Video Game Empire

Atari's -2600 game console is now the well-deserved overlord of the North American home game console market. Last year, sales in the United States exceeded 3 million units. [For more exciting novels, please visit] Of course, his dominance has not been challenged, such as the Ossed 2 game console that Philips entered the US market, and the game console that Mattel launched.

In particular, the hardware performance of the latter is higher than that of the -2600, which has caused a lot of shakes in Atari's dominance. But Atari has grabbed the right to release most of the best-selling games on the market, and with the cheaper consoles, it has firmly held the largest market share.

But when the overwhelming advertisements of the game consoles of the Oriental Game Company swept the newspapers and televisions of the United States, Ray Cassar, the president of Atari Company, immediately felt uneasy. The current Dongfang Game Company is no longer the obscure little company it was a year ago. His feat of sweeping the arcade field in North America made Atari Company dare not take it lightly.

In particular, Atari has repeatedly asked the other party to purchase the adaptation copyrights of several of its best-selling arcade machines, all of which have been rejected by Dongfang Games, which made Atari have long been vigilant. Now, what they don't want to see has happened, and the giant crocodile in the arcade field of Dongfang Game Company has begun to invade the territory of home game consoles.

As soon as the game console was put on the shelves, Atari's technical department got back a few prototypes for complete dismantling. The results were frustrating. Although the machine was an 8-bit machine, the performance was very good, much better than Atari's flagship product, the 2600.

When the director of Atari's technology department reported to Mr. Ray Cassar. His face was full of frustration: "This group of Hong Kong people is incredible, how can they keep the cost so low? Just a ppu (graphics controller) on a game console costs $10. And they only ship out For $100, it's barely profitable!"

Good game performance is supported by better hardware. The hardware cost of the machine is much higher than that of the -2600, but the retail price set by Dongfang Games is the same as that of Atari, which is $199. Although the game console launched by mattel company has good hardware performance, its price is as high as 299 US dollars, and such a high price is not too competitive.

But Dongfang Game Company's machine is different. Not only is it priced the same as -2600, but the games released at the same time are the last popular arcade games, which made Ray Casal instantly receive a huge threat. In fact, Casal didn't even have to report with his tech lead, he tried it out on a console for a few minutes himself. It was immediately known that Atari's mortal enemy had appeared.

"A new game console that is comparable to it must be developed within three months!" This is Casal in his president's office, pointing to a game console in a very cold tone to the R&D department A word from the supervisor.

But even so, Casal, as president of Atari, had to earn this precious three months for the R&D department. Otherwise, without waiting for the new game consoles to come on the market, the -2600 is likely to have been defeated by the game consoles.

At this time, Atari began to show its value by relying on the strong distribution system established by the annual sales of millions of consoles. Casal issued a ban on all distributors of Atari game consoles, -2600 and machine can only choose one of the two, anyone who distributes game consoles will be pulled into Atari's blacklist.

On one side are the new consoles just getting ready to go on sale. The other side is the best-selling star products that can sell millions of consoles and tens of millions of game cartridges every year. Most dealers choose Atari without hesitation. Therefore, the distributors who also distributed Atari game consoles, after Atari issued a ban on game consoles, called Dongfang Game Company to request the cancellation of the previously signed supply agreement.

The conference room of Hong Kong Oriental Games Company. More and more information is coming back from the United States. This time, the distributors collectively terminated the sales contract with Dongfang Game Company. It has been determined that Atari Company is behind the scenes. Distributors who opted out accounted for 70% of all distributors. If Eastern Games doesn't take immediate remedial action, the console may not be on shelves in much of North America.

"Xiao Lisheng. I think the reason why distributors choose Atari instead of us is not only the reason why -2600 is very popular now. The lower profit of selling our game consoles is also an important reason." Han Peng said with a wry smile. "Our shipping price to the first-level distributors is $100, while the -2600 is only $90! That is to say, in the whole distribution process, the distributors at all levels will earn at least $10 more from selling Atari's game consoles than selling ours. !"

"These are all the details you said. The key for us now is how to solve the current problem!" Li Xuan said with a serious face, "Peng brother, when the game was sold before, did we establish a complete terminal seller in North America? database!"

Li Xuan thought that the marketing system of Oriental Game Company in Japan has penetrated into almost every terminal dealership. Basically, the middle distribution link can be abandoned, and the logistics and distribution center of Dongfang Commercial Company can directly send to the owners of toy and game stores. Dropshipping.

"Yes, but the land area of ​​the United States is much larger than that of Japan, and the population is relatively scattered. Although we have built a terminal distribution database, we have not started the construction of the corresponding logistics supporting system. Because such costs are more expensive than the distribution system. high.

