game trailblazer

Chapter 74 Sony's Choice

"Is this a game console?" Ken Kutaragi asked Chen Zhipeng, pointing to the machine in front of the TV.

"Oh, this is a new generation of mainframe that we have just developed, and it is ready to be evaluated by the business department here." Chen Zhipeng said pretending to be relaxed.

Ken Kutaragi suddenly felt that his chance had come. Isn’t it the game console he had dreamed of for a long time? If Sony could get it, I believe that Nintendo would soon be able to taste the bitterness of treachery.Kutaragi Ken thought about it and made up his mind.

"Mr. Chen, if you want to do an evaluation, we Sony can provide the best help. We can completely check your machine in all directions, and even provide you with the most professional improvement suggestions." Ken Kutaragi tried hard to maintain his expression. normal.

"It doesn't seem to be in line with the company's rules." Chen Zhipeng looked embarrassed.

"Mr. Chen, please believe in Sony's strength, and this matter can also help me. As a friend, you can't be so cruel." Ken Kutaragi tried hard to persuade.

"Well, for the sake of my friends, I can only reluctantly do what I can. But I have two conditions: first, I and a few people from the company must be present; second, the machine must not be disassembled for inspection." Chen Zhipeng seemed to be convinced.

Kutaragi Ken thought: "It's fine if I can get the Sony, as long as I let President Ohga see it, I believe I can always find a way to keep the things, at least no one will think that my idea is nonsense."

……

The next day, the anxious Kutaragi Ken drove early to pick up Chen Zhipeng and others, and of course the most important thing was the game console.After the group arrived at the Sony headquarters, they went directly to the special meeting room on the 16th floor through the special elevator. President Dahe and several high-level executives who had supported entering the game industry were already waiting inside, but these people seemed unimpressed by the meeting. I don't really care, but this is the best result of Kutaragi Ken's overnight communication yesterday.

The two sides greeted each other politely and began to get down to business.Chen Zhipeng opened his suitcase, quickly assembled the host with the help of the technicians who came with him, and then connected it to the large-screen TV in the meeting room. Everything was ready.

Kutaragi Ken bowed deeply to Chen Zhipeng, with an extremely sincere attitude, "Mr. Chen, please, please introduce this host to the president."

Chen Zhipeng nodded, walked to the TV, and began to introduce: "Let me first briefly explain the performance of this host.

This host adopts the MIPSR-3000A developed by us as the CPU (central processing unit), which is a 32-bit simplified instruction system processor with a calculation speed of more than 3000 million times per second, and it has been especially enhanced in multimedia processing, which is very suitable for use as Game code operation.

In order to enhance the graphics processing capability of the host computer, a dedicated image processing chip is also equipped.This chip was originally used on the SGI advanced graphics workstation, which has superior two-dimensional image processing capabilities, and can realize various special display effects such as zooming in and out, rotation, deformation, multi-scrolling, and plasticine effects on the host computer. It also has a powerful three-dimensional image calculation capability, which can process up to 36 polygons per second.

The display output can reach a maximum screen resolution of 640×480, and the 24-bit color channel can realize true color output. The maximum number of colors on the same screen can reach 1677 million colors, and a maximum of 4000 active characters can be displayed on the same screen.It is no exaggeration to say that this console will be the game console with the strongest image processing capability in the next few years.

The specially developed sound processing chip has 24 channels of PCM (pulse code modulation) sound sources, and the signal sampling rate is 44.1KHz. Players will be able to experience the perfect soundtrack of music CD effects during the game.

The game storage uses a standard data disc. The current data reading device of the host is a single-speed optical drive, which can read 150K bytes of data per second.

The host's internal memory has a total of 28 megabits, including [-] megabits of data storage space, [-] megabits of image storage space, and [-] megabits of sound buffer.Since the CD cannot save the data in the game process, we also designed an external portable flash memory for the purpose of saving the game process data.

There are two standard gamepad interfaces directly in front of the console, which can be connected to handles of various specifications.Through the expansion interface at the rear of the main unit, peripheral devices such as a mouse and a remote communication card can also be connected.

......"

After a professional introduction, except for a few on-site technicians, Sony’s President Oga and senior executives were all in a daze. Seeing that the situation was not good, Kutaragi Ken hurried forward and whispered a few words to Chen Zhipeng: "Mr. Chen, don't just talk about technical indicators, this is not intuitive enough, you can just demonstrate the game effect of the host directly."

Just as Chen Zhipeng had this intention, he turned on the game console and put in the demo CD.The first thing that came out was the logo of three discs, and then it was a long time to read the discs.Just when President Dahe and the senior executives couldn't bear it anymore, the game screen finally appeared on the TV, which was still the demonstration of the interior of the church.The shocking three-dimensional effect and the appropriate background music made Sony's President Ohga and senior executives completely unbearable, and they got up and gathered in front of the TV.

Chen Zhipeng held the handle and controlled the movement of the characters in the church, followed by the characters rolling and jumping, and finally ending with a sword dance.Looking at the people around who were eager to try, Chen Zhipeng handed the handle to President Dahe, so that he could experience it with his own hands.

After a round of trial play, President Dahe and the senior executives returned to their respective seats. Occasionally, two people would whisper to each other. These people are indeed old foxes who have experienced battles. There was a little change, as if what happened just now hadn't happened at all.

