"Okay, let me give it a try." Lei Shengli also became interested, but he just played for less than a minute when he hit the wall and died.
"I'll give it a try." An Qi also said with great interest.
Woz had already prepared dozens of coins. After Angie got the coins, she persisted for a minute and lost.
"You should turn upwards quickly." An Qi said with some regret. The result of being too greedy was that the snake's head hit the wall, but there was no way. All the rewards for high scores were in dangerous positions. Wealth and wealth are sought in danger.
"Lao Lei, this game will be our flagship product in the United States in the future. You have also played it, what do you think?" Chen Zhiwen asked with a smile.
"Mr. Woz can play for 3 minutes, but An Qi and I can only play for one minute. From this point of view, even if each person plays for 2 minutes on average, when business is good, we can play at least 20 games an hour." Lei Shengli thought for a while. said.
"There is a possibility, but we can't expect that every bar's business will be so good. It would be good if this kind of game machine can be played 30% of the time." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said, it costs 0.25 US dollars a time, which is enough to play a few times. This is an acceptable range for ordinary Americans. After all, the income of ordinary Americans now is less than $1,000. When going to a bar to spend money, they usually mainly chat and talk nonsense, supplemented by consumption.
"How do we open up the channel of American bars? Or through middlemen?" Lei Shengli asked again.
"Red Bull has a service in the United States that provides specific beverages to local bars. We have channels for many bars in the United States. Currently, bar owners are our customers. We are responsible for this ourselves." Chen Zhiwen said calmly
A big part of the terminal cost of goods is the middle channel dealer. For many goods in mature markets, the profits earned by middlemen even far exceed those of the manufacturers.
However, Red Bull is a new product and a pioneer in a new market, and it does not infringe on anyone's interests. Therefore, it has not been affected in any way in the process of opening up its own market. And because of its high price, it has not affected the giants in the beverage industry, Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola.
Bars were once the focus of the Red Bull sales team's promotion. Many young people stayed up late at the bar and chose Red Bull. In this case, the bar was naturally not willing to specifically buy 250ml canned drinks, but wanted to get Red Bull drinks directly. Put it in a poke and sell it, so the profit will be higher.
The Red Bull sales team also agreed to this condition after negotiating the price. In this way, information about many bars was known to Red Bull. Red Bull already has responsible teams in major urban areas in the United States. These teams can fully provide Midea's services. Arcade bridges are possible, at least in the early stages, and if Snake can really become popular, more other hotel owners will take the initiative to inquire.
"That's good, it saves a lot of costs." Lei Shengli nodded and said.
"The cost saved belongs to the company. This is a commercial product, not for civilian use. There is no need for us to pass on the profits to consumers." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
If it is household appliances, clothing, beverages and other consumer goods, when the market is just opening up, it is natural to use Li to attract customers. Regardless of whether they can become repeat customers, it is good to at least increase their reputation.
But for commercial supplies like arcade machines, maximizing profits is the most important thing. As long as your products are popular in the market, then after leaving a certain amount of profit to the bar owner, you have to take the rest into your own hands.
The game industry can last for decades, but their carriers are constantly changing. The glory of arcades only lasts ten years.
"So Mr. Chen, how much does this arcade machine cost?" Lei Shengli asked curiously, while Woz and An Qi also looked at him.
"Woz's design, Snake's chips are 37, plus the motherboard parts are about 800 US dollars, plus the monitor, frame, transportation and various labor, the cost of an arcade machine is estimated to be about 1,000 US dollars, we Just sell it for about US$3,000." Chen Zhiwen said calmly.
"3,000 US dollars?" Lei Shengli's eyes almost popped out of his head. Is this game console much more expensive than a car?
"What do you think?" Chen Zhiwen asked Woz with a smile: "Woz, do you know the price of Atari's Arkanoid game console?"
"I'm not sure. Jobs seemed to have said before that one unit costs US$2,000." Woz thought for a moment and said, "It takes 44 chips to make bricks, and last year's chip prices were much higher than this year. The hardware cost alone It’s just over 1,000 US dollars, and it’s about the same for around 2,000.”
"Our game is much better than that of Arkanoid, right? You guys should agree on this," Chen Zhiwen said.
"It's indeed much more fun." Lei Shengli nodded and said. Last month, after Chen Zhiwen told him that Midea would focus on arcade games in the future, he went to a bar to play table tennis and t-shirts during a business trip to the United States. He thought the bricks were pretty good at the time and played with them for a while, but compared with the greedy snakes at home now, they felt a lot worse.
"The value of a commodity is never its cost, but its demand." Chen Zhiwen said: "Market supply and demand are the basis of price. When many people need something, its value will naturally increase significantly.
As long as Snake can bring more profits to the bar owner, the price will naturally be higher. I still have some confidence in this. Generally speaking, if the arcade machine is placed in a popular bar, it will last for 6 months. If we can recover our capital, the rest will be the net profit of the bar. We just want the profit of these 6 months. "
"It's just that it's not easy to get the arcade owner to come up with $3,000 at a time. Do we need to cooperate with a local bank in the United States?" Woz asked, holding on to the frame of the arcade. Although he is a technical geek, he also often hangs out in bars. , I have a good relationship with one or two bar owners, and I know their economic situation. The economy has been bad in the past two years, and $3,000 is not a small amount.
"I have a good relationship with the bank. Cooperation is not a problem. Just asking the bar owner for a loan is not enough. We have to prove that our game can bring profits to the bar." Chen Zhiwen paused and said, "But this It’s something for the future, Woz, I have already followed your request and found some students in Hong Kong to test the game. I will finish the product first, and we will talk about sales later.”
"Okay, let's test it first." Woz nodded and said. The sales channels were already in place. This made Woz feel relieved. Before, he was worried that his Asian boss would not have a chance in the United States. Even if the game is fun, if in the end If it breaks, his good job will be gone. Looking at it now, there is still no need to worry about the price. He doesn't care too much about other things. If the price is too high, he can lower the price later, and if it is too low, he can also increase the price.
Follow-up testing is the top priority. After a software is built, it requires a lot of actual operations to find bugs in the software. It can also test the life of the hardware, and for games, it can also be understood. User experience feedback kills three birds with one stone.
It's just that such testing requires a long time and a lot of manpower. If it is conducted in the United States, the cost is too high. Therefore, dozens of game motherboards are sent to Hong Kong, where Woz will assemble the game console and then carry out testing.
(End of chapter)