At present, Dongfang Shoji implements a three-level distribution system in the North American market. We ship goods to large agents at the state level, and then they distribute them to various small regional agents, and finally the small regional agents wholesale to terminal retail stores! "Han Peng replied.

"How many employees does Dongfang Commercial have in the United States?" Li Xuan suddenly asked again.

Han Peng glanced to the side, and someone immediately replied respectfully, "Lisheng, Mr. Han. We have a total of 77 employees in the United States, and we have set up six offices in the United States and the United States!"

"All employees will gather at the Los Angeles headquarters immediately. Another 30 people will be dispatched from Hong Kong to support!" Li Xuan immediately decided that Oriental Commercial's US headquarters is located in Los Angeles. "According to our database, we immediately sent people in small groups to the terminal retail stores throughout California to visit in person one by one!

Atari can only scare the middle distributors, but as long as our consoles sell, they can't stop retail shop owners who want to make money selling our consoles.

In order to reduce the concerns of retail store owners, our conditions may be more favorable, allowing them to sell on behalf of customers without payment. After we believe that our functions are selling well and make continuous profits for them, we will settle the payment in the normal way! As long as we can capture part of the market. The intermediary distributors in that part of the market will definitely not be able to sit still. After all, no one wants to miss the opportunity to make money in vain!

As long as someone can't help but cooperate with us, like dominoes, Atari's embargo against us will quickly collapse! After all, if they really banned the middlemen, it would mean handing over that part of the market to us! "

Dongfang Game Company and Dongfang Commercial acted quickly, including Li Xuan, Han Peng and Du Wenqiang, who flew to Los Angeles for the first time.

"Hey, boss, is there that game console advertised on TV?" A young-looking blond boy, accompanied by his father, walked into a toy store. Can't wait to ask the big belly boss.

"Sorry, kid! I don't have a game console here, why don't you try this -2600, it's also a very good game console. Atari's flagship product has a lot of games to choose from, including one More than 100 kinds!" The fat boss pointed to the various game cards that were densely hung on the wall behind him. said proudly.

The boy shook his head in dismay, having spent Christmas with his parents at his grandmother's house last year. Followed two cousins ​​to a corner grocery store and played Tank Wars for the first time on an arcade machine for 25 cents. But the boy's father was a well-paid surgeon. His family lives in a middle-class affluent neighborhood in the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles, and there are no grocery stores and arcades around to give him a chance to play that fun Tank Wars game again.

Not long ago, the boy finally saw Tank Wars again on a TV commercial and begged his father to buy him a game console for his birthday. The father and son have gone to several game stores and have not been able to buy the game console that is being advertised.

"Hi, everyone, are you talking about this game console?" There was another man in the store at some point. He was holding a beautiful rectangular box, and the boy's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Hi, sir, your son is so cute!" The man greeted the father and son very enthusiastically, "I am an employee of Dongfang Game Company, this game console is our company's product, I am very sorry, it has just started to be distributed. , keep you waiting!"

The man put the game console box on the counter and opened the package very quickly, revealing the red and blue fuselage inside.

"This game console is divided into three parts: the host, the gamepad and the data cable!" The man turned his head and smiled at the game shop owner, "Can you turn on the TV for this gentleman to try it out?"

The big-bellied boss was familiar with him, but he didn't react for a while, so he habitually reached out and turned on the TV. The man quickly connected the data cable to the TV, plugged in the power plug, and turned on the game console. The English word "east" of the Oriental Game Company appeared on TV soon.

"This is the game card slot!" The man took out a few boxes of game cards from the backpack he was carrying, and the blond boy fell in love with the box with the game screen of "Tank Wars" at a glance~www.readwn.com~ The man is very With a wink, he plugged it into the game console, and the familiar background music and pictures of "Tank Wars" soon came on the TV. He simply taught the father and son how to use the gamepad, and let them try it out for themselves.

"Mr. Jackson, hello! I'm Josh, the sales representative of Dongfang Game Company. Are our company's game handheld game consoles sold well here?" Josh pointed to the glass window of the counter, which was placed in a prominent position. One of the game consoles in the game said with a smile.

The big-bellied boss Jackson listened to his question, and the unpleasant expression on his face finally subsided a little, because the game console was selling very well.

"I'm sorry, I was a little self-assertive just now, but I believe that you, Boss Jackson, will definitely not want to lose such a sincere customer!" Josh pointed to the father and son and said softly.

"I don't distribute this console!" Jackson didn't understand what he meant.

"As long as you want, you are now the dealer of this game console, and you can complete a single sale immediately!" Josh said with a smile. (To be continued..)

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