"These things will be discussed in detail after there is feedback from the United States." Chen Zhiwen added: "'Space Invaders' is ready to be released. Henry Morgan will take our finished samples to the United States for testing in the next few days. It should be There will be no problem. According to the previous sales cycle, a game will enter a period of decline after half a year, so we have to consider making the next game."
"Our team has produced several games over the past year or so, but after being sent to the United States for testing, the results were very poor." Lei Shengli said with some embarrassment.
Although Midea currently has many businesses, everyone knows that the most important thing is arcade games, and even all other businesses rely on the huge profits of arcades to develop. Otherwise, without enough funds, many R&D efforts will be carried out under the pressure of operating losses. Investment and technical achievements are also impossible. Therefore, Midea naturally set up a professional game development team internally. It hired many Chinese engineers from Taiwan and even the United States, and produced two or three games. However, the results were not very good. It could even be said that Nobody cares.
"You don't need to do it. I have already written the content outline for this game this time. You can just develop it according to this." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
When his subordinates try to make games, he naturally knows that failure is normal and success is accidental or even impossible. The history of arcade machines is very short, and there are only a few games that can be suitable for arcade machines. After the popularity of home game consoles, classics The number of games has increased, but most of them are not suitable for arcades. The two business logics are different. One is for short-term play, playing games and then spending money to play. The other is to consume users' time and increase fun. They are completely opposite. direction.
The difficulty of the former is naturally much higher than that of the latter. Home game consoles only need to be fun, while arcades require users to have fun in a very short period of time, and then want to spend money to play another game, but they want to do this. The difficulty is very high, and if users play for too long, direct customers, including bar owners, will not make money.
Midea's success has actually attracted the attention of many international electronics giants, and some of them want to come in and get a share of the pie. However, there is no market for the several games they have launched, and these companies even do not understand the market at all. There are occasionally one or two games that are fun, but they consume too much user time.
As for his own company, he doesn't expect to be able to develop new games suitable for arcades now. He just needs to study technology, creativity, and market demand, and then wait for the era of home game consoles and computer games to be able to make its own blood.
Now, let's rely on the Prophet's Golden Finger to cheat. After all, people in this era are all novices in video games. They are willing to spend money for games. If you earn enough funds, your company can develop better.
After saying that, Chen Zhiwen took out a document from the drawer beside him, handed it to Lei Shengli, and said, "This game is called Pac-Man. Take a look first."
"Okay." Lei Shengli took the file and read it carefully. About 15 minutes later, he closed the file.
"How is it?" Chen Zhiwen asked.
"It doesn't seem as exciting as "Space Invaders"." Lei Shengli said hesitantly.
"That's right. This game itself is not exciting, but for relaxation." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, "The several games we launched before put a lot of pressure on players, and this one "Pac-Man" is actually designed to relax and allow everyone to play the game easily."
"Chen Sheng, what do you mean is that it will serve as a companion to our previous games? When everyone is tired from playing, you can play this to relax?" Lei Shengli asked.
"Is it understandable? But it's okay to play alone. Mainly because our previous games, or other games on the market, all overdraw players' energy in this way. Players' psychological estimation has reached the limit, so we will take the opposite route. Try it." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.
In the original history, there was only one game, "Space Invaders", which became popular in the United States for nearly a year. During this period of time, there were basically no other types of games. They were all similar plagiarized versions. You know, even if No matter how fun the game is, no matter how delicious the food is, no matter how beautiful the girl is, after a long time, you will always get tired of it.
After a long time, players who often play also developed a rejection mentality. This is why Chen Zhiwen arranges for his games to be replaced every 6-9 months, in order to maintain the interest of this group of major customers in the game, and at the same time create a good environment for Midea. Get the best profit.
A year later, the emergence of "Pac-Man" once again completely dominated the entire market, just because it was very relaxing, and even better, because of its existence, many people would occasionally revisit "Space Invasion" Games like "The Player" allow bar owners to make more money.
In this life, there were Magic Cube and Snake before "Space Invaders". Although these two games are different from "Space Invaders" and not as exciting, they still consume brain cells. According to common sense, etc. More than half a year later, "Space Invaders" appeared in all the bars. After some people got tired of playing it, they no longer wanted to play the game again.
