game trailblazer

Chapter 40 Confrontation in Kyoto

When the plane landed at Osaka Itami Airport, night had already fallen. In order to adjust the time difference as soon as possible, Zhang Lexing and his entourage found a hotel not far from the airport to rest for one night.In the early morning of the next day, Zhang Lexing and his entourage ignored the sights of Osaka and Kyoto, and drove directly to the Nintendo headquarters in Kamitoba Hokatecho, Southern District of Kyoto.

After relying on the FC game console to create a new world, with the emergence of a large number of platinum works (games with sales exceeding one million) from Nintendo's headquarters, Nintendo began to show its tough side in front of third-party game manufacturers.Under the banner of controlling the quality of games, it actually also includes the consideration of controlling profits. Nintendo began to establish a strict management system for third-party game manufacturers, except for Namco (Namco), Hudson (Hardard) who are known as the top seven game manufacturers. Sen), KF-Panda, Taito (Taidong), Konami (Konami), Jeleco (Jellico) and Capcom (Capcom), other third-party game manufacturers must accept Nintendo's harsh royalty system, Not only the game content must be inspected by Nintendo, but also each manufacturer is limited to only three games in a year. Generally, all game cartridges are entrusted to Nintendo for production and sales. If third-party software manufacturers intend to produce game cartridges by themselves, they must also pay Nintendo Significant licensing fees.The vast number of small and medium-sized game manufacturers complained endlessly, but they had no choice but to grit their teeth and accept Nintendo's mandatory requirements in order to get some leftovers from the big cake of FC games.

When the FC dedicated disk drive system (FDS) was launched, Nintendo had basically monopolized the home game console market, so it intensified and put forward a new overlord clause, stipulating that Nintendo must own half of the copyright of all original games developed on FDS. As soon as the absurd system came out, the game manufacturers were in an uproar.Except for some weak and forced small manufacturers who are desperate for FDS, only Jeleco among the seven major game manufacturers has invested a lot. Hudson and Namco, the two veterans, unequivocally boycotted Nintendo, and used their full support for NEC's PC-E system as a confrontation.However, these are still undercurrents under the surface. On the surface, the Nintendo family seems to be in harmony.

After several years of development, KF-Panda has developed from a studio with more than 20 people at the beginning to a professional game development company with more than 200 people. Most of the games launched in these years have reached the platinum sales level, which is a red for Nintendo. The promotion and popularization of white machines can be regarded as a great achievement.So when Zhang Lexing and others came to the Nintendo headquarters, they received a warm welcome at the gate, and the standard was very high - the welcome team was led by Hiroshi Yamauchi himself, of course, this was also because Zhang Lexing had made an appointment before coming. reason.

As an important partner of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi enthusiastically led Zhang Lexing and his team to visit the first development department (R&D1) led by Junhei Yokoi, the second development department (R&D2) led by Masayuki Uemura, and the third development department led by Genyo Takeda. Department (R&D3) and the newly established Fourth Development Department (R&D4) headed by Shigeru Miyamoto.When passing the second development department, Zhang Lexing noticed that a young man just came out of it, with a frustrated expression on his face.The young people saw Hiroshi Yamauchi leading the guests around, said hello, and then quickly slipped away.

"President Yamauchi, is this person from Nintendo?" Zhang Lexing asked curiously.

"No, he's an employee of Sony, and he's here to promote their company's floppy drive. Humph, we have our own Nintendo, so why use someone else's." Hiroshi Yamauchi said contemptuously, his tone full of disdain.

Zhang Lexing shrugged when he heard this. In fact, he didn’t like Nintendo’s weird special floppy drive at all. He already had a 12-inch floppy disk with a maximum capacity of 3.5Mb (the kind of 1.44MB floppy disk that was popular in the 90s for a long time). Moreover, the data reading speed can be as high as 3000Kb/s, but Nintendo is unwilling to use it and has to develop it by itself.Let’s develop it, but the things we make are much worse than others. The maximum capacity is only one-sixth of others, and the maximum data reading speed is only one-tenth of others. Nintendo still wants such rubbish things. As a treasure.Looking at the back of Sony's young man going away, Zhang Lexing suddenly had a feeling that maybe in the near future, there will be a chance to deal with him.

After the visit, everyone came to the conference room on the third floor to divide the guests and hosts into seats. Hiroshi Yamauchi waved his hand, and someone brought exquisite refreshments soon.Under the signal of Hiroshi Yamauchi, everyone started together and swept away the refreshments on the table, and it was time for the next meeting.

"President Yamauchi, how is the sales of FDS here?" Zhang Lexing spoke first.

Hiroshi Yamauchi said with a smile: "Hehe, thanks to Mr. Zhang, the sales volume is not bad. The "Super Mario 2" released by your company this time has contributed a lot. If you can make more masterpieces on FDS Better."

"President Yamauchi, with all due respect, this FDS system looks good. It seems to be able to solve the problems of the soaring semiconductor costs required by the cassette and the small capacity of the cassette ROM itself, which is difficult to manufacture, but..." Zhang Lexing said.

