game trailblazer

Chapter 325 Arakawa Minority's Ambition
"Mr. Arakawa, what advice do you have?" Zhang Lexing took the mobile phone from Wang Mengyao and said with a smile on his face.

"I don't dare to advise, I just want to ask again, Mr. Zhang, is your last invitation still valid?" Arakawa's slightly panicked voice came from the phone. Of course, he was not really panicked, but out of an instinct It is the habit of taking this tone.

"Of course it still takes effect. I welcome Mr. Arakawa anytime." Zhang Lexing replied with a smile.

"Then Mr. Zhang, when do you think it would be appropriate for me to visit you?"

"I just arrived in BJ, it's a bit late now, why not tomorrow. Which hotel Mr. Arakawa is staying at, I'll ask the driver to pick you up tomorrow."

"How embarrassing is this, Mr. Zhang, if you tell me the place, I will take a taxi by myself."

"How can I be regarded as the master in BJ, how can I let Mr. Arakawa take a taxi here by himself, and if you find the wrong place, it will waste time instead."

"In that case, I'd rather be respectful than obedient. Mr. Zhang, I live in Room 1105 of the BJ Hotel, or at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, do you think it's okay?"

Zhang Lexing thought about it for a while, although eight o'clock seems a bit early, but BJ always gets stuck in traffic from time to time, it's better to come out early, so as not to be delayed on the road, so he said to the phone: "Yes, Mr. Arakawa, eight o'clock tomorrow morning I'll ask the driver to pick you up. Rest early at night and see you tomorrow."

"Okay, Mr. Zhang, see you tomorrow." After finishing speaking, Arakawa did not hang up the phone in a hurry, until he heard the sound of the phone hanging up from the receiver, he put the phone handle back to its original position, and then sat on the sofa He let out a long breath.

Arakawa is now in a very calm mood. Now that he has made a decision, he naturally doesn't care about thinking about it. Anyway, the worst thing is to maintain the status quo, pack up and leave after a few months. Hopefully, maybe he can still usher in a turning point.But all of this depends on the situation of the discussion tomorrow. Arakawa is still not sure what that Mr. Zhang wants. Displeased, but after all, Nintendo, especially the North American company, was created by him alone, and he didn't want to ruin it in his own hands.

Arakawa leaned back and touched his face with his hands. Everything will be known after the discussion tomorrow, and there is nothing to do right now. His eyes swept across the empty guest room, and his heart surged. lonely.He came out in a hurry this time, and Arakawa didn't want others to know where he went, so he didn't even bring his own secretary with him. feeling alone.

Unknowingly, Arakawa took out a business card from his coat pocket, which he received from a minister during the day. It is amazing that there are Japanese characters on the business card, although it seems a little strange It is fluent, but the meaning of the words is understood by men.It’s just after nine o’clock now, and it’s a bit late for Mr. Zhang when he arrived at the airport, but it’s still very early for Arakawa Minoru. “It’s been a long night and I don’t want to sleep.” Thinking about it, his hand slowly stretched out again. The phone next to the sofa...

……

On the morning of August 8, Zhang Lexing woke up from his sleep, and habitually reached out to touch the side, but found nothing. Then he remembered that he was not sleeping in his own home, but very close to the Times Fashion Building. In a star hotel.Because Arakawa was invited to talk about things today, in order to avoid traffic jams, Zhang Lexing did not go back to the Longyuan Villa by the Chaobai River last night, but chose a hotel closer to the Times Fashion Building to live in.

Walking out of the bedroom, Zhang Lexing found that a breakfast had been set on the dining table in the living room. It was a simple ham and egg sandwich, plus a glass of milk. However, it seemed that it had not been long since the milk and ham and eggs were still steaming.No need to guess Zhang Lexing knows that this must be arranged by Wang Mengyao, just like Yan Ruofei before, the two of them have always been very careful in this regard.

It happened that his stomach was already growling, Zhang Lexing took a look, Wang Mengyao didn't seem to be in the room, so he stopped being polite, sat down and picked up the tableware, trying to wipe out the breakfast on the plate.It looks like a simple combination, but it tastes like a little aftertaste. The bread in the sandwich is toasted hot, with a hint of wheat fragrance, plus lettuce, chicken, cheese and some fillings The unknown stuff, when mixed together, adds other complex flavors to the wheat fragrance.Slightly fried ham slices are cut into a circle, with two fried golden eggs in the middle, served with tomato slices and green vegetables, which is both good-looking and delicious.Finally, drinking a glass of fresh milk filled Zhang Lexing's stomach immediately.

After eating breakfast, Wang Mengyao walked in with a stack of documents, came to the dining table, took out one of them and handed it over: "Boss, this is a briefing on the situation of the game industry in the last two days."

Zhang Lexing took it and flipped through it. Sure enough, there was something he wanted to see on it, and he returned the briefing to Wang Mengyao. He took out a tissue and wiped his mouth, then stood up and said: "Okay, it's almost time. , let's go first."

