game trailblazer

Chapter 41 Confrontation in Kyoto

"I know that the sales of FC game consoles may also be an important source of profit for Nintendo, and the popularity of FC game consoles is far from enough. President Yamauchi is worried that the transfer of patents will affect the sales of your own products. Right. However, President Yamauchi should know that China is not yet a member of the International Patent Cooperation Treaty, and international patents are not recognized in China, so even if there is no patent authorization from Nintendo, they can still produce FC game consoles.” Although Zhang Lexing was talking nonsense, he did tell the truth.During that special period, many domestic companies made their fortunes by counterfeiting FC game consoles. According to afterwards estimates, the profit of FC compatible machines alone was as high as 160 billion yuan. This huge amount of money even made Nintendo very jealous. , Of course, these are still nothing to do now.

"So what, we at Nintendo never thought of going to China to develop our business." Hearing Zhang Lexing's words, Yamauchi Hiroshi was very unconvinced.

"If Nintendo can transfer the patent to me, then I can help fight against piracy, and it can also increase Nintendo's influence in China. Doesn't Nintendo ever plan to pay attention to the Chinese market? After all, it has a population of more than one billion If you think about it, even if only [-]% of the people have needs, it is a business of more than tens of millions." Zhang Lexing is like a strange uncle who lures children with candies, deliberately seducing Shanuchi.

Hiroshi Yamauchi couldn't help being a little emotional after hearing this, and his tone became much more soothing. It seems that the toothbrush theory not only has a market in the United States, but even RB is not immune.Once the head of the family makes it clear, the next thing will be easy to handle. Anyway, to put it bluntly, it is nothing more than a reasonable exchange of interests.After several rounds of negotiations between negotiators from both parties, KF-Panda on Zhang Lexing’s side also made concessions, and finally reached an agreement to use the future rights of the Mario series in exchange for the patent authorization of FC game consoles in China. Of course, at present, KF-Panda "Super Mario 3" under development by Panda is not subject to this restriction, and can still continue to be developed and released, but the specific release date is determined by Nintendo.Of course, the FC game console patent license obtained by Zhang Lexing is limited to China, and there is no need to pay authorization fees when selling in China. Once it exceeds this range, each console will be charged 3 yen. After 5000 million units, Nintendo will no longer limit the scope of Zhang Lexing's patent use.In addition, Nintendo will provide Zhang Lexing with an assembly line for assembling 6000 million cassettes per year at a price lower than the market price, and Zhang Lexing will authorize Nintendo to produce MMC1000 enhanced chips (the third-generation FC game function enhanced chips), and only charge 3 yuan for each chip. License fee in Japanese Yen.Among the many terms of the agreement, Zhang Lexing deliberately dug a lot of small holes for the future. For example, one of the clauses "The company invested by Zhang Lexing can apply FC-related patented technology to the emulator on the computer..." is written in the agreement. The banner is for the convenience of development. In fact, Zhang Lexing's ultimate goal is to no longer be restricted by Nintendo when making FC emulators in the future.

In fact, Zhang Lexing also thought about directly producing FC compatible machines. Anyway, the domestic market at this time is not a place that Nintendo can control at all. However, considering that his plan still needs to maintain a good relationship with Nintendo, he had to reluctantly give up the "Super Mario" series. A big gold mine for money.After negotiating with Nintendo and arranging manpower to handle related matters, Zhang Lexing received news from his business investigation agency that the game developer Scowell, which he had followed for a long time, had recently fallen into financial crisis.After nearly four years of game development, Square has yet to make any achievements. Not only did the computer games that started at the beginning fail to improve, but the FC game development that was newly involved also suffered successive defeats.A lot of pits have been dug, but none of the trees have grown up. On the contrary, it has consumed a lot of funds from the parent company Denyusha. Although Scowell is the interest of Miyamoto Masashi, the young owner of the agency, it cannot always be like this Let’s burn the money. Sensing that there is nothing to be done, Denyousha has the idea of ​​​​quitting the game production business, and began to quietly look for buyers who are willing to accept Square.

Zhang Lexing felt that this was a good opportunity and immediately arranged for someone to make the acquisition.After negotiations, finally KF-Panda invested 30 US dollars to acquire 70% of the equity of Square from "Dianyousha", and the remaining 30% of the equity was held by one of the company's founders, Dianyousha Shaodong Jiagong In the hands of Masashi Ben.After the completion of the acquisition, KF-Panda authorized the development of the "Dragon Quest" and "Final Fantasy" series to Square Cowell, and the release of games in the RB region will also be temporarily in charge of the future by Square Cowell.Transferring the development work of these two games is also a last resort. The first generation of "Dragon Quest" and "Final Fantasy" have been specially researched by Zhang Lexing, so they can still do a good job of drawing tigers. With his eyes darkened, Zhang Lexing didn't want these two classic games to sink in his own hands (in fact, the real reason was that he was worried that they wouldn't make money if they didn't make them well), so he could only send back the development rights.After obtaining the new investment from KF-Panda and the development authorization of two games, the originally dead Scoville Company was resurrected. In order to do a good job in the development of "Dragon Quest" and "Final Fantasy", under the new With the efforts of the chairman of the company, Nangong Yun and CEO Miyamoto Masashi, a development team led by the newly dug Yuji Yuji and the company's old man Hironobu Sakaguchi was established to be responsible for the development of "Dragon Quest 3" and "Final Fantasy 2" respectively. Development work.