This time, the appearance of "Pac-Man" is the best time.
"Okay, I understand, then I will immediately arrange for our team to develop this game." Lei Shengli said.
"This is the first time our Hong Kong team has developed this type of game, and the development difficulty of "Pac-Man" is more difficult than previous games. Woz is not here. Are you sure?" Chen Zhiwen asked.
Many things in history are not accidental. Just like the emergence of various games, there is basically a basic rule, that is, the development difficulty and hardware chip requirements of the games that appear later are higher than those of the previous games.
This is the rule for Ping Pong, Arkanoid, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Tank Battle, Mario, King of Fighters, etc. As chip capabilities improve, complex games will be developed. Only a few games do not follow this rule. , such as Tetris, these are all accidental inventions.
Although "Pac-Man" is a relaxing game, its page background, game running speed, and algorithm requirements are much stronger than "Space Invaders".
"I can't say how sure I am. I won't know until I try it." Lui Shengli looked at the hand-drawn picture on the document in his hand and knew that this task was not easy. Although the Hong Kong team had developed several games before, they all failed. It's super simple, similar to Arkanoid, and it's far different from the requirements of "Pac-Man".
"Okay, let's give it a try. If you're really not sure, I'll ask Woz to come over and help." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, "As you know, Woz is currently focusing on developing new computers at Apple, and he probably doesn't have much time. .”
Apple has become famous in the United States since it launched its second-generation personal computer at the Los Angeles Electronics Show last year. Later, the entire company was no longer a garage company, but began to develop formally under the management of relevant management teams. Now he has become the Chief Technology Officer of Apple, and his position at Midea has been suspended after discussing with Chen Zhiwen.
For Chen Zhiwen, Woz's value is obviously greater in Apple. As long as Apple goes public as it did in history, or goes public earlier, he can get hundreds of millions of dollars in shares. As for arcade development, the chip field has been With rapid development and several iterative upgrades, the functions have been greatly improved. Although for arcade machines, it cannot be said to have excessive performance, it is not as good as in previous years where the cost cannot be reduced because the number of chips cannot be controlled.
If there are still problems that you can't solve on your own, at worst, you can just go to Woz. As Woz's boss who was once the most generous and "nice" to him, and also one of Apple's largest shareholders, he still doesn't have any face. questionable.
"I think we should have no problem with the design of the software. As for the hardware, we may need help from colleagues in the United States." Lei Shengli said.
"It's good to cooperate." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said. Although Midea is a Hong Kong company, it does not expect that the core technology will be mastered by Hong Kong. The entire talent pool in Hong Kong cannot meet this requirement, just like the peak period of the 20th century. The country behind Nokia is only a country with a small population. Nokia's large number of R&D bases are still distributed around the world.
The same will naturally be true for Midea in the future. Hong Kong will be fine if we can have a little bit of it.
"By the way, how is the cooperation business we were discussing with Toyota?" Chen Zhiwen suddenly asked again.
Lei Shengli said: "Toyota did not agree to let us be their supplier of refrigeration compressors. They only considered giving us the mobile motor and seat fan business on the seats."
"Isn't the relationship in place?" Chen Zhiwen asked.
"It doesn't count. We have already met a deputy director of Toyota's purchasing department through an intermediary. He also wants to bring us into the supply chain of the refrigeration assembly department. However, the three local companies in Japan that supply Toyota also have There is a very deep relationship, and they are trying their best to prevent us from entering the venue," Lei Shengli said.
"The cakes here are too big. It's really not easy for us to go in and separate the cakes." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.
In the past two years, as the boss, Chen Zhiwen has been mainly responsible for the acquisition of Hutchison, the merger of Whampoa, solving Hutchison's debt problems, laying out the real estate market, building Midea Industrial Park, paying attention to the overseas arcade game market and other major matters, but there are many other things. The business has already achieved self-development and does not need Chen Zhiwen's excessive interference. It only needs to report the results regularly.
