharf, there are no major problems in terms of funds, so he can invest appropriately up.

However, it is too early to develop an all-round game engine like Atari. It requires a lot of manpower and material resources, and it can only be done in the United States. The risk is also too high, and it may not be successful.

In this case, if you only develop a home game console for a few of your own games, the risk and investment will be much smaller, and you can also avoid the big crash of Atari game consoles in later generations, because Atari’s home game consoles , after the popularity, the third-party platform was opened, but the game quality of the third party could not be controlled, resulting in all kinds of garbage games running rampant.

In the end, one of Atari's own garbage games became the last straw that broke the camel's back. Otherwise, on the scale of Atari, if it only produced a garbage game, it would not be possible to close down because of it.

Besides, in the past few years on the market, there is no game that can beat his own four.

"Okay, then I'll go to the United States and communicate with the team there. It's a pity that Woz left, otherwise it would be much more convenient." Lei Shengli said with some regret.

"The significance of a personal computer is far more important than games. If you can't keep someone else, besides, we have a good relationship. You can also go to him for consultation. For him, a home game console specially adapted to our three games may The difficulty is not very high." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"Okay, I'll also go to Apple when the time comes, and I can also see what kind of company this company, known as the future hope of Silicon Valley in the United States, is like." Lei Shengli nodded and said.

"It's good to go and have a look. You should have heard of Jobs, and you can also get to know him, but he is a crazy person, so don't be mad at him." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

Apple was the first to launch a personal computer, and at the same time claimed that every family has a computer. This ambition has made him an entrepreneurial hero in Silicon Valley. Woz, who only engages in technology, is much more low-key. Outside of Apple Basically no one knew him.

Under the spotlight, Jobs also began to become irritable, probably because his vision of the market exceeded his current technical capabilities, but this temper was also one of the reasons for his future failures.

"I've heard of it too. Anyway, it's just a friendship. After all, Chen Sheng, you are also a major shareholder of Apple." Lei Shengli smiled.

"I can only say one thing. Apple has gone through several financings. Although I followed a little bit, it was still diluted." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile. Apple's financing is not for money, but to attract resources. In this case, the three original shareholders all need to be diluted, and it is impossible to hold 33.3% all the time.