game trailblazer

Chapter 211 The Birth of the Prototype
On the second day after the launch of the N64 US version console, Zhang Lexing came to the office on Lockhart Road in Wanchai as usual, intending to deal with daily affairs first, but he did not expect to receive an overseas call right after he sat down.

"Mr. Zhang, I'm Tom, I don't know if it's too late for me to call..." The voice of Sega North America's president Thomas Kalinske came through the phone.

Hearing the familiar voice, Zhang Lexing suddenly became happy: "It's not too late, it's never too late for you to call Tom."

"Mr. Zhang, I wonder if your proposal last year is still in effect?" Thomas Kalinske continued.

"Of course, I welcome you at any time." Zhang Lexing guessed that Sega North America was about to have personnel turmoil, but it was a matter of time, but he definitely couldn't say this to Thomas Kalinske, so he asked deliberately : "Tom, is something happening?"

"Hey!" Thomas Kalinske sighed on the phone and began to talk about the recent situation of Sega North America.

At last year's E3 exhibition, after Thomas Kalinske got Zhang Lexing's promise, he no longer had to worry about the future. As soon as the exhibition was over, he immediately flew to RB Tokyo, intending to speak again to President Hayao Nakayama, persuading him to give up. The idea of ​​terminating 16-bit hosts.It's a pity that things backfired. What Thomas Kalinske received was only a scolding. President Hayao Nakayama didn't listen to his suggestions at all. Instead, he thought he was too rebellious and dared to disobey the orders of the headquarters.So not long after Thomas Kalinske returned to the United States, the headquarters airborne an RB man named Yuji Zhongshan as his deputy on the grounds of commending his contribution, but in fact he began to gradually take over the power of the company , Thomas Kalinske was slowly emptied.And Sega's 16-bit game console, Genesis, was terminated immediately, and 3000 million Genesis users were also abandoned. Among them, there were even new users who had just bought Genesis for a week. Sega's focus turned to the SS game console. .

It's a pity that at this year's E3 exhibition, although Sega released many masterpieces, Sony still stole the limelight.The price reduction strategy that Yuji Zhongshan placed high hopes on also failed. The SS game console dropped to $200, but the PS game console dropped to $199. The difference of only $1 gave players a very different feeling. The price reduction activity once again became a foil for Sony, which strengthened the impression in the minds of players that "PS game consoles are cheaper than SS game consoles", which is simply a model for making wedding dresses for others.

But these have nothing to do with Thomas Kalinske. Since Youji Zhongshan came, he has nothing to do, and he has nothing to do. In fact, he also thinks that the price of 200 US dollars is inappropriate. Unfortunately, he Yousi Zhongshan didn't listen to what he said, so he calmed down.After that, the SS game console was gradually pulled farther and farther away by the PS game console, and gradually began to show signs of decline. Thomas Kalinske was also completely discouraged, and simply submitted his resignation to the president of Nakayama Hayao. Unexpectedly, he immediately Approved, his heart was even colder.

"Mr. Zhang, I have already resigned from Sega. I wonder if you have a place for me here?" Perhaps thinking of the unfeelingness of Sega, Thomas Kalinske's voice was tinged with sadness.

"I welcome you very much, Tom." Zhang Lexing said with relief, "Camry Toys, a subsidiary of our company, is planning to expand its business in North America and set up a branch in the United States. .”

"Mr. Zhang, there is still a small question." Thomas Kalinske's slightly hesitant voice came from the phone.

"Oh, what's the problem?" Zhang Lexing couldn't help feeling tense. Did Thomas Kalinske encounter some trouble?

"Mr. Zhang, besides me, some colleagues who cooperated very well have also left Sega. I wonder if you are willing to accept it."

"It turned out to be such a thing. There is no need to ask me. You are now the president of Camry Toys North America. You can decide who you need. I believe you." Hearing what Thomas Kalinske said, Zhang Lexing finally Don't worry, although he doesn't know the quality of Thomas Kalinske's colleagues, but he knows that after Thomas Kalinske left Sega, he built a small company into the third largest toy company in North America. People with such achievements, I believe their vision should not be bad.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Lexing was so generous, and Thomas Kalinske felt warm in his heart, just like he was just appointed as the president of Sega North America by President Hayao Nakayama, he felt that his step was right, since the boss trusted him so much , he secretly made up his mind that he must devote himself to Camry Toys North America Company and create a great success.This can not only repay Zhang Lexing's trust in him, but also let the blind guys from Sega see what kind of abilities Thomas Kalinske has, and who can't do without Sega and Thomas Kalinske.