"Okay boss, please wait a moment." Wang Mengyao nodded, turned and left the room.

Zhang Lexing took advantage of this time to go to the bathroom to take care of his appearance, and changed his clothes after coming out. At this time, Wang Mengyao was also ready and returned to the guest room, so the two, accompanied by bodyguards, took the elevator to the hotel Then get in the car and drive directly to the Game Museum, which is the Times Fashion Building not far away.

The hotel Zhang Lexing lives in is about 800-[-] meters away from the game museum. If he had to walk there, it would not take much time. However, there are a lot of media there now, so he doesn’t want to be pestered by others. It's endless, and I don't want the news of him appearing at the WCG finals to be mentioned in the newspapers and the Internet every day, so I just took the car.

The car drove into the underground parking lot of Times Fashion Building, Zhang Lexing and others went directly to the top floor of the building from a special elevator, where a relatively secluded reception room had already been prepared, the layout of the room was spacious and elegant. It is also comfortable, and several large-screen TVs inside can also see the upcoming WCG competitions and video images from multiple angles of the entire venue.

Zhang Lexing chose a sofa at random and sat down, turned on the TV with the remote control, and took a look at the situation in the venue. It was not yet the time for the competition to officially start, but there were already a lot of spectators.Just after taking two sips of tea, Wang Mengyao walked in from the outside, leaned into his ear and whispered, "Boss, Mr. Arakawa is here."

"Let him come in, well, pour another cup of tea." Zhang Lexing ordered.

"Okay, boss." Wang Mengyao agreed, turned and left.Not long after, the door of the reception room was opened again, and a man in a white shirt appeared at the door. Zhang Lexing turned his head and saw that the person who came was Arakawa Minoru.

"Mr. Arakawa, the journey is going well." Zhang Lexing greeted him while sitting on the sofa.

Arakawa smiled and said politely: "It went well, Mr. Zhang, thank you for sending a car to pick me up."

Zhang Lexing smiled. At this time, Wang Mengyao came in with a cup of freshly brewed tea. She came to the tea table in front of the sofa, bowed and carefully put the tea cup in front of Arakawa, and said lightly, "Mr. Arakawa, please Use tea!"

Smelling the faint fragrance coming from beside him, Arakawa turned his head habitually, his eyes followed the collar of the woman in front of him and was about to explore, then he remembered that he was not in Raymond's office now, the woman beside him Nor was it his secretary, Ms. Kawaguchi.Arakawa really intends to talk about serious business, he doesn't want others to notice his wandering eyes, especially the man sitting next to him, according to his understanding, there is always some ambiguity between "Miss Secretary" and the boss, If he ate tofu with his eyes in front of others, the result would definitely not be much better.

In a flash, Arakawa Minoru's eyes immediately moved upwards, looking at the "Miss Secretary" who brought the tea, he said with a very "sincere" smile on his face, "Thank you!"

"Miss Secretary" put down the tea, bowed slightly, turned and left.If it was in his own office, Arakawa would definitely appreciate the swaying back of "Miss Secretary", but now he can only sip his tea with his head depressed.

According to Arakawa Minoru's thinking, after drinking this cup of tea, he should start talking about the topic. To be honest, he is really curious about what the man next to him is thinking.But the development of things was different from what he had expected. After Zhang Lexing drank a couple of sips of tea and said something like "today's weather is good", he invited him to watch some WCG match that was being broadcast on TV.

If he hadn’t worked for Nintendo, Arakawa would never know if he would like games in his life. Even though he has been in Nintendo for many years, he is not too interested in games, but occasionally uses minesweeper and cards on the computer to relax. nerve.The game being played on the TV screen was very complicated at first glance. Arakawa watched it for a while, but couldn't see what was so interesting about it.

However, others were also very kind, and Arakawa really didn't want to lose face, so he could only hold back his dull eyes and stare at the big screen TV.After holding back for a while, just when Arakawa turned his head to say something, Zhang Lexing suddenly said casually, "Mr. Arakawa, I thought you wouldn't be able to come."

"Mr. Zhang, why do you think so?" Arakawa felt a little strange. It should be impossible for outsiders to know his mental activities, let alone when he was so far away, but why did the man next to him seem like Guessed his hesitation.

"Oh, I heard that your company held an exhibition in Muchang, Tokyo yesterday, at which the next-generation portable handheld and 'Dolphin' mainframe were officially announced. I thought that Mr. Arakawa would attend." Zhang Lexing drank Sipping tea, he pointed to the dim sum on the coffee table, and said, "Mr. Arakawa, don't just drink tea, try this old BJ-style dim sum, it tastes pretty good."

Arakawa Minoru's face darkened. If it was before, he would not be absent from this kind of exhibition. Otherwise, he would also hold a larger-scale exhibition in the United States, but even if there is now, There is nothing else to do with him, which is why he has time to come to BJ.When people talked about something unpleasant, Arakawa Minoru's mood immediately became much worse, but he paid attention to the expression of the man beside him, and he didn't seem to be able to see that he was deliberately laughing at him. This is understandable, after all, Nintendo's internal struggle It is difficult for outsiders to understand.

