game trailblazer

Chapter 75 The Rise of Probst
After formally signing a cooperation agreement with Sony, Chen Zhipeng came to the United States to report the situation to Zhang Lexing. After introducing the details of the negotiations with Sony and the final agreement, Zhang Lexing noticed that Chen Zhipeng had a strange expression, as if he was hesitating to speak.

"If you have anything to say, don't worry." Zhang Lexing said in relief.

Chen Zhipeng said: "Boss...it's actually related to Masayuki Uemura from Nintendo..."

Before joining Nintendo, Masayuki Uemura was just an unknown junior at Sharp Corporation, and it was a coincidence that he was lucky enough to join Nintendo.When Uemura Masayuki was still working in the daily sales department of Sharp, he went to Nintendo to promote the solar cells produced by the company. He was received by Nintendo’s technical backbone Junhei Yokoi. Ideas for fun stuff.Later, at the suggestion of Junpei Yokoi, Hiroshi Yamauchi personally persuaded Uemura Masayuki to join Nintendo.After Masayuki Uemura entered Nintendo, the first achievement he handed over was the light gun jointly developed with Junpei Yokoi, which used the solar cells that Masayuki Uemura had once promoted. From this, Masayuki Uemura began to show his strength in technology research and development.

A few years later, because of the success of Atari game consoles, Hiroshi Yamauchi began to try to enter the home game console market. To this end, there must be a game console that can be produced. In the end, this important task fell to the then second development department director. On the shoulders of Uemura Masa.With the assistance of Junhei Yokoi, Shigeru Miyamoto and others, after arduous research and development, Masayuki Uemura finally came up with the Nintendo Famicom (FC), which has been popular for more than ten years.

When the PC-E console launched by NEC crazily grabbed the market and Sega was about to launch a new 16-bit console, Masayuki Uemura was once again ordered to undertake the task of developing the next-generation console of Nintendo's red and white machine (FC).Although the R&D progress was too slow and the launch of Super Nintendo (SFC) was postponed, with the support of Chen Zhipeng and others, the final result was successfully produced, and the task of counterattacking Sega and NEC was completed. It was at this time that Chen Zhipeng met Masayuki Uemura, Ken Kutaragi and others.

Later, Sega launched the CD-ROM (optical drive) system used on the MD console. Under the instigation of Kutaragi Ken, Nintendo also developed the SFC console that uses the CD-ROM (optical drive), and also developed a plan for this new console. The name "PlayStation", during this period Uemura Masayuki and some of the staff of the second development department became staunch supporters of the use of CD-ROM, which also planted the seeds of disaster for Uemura Masayuki.

After a short honeymoon period, the conflict between Nintendo and Sony was reborn. The biggest root cause was that Hiroshi Yamauchi did not want Sony to take this opportunity to enter the game industry. excuse.After the "Philips" incident, the rift between Nintendo and Sony became deeper and deeper, and finally broke up completely.In this incident, Sony’s Ken Kutaragi almost fell into a slump. Fortunately, he relied on Chen Zhipeng’s test machine to make a comeback. Masayuki Uemura was not so lucky. As one of the few staunch supporters of Nintendo’s internal CD-ROM, he became Hiroshi Yamauchi's punching bag, after Nintendo and Sony broke up, Uemura Masayuki was also thrown into the cold palace, and could only rely on daily maintenance of old machines to survive.

Masayuki Uemura also thought about switching to other companies. Originally, Sony was a good choice. There was Ken Kutaragi who was very close to his idea. However, before the "Philips" incident, he insisted that Nintendo would not give up on cooperating with Sony. As a result, in the eyes of Sony and Kutaragi Ken, he became a shameless liar, and this road was dead.The desperate Uemura Masashi stayed in Tokyo, wanting to try his luck again, but unexpectedly met Chen Zhipeng who came to Tokyo to work.When Chen Zhipeng participated in the research and development of Super Nintendo (SFC), he had a good relationship with Uemura Masayuki. Seeing his old friend's fate, he couldn't help but feel soft-hearted, so he went back to the United States to ask Zhang Lexing for instructions.

After listening to Chen Zhipeng's narration, Zhang Lexing smiled: "Masayuki Uemura still has some abilities, but I'm afraid it's inappropriate to join the research and development team in Tokyo. It's better to let him go to Hong Kong to do some auxiliary peripheral research work first, and then he should can come in handy."

"Thank you boss." Chen Zhipeng said gratefully.

……

Chen Zhipeng's knots were relieved, and Masayuki Uemura, an expert in game console hardware design, joined him. This trip to Tokyo was really rewarding.Before he had time to be happy with this harvest, Zhang Lexing received a notice to join the board of directors of EA, which was the first time since EA went public this year.

Driving to the EA headquarters in San Mateo, Zhang Lexing felt a strange atmosphere as soon as he walked into the conference room. EA's board of directors originally had only five people. In addition to CEO Trip Hawkins, there were also Zhang Lexing's chairman Red Turnp, director and CFO Jiang Shaojun and two other directors representing venture capital. The number of board members has increased to 21, most of whom are independent directors who have no interest in the company.

Red Turnp and Jiang Shaojun looked very relaxed today, and it seemed that nothing bad would happen.Zhang Lexing noticed that Hawkins had a bad complexion, as if someone owed him 500 million and hadn't paid it back.But the most surprising thing was that Mai Jiajun was also here. He happened to be sitting with a man with gloomy eyes in his free time, and the two whispered something from time to time.