"Impossible, our Nintendo products are the best." Before Zhang Lexing finished speaking, Hiroshi Yamauchi couldn't help but interjected, with a very dissatisfied expression on his face.

"I'm not just talking nonsense. The FDS launched by Nintendo has a maximum capacity of only 2Mb, which seems to be able to meet the current needs, but there are slow data reading speeds and easy damage to the disk, which will make players think about our products. I have a bad impression of the quality. And according to the information provided by our own business research agency, the problems of cost, capacity and manufacturing difficulty encountered by the current cassette will be resolved soon, and the time is estimated to be at the end of next year at the latest. By that time, this capacity I am afraid that the FDS, which is not up and down and has a super slow reading speed, will no longer have room for survival.” Zhang Lexing took a sip of tea, and then said: “The more important reason is that the functions of FC (NES) game consoles have basically been replaced by us. The company has reached its limit, and there are many creative ideas that cannot be displayed due to functional limitations. For this reason, our company started to develop chips that enhance the performance of FC hosts last year, and has recently made breakthroughs."

"Oh, there is such a thing." Hiroshi Yamauchi stood still, with an unbelievable expression on his face.

"That's right, if this chip that enhances the performance of the FC host is installed on the cassette, it will be able to display game screens and sound effects that surpass the FC function. The new game "Super Mario 3" that our company is currently developing will use this Enhanced chips, this time I also specially brought a demo (demo) cassette, President Yamauchi, would you be interested in taking a look?" Zhang Lexing took out a special black cassette from the briefcase brought by the entourage and handed it over. But one of his trump cards in this negotiation.

Hiroshi Yamauchi took the cassette and looked at it carefully, and then arranged for someone to deliver a FC game console.After the game console was connected to the TV, Hiroshi Yamauchi took the cassette to the game console, plugged in the cassette, turned it on, and planned to experience it for himself.Accompanied by a burst of music that was more refined than ordinary FC games, the demo version of "Super Mario 3" far surpassed ordinary FC games appeared on the TV, and Hiroshi Yamauchi's attention was immediately attracted.

""Super Mario 3" will contain eight huge worlds. For this reason, we have also introduced an innovative large map system. The game process is no longer the linear style of the past. Level selection and repeated challenges. The game provides a variety of props, bringing a lot of new ideas, especially the various special abilities that Mario’s various animal coats can provide, which adds endless fun to the game.” Zhang Lexing came to Next to Hiroshi Yamauchi, he introduced the design idea of ​​"Super Mario 3", "Currently this demo version only includes a part of the two worlds, but we have already experienced the design concept of the game from it."

The magical performance of the demo cassette made Yamauchi Pu feel a little excited, and couldn't help asking Zhang Lexing: "Mr. Zhang, I don't know if this kind of chip is expensive. When will it be mass-produced?"

"Well, the cost is still a bit high now, because it is still in the trial production stage, and the cost is about 8000 yen." Zhang Lexing replied.

"It's such a pity that it's so high." Hiroshi Yamauchi's eyes dimmed all of a sudden.

"However, according to the calculations of our company's hardware engineers, if we improve the production line to increase the output and yield of products, I believe that the cost can be controlled to less than 4000 yen soon. Of course, this has a lot to do with the batch size." Zhang Lexing released Got a good new.

"Oh, that's not bad. I wonder when Mr. Zhang's company plans to improve the production line? When will there be finished products?" Hiroshi Yamauchi immediately became active.

"I plan to build a factory in Asia, and the location is initially chosen in Hong Kong. I plan to start building the factory early next year, and it is estimated that it should be put into production by the end of next year." Zhang Lexing said.

"We have always been good partners. I hope Mr. Zhang can support Nintendo in this regard." Hiroshi Yamauchi bowed and said sincerely.

"No problem, President Yamauchi. Actually, I also need help from Nintendo," Zhang Lexing said with a smile, "Now the production cost of game cassettes has been rising, which has seriously affected the profits of game development. I plan to build a game in China. Cassette assembly factory, the labor cost there is very low, it should be able to reduce the production cost of game cassettes to a certain extent. I wonder if President Yamauchi has a redundant game cassette assembly line on hand?"

Hiroshi Yamauchi thought for a while and said, "This is not a big problem, we can help."

"President Yamauchi, I have another idea, which may make you a little bit embarrassed." Zhang Lexing said.

"It's okay, Mr. Zhang, please tell me." Hiroshi Yamauchi made a gesture of letting go, and continued to think about how much opportunity and space the FC performance enhancement chip could bring to Nintendo.

"I hope Nintendo can transfer the FC patents in China to me." Zhang Lexing said the main purpose of this visit.

Hiroshi Yamauchi's pupils shrank suddenly, and he roared angrily: "No, absolutely not! It is absolutely impossible to transfer the patent of the FC game console."

(End of this chapter)