It was difficult for Arakawa to answer Zhang Lexing's words. Did he want to say that he had been marginalized by the old man in Yamauchi? Even though it was true, it was still very difficult for him to admit it, so he could only laugh a few times. Hoping to get this out of the way.

Did not get any answer from Arakawa, Zhang Lexing smiled indifferently, and changed the subject: "Mr. Arakawa, what do you think of the future prospects of NGC (Nintendo GameCube, the official name of the 'Dolphin' console)?"

"This..." Although it has been marginalized, Arakawa still knows about the "Dolphin" host, which is now NGC. In terms of hardware specifications, the performance of NGC is still good, but the 8-inch mini special DVD drive Going to the extreme again.

It took a lot of hard work, and finally persuaded the stubborn old man Yamauchi to accept optical discs as the next-generation storage medium. Unexpectedly, Hiroshi Yamauchi came up with a new idea, saying that in order to prevent piracy, he actually asked Panasonic to design a special CD. A reading device that is smaller than ordinary DVD drives, and the storage medium has become the current 8-inch mini disc that is smaller than DVD discs.Originally using optical discs as storage media was to reduce costs, but Hiroshi Yamauchi came to this hand, and the custom-made drives and special optical discs raised the cost again. Although it is still much cheaper than cassettes, compared with others using ordinary DVDs, The cost is at least doubled.

Of course, this is just a small matter, more importantly, NGC came too late.According to Minoru Arakawa's idea, it has to be launched before the end of this year at the latest, and not only RB, but also the North American market.However, Hiroshi Yamauchi and the old people at the headquarters were all fascinated by the false brilliance of N64, thinking that the early listing of NGC would affect making money from N64, so they postponed the launch date of NGC to the middle of next year, and the North American region is even more expensive. RB's night here for three months.According to his own experience, Arakawa understands that if NGC really does not go public until next year, unless their opponents make some mistakes in the past half a year, they basically won't have too many opportunities.However, it doesn't matter if the new generation of portable handheld GameBoy Advance arrives, anyway, the portable handheld market is basically dominated by Nintendo alone, and there are no serious competitors at all.

But Arakawa is really hard to say these words, how can he still be a member of Nintendo, and he is also the son-in-law of the old man in Yamauchi, so he has no reason to pour cold water on his own company, so he can only ramble a few words: "...the prospect is of course very promising Yes, after all, the performance of NGC is quite powerful, and the cost of storage media is not too high, I believe it will be very popular with game development companies..."

Before Arakawa could finish his nonsense, Zhang Lexing suddenly interjected: "Mr. Arakawa, do you believe what you said?"

Arakawa got stuck before he could say something, yes, if he didn't even believe it, wouldn't others really be able to see it?Under such circumstances, Arakawa couldn't go on talking anymore, he could only smile helplessly, and took a sip from his teacup, hoping to cover up his embarrassment by drinking tea.

"How about the performance of NGC, I don't want to comment, but based on the launch date announced at the exhibition yesterday, I can be very sure that NGC is dead!" Zhang Lexing glanced at Arakawa, who was drinking tea, and said casually : "Mr. Arakawa, are you willing to just watch like this? According to me, you and a few partners started Nintendo North America from scratch. When the performance was the best, it once contributed 70% of Nintendo's revenue, but now ..."

Arakawa shook his head bitterly: "What can I do, Mr. Zhang, you really think highly of me."

"No, I know you have a way. Back then, the N64 was brought back to life thanks to Mr. Arakawa's ingenious planning in North America. Otherwise, Nintendo would have collapsed long ago."

When people talked about his good performance in the past, Arakawa Minoru felt quite comfortable in his heart, but the reality of the predicament made him unable to speak easily: "But that is already in the past, now, I just want to do something. There is a way."

"If I can give Mr. Arakawa the opportunity to show his strengths in Nintendo, I wonder if Mr. Arakawa is willing?"

"How is this possible?" Arakawa shook his head, he knew exactly how stubborn the old man in Yamauchi was, and it was almost impossible for outsiders to convince him.

"Mr. Arakawa, you don't need to worry about what method I use, I just want to ask, are you willing to be as muddle-headed as you are now, and never have a chance to display your abilities, Mr. Arakawa, are you willing to continue like this forever?"

Arakawa shook his head, he is a guy with an adventurous spirit, of course he doesn't want to eat and wait to die every day, if he is not suppressed by the old man in Yamauchi, he would not be willing to be the current boring president.Arakawa is actually very ambitious, or he used to be very ambitious. According to his thinking at that time, he hoped to make Nintendo a successful listed company. This is also the idea he had when he left Benimaru Trading Company. .However, Zhang Lexing's proposal also made Arakawa more vigilant. He felt that the motive of the man next to him must not be simple, so he said with a worried face: "I will not betray Nintendo!"

(End of this chapter)