For example, in Midea's home appliance business, in addition to maintaining good cooperative relationships with Costco and Wal-Mart, relevant professional managers are also making every effort to expand into other customer markets, such as Celtic, the largest supermarket in the United States, several large supermarkets in Europe, etc. At the same time, we are also looking for suitable dealers in Southeast Asia, Europe, and America, and do our best to develop new customers.
Midea's home appliances are in a very interesting middle ground. In terms of technology, they are not as good as the well-known European, American and Japanese brands, but the cost is much lower. Compared with many real no-name brands, the technology is much better. This is due to the large amount of funds. R&D, acquisition of patents, cost reduction and experience accumulation after mass production.
With this advantage, the sales volume brought by the development business of Midea's home appliance business team even exceeds that of Costco and Wal-Mart. This is a very good sign that the company's self- hematopoietic ability is getting stronger and stronger. This is also the reason why Chen Zhiwen The goal that has always been pursued.
In the auto parts business, Midea's major Japanese car companies are very willing to spend money because of sufficient funds. The company's team is also constantly exploring new business for Toyota.
Midea has been making its own motors since 1973, starting with fan motors. Because it has been investing in research and development, or purchasing overseas technology and production lines, its shipments have now surpassed Hong Kong's local brand Johnson Electric, becoming the largest motor company in Hong Kong. , civil industry are all involved, and have been exported in large quantities. Of course, it is not considered a high-end brand.
After gaining a certain reputation, and the previous radio supply business had no problems under strong quality control, Midea naturally wanted to pursue more business, and motors were a key focus. At the same time, Bitzer came from Germany to open a branch. Er Refrigeration Company also started manufacturing condensing compressors in Hong Kong.
However, it is obvious that Toyota's supply chain does not welcome outsiders. The small motors and fans on the seats may not be important, but the air conditioning part is different and its value is much higher.
"Yes, that's what the director we know, Mr. Inou, said. He also said that if we can supply motors stably and without problems for a long time, he will try to let us enter the air-conditioning supply chain again in two years. ." Lei Shengli said.
"Well, let's make the motor and seat fan well first." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.
In two years, electronic products may have been updated, but in the automotive field, it is a very short time. Many parts companies have developed for many years before they can become big. For Midea, which is not in Japan, it is It is no longer easy to reach this point. The biggest reason may be that the "investment" in people is in place.
"Actually, there is another problem. Toyota is willing to outsource some parts with low technical content, high labor requirements, and easy transportation. Those with high technical content are more willing to stay in the country, maybe because they are worried that if something goes wrong The problem will be very troublesome to solve," Lei Shengli continued.
"The automobile industry does pursue localization. This is also our disadvantage and cannot be changed for the time being." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said, it is impossible to build a factory in Japan now, right? If Toyota doesn't give orders after it's built, it will suffer a huge loss.
Besides, the most fundamental reason for starting my own auto parts industry is to be able to participate when the mainland starts to modernize its manufacturing of cars in the future.
It is difficult for China to get involved in the automobile industry, but the parts and components industry has much fewer restrictions. In the 1980s and 1990s, even Volkswagen, which had a good relationship with the country, was willing to invest in the country, but it was not willing to invest huge sums of money. Localization is difficult because Volkswagen does not produce many of its parts in-house, so it is difficult to persuade so many suppliers to invest in China.
Volkswagen could also choose to find suppliers locally, but the domestic industrial level at that time made it difficult to meet Volkswagen's requirements. This may have its own opportunities. This is a golden opportunity to develop the automobile industry.
Of course, the best situation is to have your own car company, so it will be much easier to bring in the industrial chain yourself, and you can also take the opportunity to develop a complete industrial chain in the country, but this requires a huge amount of funds.
As long as the investment in 1979 is harvested, he can get the automobile industry he wants.
Now Midea in Hong Kong only needs to develop at a normal pace. Especially the many contacts, communications, and reviews with Toyota have also allowed many engineers in Midea's automotive business to understand some of Toyota's management methods, quality requirements, etc. .
This can not only be used for Midea's current civilian product management, but also be of great help to its own automobile industry layout in the future.
PS: Introducing a book, [Rebirth: The Rise of a Literary Hero], Hong Kong language, complete book, you can read it all at once without having to follow up!
(End of chapter)