Two months later, at the launch ceremony of "Dragon Quest 2", Square Enix, which had completed the reorganization, attended as a release representative, and Yuji Oi and Hironobu Sakaguchi were present at the same time. After the game display of "Dragon Quest 2", Square's representative, Masashi Miyamoto, announced at the launch ceremony that "...under the guidance of KF-Panda, Square will be responsible for the future of "Dragon Quest" and "Final Games". "Fantasy" series production", this heavy news caused a huge sensation on the spot, and even the limelight of "Dragon Quest 2" was overshadowed. Not only the players on the scene were excited, but the related game media also reported the matter. Oda Rinji, a special writer for Famitsu magazine, also wrote an article calling for the victory of the RB game industry, claiming that since then, "Dragon Quest" has truly become a well-deserved RB national game.Square, which was originally unknown, has also become the most dazzling star in the RB game industry, and has become a holy place in the eyes of many RBDQ fans.

When purchasing Scowell, Zhang Lexing mainly moved his mouth, because he didn’t have time, because he was in contact with Namco personally, because Namco had something that Zhang Lexing was eager to get——"BattleCity" (tank battle) .When Zhang Lexing came to the headquarters of Namco, he was received by Nakamura Yuya, the representative sent by Nakamura Masaya.

"Mr. Zhang, I'm glad you came to Namco." Nakamura greeted him friendly.

"Well, I don't like to go round and round. This time we are here for Namco's "BattleCity". We hope to get the right to adapt "BattleCity" on FC and PC. Tell me about Namco's request." Zhang Lexing was straightforward State the purpose of this time.

"Ah, this..." Nakamura didn't expect someone to make such a direct request, and he seemed very surprised, "I need to ask the president for instructions."

"Go quickly, we'll wait here." Zhang Lexing said bluntly.

Nakamura ran out all the way, and a quarter of an hour later, Nakamura came back with a smile on his face.

"Mr. Zhang, Namco can transfer the adaptation rights of "Battle City", but you need to pay some transfer fees." Nakamura said with a smile, "We estimate that it will cost about 500 million U.S. dollars."

"The asking price is too high, we cannot accept this proposal." Zhang Lexing immediately objected.

"Then what is your company's proposal?" Nakamura asked calmly.

"Have you played "Contra" launched by our company?"

"No, but I heard that this game is very popular."

"I wonder if Namco is interested in launching "Contra" on arcades?"

"It's hard to say, it needs to be evaluated by relevant departments."

"Really, let's evaluate it first. Let's go to Konami first. The president seemed to be very interested in this last month."

"Mr. Zhang, don't worry. Our evaluation department is very efficient. Why don't I help you arrange a place, take a break and have lunch, and the results should be available in the afternoon." Nakamura seemed a little anxious.

"Okay, let's wait." Zhang Lexing said with a smile, "I hope your company's efficiency is as high as you said."

"I'll remind them, please wait a moment." Nakamura walked out of the conference room, and soon came with several beautiful female staff.

"Mr. Zhang, hello. My name is Yuki Suzuki. It's the first time we meet. Please take care of me." The leading female staff greeted warmly, "I will serve you next, please take care of me."

……

When Zhang Lexing and his group were resting, eating lunch, and enjoying a beautiful life, an emergency meeting of Namco’s high-level executives was held. At the meeting, everyone was noisy. Some people said that in order to maintain the pride of the big RB, they must not sell "BattleCity", and some people thought that as long as the price It doesn’t matter if it’s suitable to sell. Some people worry that Konami’s acquisition of “Contra” will affect Namco’s market share. After fighting and fighting, they can’t agree on it. In the end, Nakamura Masaya showed courage and decided to use “BattleCity” In exchange for the right to adapt "Contra" in the arcade, the negotiators still have to try their best to get the best result.

After lunch, Nakamura also came to the meeting room again.After several rounds of fierce confrontation between the negotiators, the two parties finally reached a compromise. The final condition was that Namco exchanged the exclusive rights to adapt "BattleCity" for the FC game console and PC platform for the exclusive arcade adaptation rights of "Contra". The other rights and interests of "Contra" and "BattleCity" belong to the original company. In addition, Namco will obtain the production license of FC enhanced chips at a price of 110 yen per piece.It is not KF-Panda that signed the copyright exchange agreement with Namco, but FCSource, a wholly-owned company established by Zhang Lexing. The main job of the company is to be responsible for the copyright transactions of FC-related games. It has already mastered KF-Panda through internal transactions. All FC game copyrights produced by the company.

This trip to RB was not only a deal with several companies such as Nintendo, the most important achievement was the signing of multiple MMC3 chip license production agreements, but the production license fee has finally risen to 150 yen. The top seven game development companies ranked by RB have all been drawn into the camp of using MMC3. The same thing is happening in North America, and a standard for FC enhanced chips is quietly taking shape.

RB's trip was basically over, and a few people from KF-Panda were left to deal with the aftermath. Zhang Lexing and other entourage boarded the flight and went to BJ to meet Dr. Yu and others.

(End of this chapter)