Thinking of this, Thomas Kalinske said excitedly to the phone: "Mr. Zhang, thank you for your trust, I will definitely not let you down!"

"Very good, I look forward to your excellent performance in Jiamei Toys." Zhang Lexing also sent his blessings, but he is still very confident in Thomas Kalinsk's future performance.

Putting down the phone, Zhang Lexing called Shen Meiqin, the head of the Consumer Products Division, and told him about Thomas Kalinske.Regarding Zhang Lexing's decision, Shen Meiqin certainly wouldn't have any opinion. Anyway, she didn't find the right person to open up the North American market. Since the boss personally recommended someone, she had to give face no matter what.After explaining to Shen Meiqin on the phone, Zhang Lexing called his assistant Lin Qianrui.

After narrating the matter, Zhang Lexing confessed: "Lin Qianrui, follow up on Thomas Kalinske. If there is any change, please let me know in time."

"Okay boss, I will pay attention." Lin Qianrui nodded and said respectfully.

"Well, there's nothing else to do, you can go to work first." After Zhang Lexing finished speaking, he waved his hand.

"Boss, I'll go out first." Lin Qianrui bowed slightly, turned and left.

Unexpectedly, as soon as Lin Qianrui walked out of the door, Wang Mengyao rushed in again. Zhang Lexing couldn't help frowning, and was about to ask, when Wang Mengyao spoke first. The prototype of a generation of game consoles has been made!"

"What!" Zhang Lexing stood up in a jerk, leaning on the table with both hands, looking at Wang Mengyao who was still panting in disbelief.

"Boss, the prototype of the next-generation game console has been made." Wang Mengyao repeated.

Now Zhang Lexing understood that the research and development of the next generation of game consoles had made a breakthrough, but he remembered that there were no results last year, so how could there be such a big change in just one year.Zhang Lexing shook his head slightly, as if he wanted to shake off this question. He couldn't care less about thinking about it now, and just wanted to see the prototype right away.

Thinking of this, Zhang Lexing waved his hand and said to Wang Mengyao, "Okay, let's go and have a look."

After arranging the car and road guards, Zhang Lexing and Wang Mengyao came to the game research institute together, and directly approached the hardware research group chaired by Chen Zhipeng.

"Boss, let me introduce you." Chen Zhipeng, who had received the news in advance, led Zhang Lexing inside, and introduced in a calm manner: "The reason why the results came out so quickly is that I would like to thank the boss for giving me a gift last year. Our mini-computer, and those suggestions. It is with these help, together with the support of other departments, that we can complete the design of the prototype.”

"This kind of efficiency is not bad." Zhang Lexing nodded and said, "By the way, where is the prototype?"

"Boss, look here." Chen Zhipeng led Zhang Lexing into the workroom of the hardware research group, pointing to a table against the wall.

Zhang Lexing followed his hand and looked over. The table was covered with a large green anti-static table mat, and on top of the table mat were two rather large machines, a bit like game consoles, but they were too big.

"This is?" Zhang Lexing asked, pointing to the two machines on the table.

"Boss, these are the prototype machines we designed, Moon Goddess No. [-] and No. [-]." Chen Zhipeng pointed to the two machines and replied proudly.

"Damn, return to the Moonlight Goddess, such a big guy." Zhang Lexing couldn't help but slander, of course, he definitely couldn't say this, otherwise even if Chen Zhipeng didn't turn his face on the spot, he wouldn't expect them to work hard in the future developed.

"Moon Goddess No. [-] and No. [-], I didn't expect that you would either not do it, or you would have two units. By the way, why are there two units?" Zhang Lexing asked.

"Boss, it's like this. Your suggestion last year mentioned too many processors to cooperate. We have worked hard in this direction. At the beginning, it was based on the cooperation of the main processor (CPU), image processor, audio processor, etc. For consideration, this is the origin of the Moon Goddess No. 100. Later, a dual-CPU version was released for the integrated motherboard at the Institute of Electronics, which inspired us, so we redesigned a version that supports dual main processors (CPU) After testing, we found that although the performance cannot be improved by [-]%, the processing speed of the whole system has been greatly improved, and a more refined game screen can be realized. This is the origin of the Moon Goddess II. "Chen Zhipeng came to the table, touched the two machines lightly, and explained to Zhang Lexing at the same time.