Zhang Lexing sat down at the seat next to Jiang Shaojun, and before he had time to ask clearly, Red Turnp had already announced the start of the meeting with a microphone.

The first person to speak was the man with gloomy eyes next to Mai Jiajun. He said: "CEO Mr. Hawkins' business philosophy can no longer bring EA a faster development speed. I propose to revoke his position as CEO, and Larry .Probst takes over..."

Only then did Zhang Lexing realize that Hawkins' position adjustment was included in the board's agenda. As one of the founders of EA, EA seems to be like Hawkins' child. Now this child is about to be snatched away by others. No wonder he looks so pale today. so bad.

Since Hawkins founded EA in San Mateo in 1982, the development of these years has been fairly smooth. Although it was also dragged down during the Great Depression caused by the impact of Atari, with Hawkins' efforts, it has re-established EA companies that have set development goals quickly stood up again.Before EA's listing, Hawkins successfully developed the company's scale to $10 billion. Although it took three years longer than the expected six years, it was achieved after all.Today's EA not only has several best-selling game series and distribution channels all over the world, but also has a lot of funds through the IPO, and has become one of the top game developers and publishers in North America.Ordinarily, Hawkins can be said to have contributed a lot to EA's development to today's status, but I didn't expect that it hadn't been long since the listing was successful. The sound of wine glasses colliding with each other at the celebration banquet was as if it was just yesterday, but Hawkins' CEO status was a bit unreliable. up.

Hawkins' previous business philosophy was to focus on the development and distribution of computer games, especially the distribution of computer games is the company's focus.However, as Nintendo gradually restored the past glory of the home game console market and began to flourish, Hawkins couldn't sit still. He felt that EA could no longer ignore this huge market, so he entered the MD American version console (Genesis). In the North American market, Hawkins made a move, and soon EA and Sega began to fight fiercely.Hawkins' choice is no problem in Zhang Lexing's view. After all, the game market brought by game consoles has great potential, even bigger than the computer game market.But now it seems that the rest of the board of directors did not agree with Hawkins' choice, nor did they know what changes they would bring about as the successor of Larry Probst.

After the cold man finished speaking, Larry Probst got up and introduced his business philosophy: "I think EA's current development speed is too slow. If we continue to move forward at the current speed, our opponents will have There are many opportunities to catch up, so some changes must be made..."

Larry Probst's philosophy is simple. Publishing is the main business of EA. In order to ensure that there are enough games available for distribution, more game brands must be mastered through acquisitions. This will not only combat competitors, but also reduce their The number of games that can be selected can bring EA a lot of games that can be released, and it can also greatly accelerate the development speed of EA, which can be said to serve multiple purposes.Zhang Lexing actually doesn't like this idea. Acquisition can indeed make the company develop quickly, but it is a disaster for the game development studio, because the ideas of businessmen and game designers are completely different. One only cares about how to Make money faster and more, and the other is to care about how to make games popular with players.Under the collision of the two, businessmen with the power of capital will surely control the future direction of game development studios, and by then boutiques will gradually become fast food.

Although I don't like Larry Probst's acquisition plan, but Zhang Lexing found that except for the people on his side, most of the other directors seem to be satisfied with this kind of proposal. Hawkins seems to be in danger up.In the beginning, Zhang Lexing also owned 67% of EA's shares. Unfortunately, he only regarded EA as a distribution channel and did not pay much attention to it. Coupled with several financings over the years and this year's listing, Zhang Lexing's shareholding in EA has been diluted and partially After cashing out, only 35% is left, strictly speaking, it can no longer make a decisive impact on the company.

Taking advantage of the break before the vote, Zhang Lexing blocked Mai Jiajun's way at the toilet door: "Mr. Mai, what's going on, why are you here?"

"My friend Carl and I just joined the board of directors recently, maybe your subordinates haven't had time to tell you. Carl thinks the value of this company has a lot of room for development, but the current CEO is not good, too conservative, So we need Larry Probst to come in and he'll do more for shareholders."

"But Larry Probst's set is not suitable for the long-term development of the game industry at all. It's a waste of money."

"I'm sorry, but we only care about the stock return of this company. By the way, when we vote later, I hope Mr. Zhang will not object. This will be beneficial to everyone." Mai Jiajun straightened his suit and walked away .

"You..." Zhang Lexing was very uncomfortable, with the urge to vote veto in his heart, he turned and walked towards the meeting room.After walking for a few steps, Zhang Lexing suddenly thought that it was none of his business whether the United States would be exhausted. Anyway, what he really wanted to revitalize was the domestic game industry. Whether or not Larry Probst was on stage had nothing to do with him. No.Thinking of this, Zhang Lexing's mood gradually improved again.

Without the support of Zhang Lexing, Hawkins completely lost power and resigned. From then on, EA entered the era of Larry Probst.Shortly after taking office, Larry Probst made a move and successfully acquired DistinctiveSoftware, a studio that developed sports games for EA's competitor Accolade, which opened up the acquisition process of EA for more than ten years.

For the purpose of being more secure, Zhang Le moved to establish a second distribution channel in Europe and the United States. The goal of the North American side is on a game publishing company that is now called Mediagenic and formerly known as Activision (Activision), which is facing bankruptcy. The European region is eyeing a small company headquartered in England, Eidos Interactives, and plans to reorganize it into a company under the Eastern Industrial Group that is responsible for game distribution after the acquisition.

(End of this chapter)