In order to enhance the effect, Chen Zhipeng took out another CD and put it into the CD drive. This CD was sent just before departure, and it was a newly made demo CD of a two-dimensional action game.This time, the speed of reading the disk was faster, and soon the game screen appeared on the TV screen. A fighter plane was flying over the calm lake, and it passed by the cliffs lined with strange rocks or the forest with trees from time to time. The calm was broken, swarms of enemy aircraft appeared above, enemy ships began to appear on the lake, and occasionally there were even sneak attacks by submarines that popped up suddenly.The player's fighter jets began to counterattack, and shells and missiles of various colors and styles flew staggered in the air. The downed enemy planes smoked and slowly fell to the lake, and occasionally hit some unlucky surface ships.Accompanied by intense background music, various explosions, flashes and realistic sound effects appear on the screen from time to time.More enemies continue to appear above, and the battle intensifies...

President Dahe and the senior executives once again gathered in front of the TV and started a new trial tour.Kutaragi Ken next to him saw the effect so well, he patted Chen Zhipeng on the shoulder happily, and pulled him aside, thanking him repeatedly.

After the demonstration, Chen Zhipeng also started to pack his things.Seeing that President Oga has not expressed anything, Ken Kutaragi couldn't help running over and whispering in the president's ear, President Oga glanced at Chen Zhipeng, and answered a few words in a low voice, Ken Kutaragi put his legs together, Then he nodded his head, as if he understood something.

According to the plan, Chen Zhipeng packed up his things and got up to leave.As soon as the group walked out of the meeting room, Ken Kutaragi chased after him, begging Chen Zhipeng to keep the host.Chen Zhipeng was unmoved, and refused on the grounds that it did not conform to the company's rules.

Ken Kutaragi hesitated for a while, and then said as if he had made up his mind: "Mr. Chen, our president is very interested in this game console, and we hope that we can carry out in-depth cooperation in this regard. This time, the time is tight. There are not enough people here, and the president still needs to communicate with other high-level executives of the company, so I hope that Mr. Chen can keep this host for others to understand."

Chen Zhipeng pretended to be embarrassed: "This is our company's confidential product, and it is definitely not acceptable to stay here. But since your president has this idea, we can't refuse it. How about it, help us find a nearby hotel , so that when you need to see it, we will bring it over. This will not violate the company's regulations, but also achieve your president's idea, wouldn't it be the best of both worlds."

In the next few days, Ken Kutaragi actively ran up and down. With his persuasive efforts and the support of President Ohga, Sony once again determined the goal of entering the game industry. In order to achieve this goal, the console in front of us became the best shortcut.

For this reason, Kutaragi Ken kept lobbying Chen Zhipeng, and often invited Chen Zhipeng and his group to go out for dinner, leisure and entertainment under the banner of Sony Corporation.After staying up for a few days, Chen Zhipeng pretended not to be persuaded, and told Ken Kutaragi that he needed to ask the company headquarters for instructions, but he would bring Sony to talk about it.

The goal has been preliminarily achieved. Chen Zhipeng announced the good news to Zhang Lexing through the overseas phone call, and briefly introduced the process of this period. After confirming the bottom line and strategy on the phone, the formal negotiation began.

This is an arduous process, and the gap between the two sides has become smaller and smaller in the process of constant see-saw. It took a whole week for the negotiation to reach the final result. KF-Panda paid for the technology related to the prototype, and formed a joint development team with Sony in Tokyo to further in-depth research and development based on the prototype. KF-Panda was led by Chen Zhipeng, and Sony was Kutaragi Takeshi. .As the one who took the initiative to post it, Sony will naturally have to pay more.In order to obtain the console technology to enter the game industry earlier, on the other hand, it hopes to obtain the support of KF-Panda, which holds many best-selling game brands. In addition, no less than 40% of the CPUs for game consoles will be purchased from Hong Kong factories in the future. The operating system code-named "G1" in game consoles will be purchased from VisualSystem. Of course, the purchase price will be very favorable.

After the official agreement was signed, Sony finally got the coveted stepping stone in the game industry, and the joint R&D team was formally formed, and Sony's next-generation game journey officially began.

Nintendo was kept in the dark about all this. At the end of August, Sony pretended to sue Nintendo for unilaterally tearing up the cooperation agreement. In order to contain rivals such as Sega and NEC, Nintendo deliberately maintained a severe relationship with Sony. relationship, as if the previous host co-development plan is still in progress.During this period, Nintendo’s propagandists exaggerated the hardware performance of the PSX (the code name of the console jointly developed by Nintendo and Sony) a hundred times, and induced consumers to take a wait-and-see attitude towards existing models such as NEC’s PCE-CD console and Sega’s MAGACD console. I don't know that this is digging my own grave.

At the end of 1991, with the success of Super Nintendo, GameBoy and other consoles, Nintendo became famous all the way, and its dazzling business performance ranked among the top 15 among RB listed companies, and the net profit of the year was even expected to overwhelm the sales by more than ten times. For its home appliance giant Sony.Everything seems to be developing according to Nintendo's vision, but outside its sight, the undercurrent is constantly surging.

(End of this chapter)