After listening to Chen Zhipeng's introduction, Zhang Lexing immediately became interested: "Chen Zhipeng, tell me about the situation of Moon Goddess II, what kind of system is it, and what is its performance?"

"Okay boss, this is what Moonlight Goddess II is like..." Chen Zhipeng opened the shell of a machine on the table and began to introduce it.

After listening to his introduction, Zhang Lexing realized that the Moon Goddess II is really not simple. It uses a scalable symmetrical MIPS processor system developed by the Institute of Microelectronics, that is to say, the main processor is two With the same MIPS processor, the Luna II uses the MIPSR-4050A processor re-developed by the Institute of Microelectronics and specially designed for game consoles.The image processor part uses ATI's specially designed Redwood chip, which has powerful graphics processing capabilities, can process 3600 million polygons per second, and supports hardware-accelerated edge anti-aliasing, texture maps, bump maps and other special effects.As for the audio processor, it comes from the innovative company, which is a dedicated audio processing chip under development. The innovative company calls it the Emu10k1 chip.

Scalability in the scalable symmetrical MIPS processor system means that the main processor, image processor and audio processor are allowed to be upgraded when the system remains unchanged, that is to say, as the research progresses, once there are more The main processor, graphics processor, and audio processor can be swapped out at any time as soon as a suitable processor comes along, with little adjustment required on the motherboard.This also means that the workload of the hardware research group has been greatly reduced, which is one of the reasons why they were able to come up with two prototypes so quickly.

Seeing Zhang Lexing's face getting brighter and brighter, Chen Zhipeng was worried that his boss would put the Moon Goddess II into production immediately, so he hurriedly explained the shortcomings of the prototype: "Boss, but the current prototype is not suitable for scheduled production. One is that the technology currently used is not mature enough. According to our estimated production cost, using the same production line as the PS game console, it will cost at least 1.2 Hong Kong dollars to produce a Moon Goddess II, although the performance far exceeds those so-called The next-generation game console, but the price is not competitive at all. Another reason is that for the convenience of research, the current prototype is still relatively large, mainly for the convenience of us to adjust and test the components inside. If we want to enter the production process , At least the volume should be compressed by more than 80%, which is theoretically no problem, but it will take a certain amount of time to actually produce the finished product.”

In fact, seeing the huge size of the prototype, Zhang Lexing knew that it was impossible to produce it immediately. After all, the home game console he wanted to develop was not a home arcade machine. It was impossible for players to buy back a 29-inch color TV. game console.If it is placed next to the TV, people who know it will know that it is a game console, but those who don't know may think it is a big iron box placed next to the TV.

Although the production could not be started immediately, it did not affect Zhang Lexing's imagination. He even named the future game console a "dream" because it was his dream all along.Seeing that the successful development of the "dream" game console in his mind is in sight, Zhang Lexing has already begun to think about the future development strategy of game consoles. It is not entirely suitable to go directly to the business route of Sony and Nintendo, at least not in the mainland. The per capita income is far from that of other regions, and a game console of [-] to [-] yuan can only be regarded as a relatively luxurious product for a long time. This price is definitely not enough to achieve the purpose of rapid popularization.But Zhang Lexing is also unwilling to make the game console completely free, because in this way, the game console may not be cherished by others.

The promotion model that Zhang Lexing initially conceived is a mixed model of free and subsidized sales, and will rely on the Fengyun Game Club, which is currently under development.Zhang Lexing plans to raise a sum of money to set up a game console promotion fund first, and then when the game console officially enters the mainland market, it will launch a variety of preferential activities. For example, players who have purchased Fengyun interactive products can participate in the monthly "Dream" game console There will be a lottery, and 60 lucky people will get free game consoles every month.Another example is the game console purchase subsidy plan. The price of the "Dream" game console in the mainland may be set at 1800 yuan per unit. Any player who buys it for the first time will be able to get a discount coupon of 800-1000 yuan sponsored by the game console promotion fund. , and installment payments are allowed, and the discount coupons can be used to redeem games that will be launched by Fengyun Interactive in the future, so that the price of the game console will become 800 to 1000 yuan relatively speaking. I believe that players who can accept this price in a few years will probably More.If the "dream" game console can be popularized in mainland China through various means, for example, the volume can reach 1000 million units, and Zhang Lexing will not need to open his mouth by then. Naturally, some people are willing to develop games for this market.

Thinking about the bright future of game consoles in the future, Zhang Lexing seemed to see the joy and encouragement of the players and the prosperity of the domestic game industry. The corners of his mouth could not help but curl up...

(End of this chapter)