Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 125: Pull down and step on others!

The Consumer Electronics Show is actually the future CES, which was first launched in 1967.

When the exhibition was first held, it was intended to promote the close integration of cutting-edge electronic technology and modern life. So at the first exhibition alone, they launched two eye-catching products, one was a palm-sized pocket radio, and the other was a TV set that used integrated circuit technology. Later, there was also the world's first home video recorder and a tape device projector and recorder.

Perhaps because the products here are full of gimmicks, it has attracted countless media attention since its establishment. It may also be because the products here are closely related to people's lives, so in the past ten years, it has received more than one million tourists.

Due to the large traffic, many companies regard this place as the best place for new product launches.

Logically speaking, arcade machines are actually consumer electronic products, so under normal circumstances, the Destiny Game should have come into contact with them a long time ago, but so far, Ethan has ignored the other party, and the reason is very simple, that is, the timing is not right.

Although this exhibition is held twice a year, no matter whether it is spring or summer or autumn or winter, none of the exhibitions can be held at the same time as Ethan's new product launches, so Ethan can only regretfully miss it. The other party should also be aware of this situation, so they never sent an invitation before, but now...

What the hell is this sudden invitation?

Ethan shook the invitation in his hand and looked at Julis Noble in surprise. "If I remember correctly, our company shouldn't have announced the new game, right?"

Julis did some research after receiving the invitation letter and explained, "Boss, you may have forgotten that Atari previously announced in the media that it would showcase its new machines at this year's exhibition. Milova is a frequent visitor to this exhibition and has never been absent since the exhibition began. So I guess they may have strongly requested the organizer to invite you to the exhibition."

'...'

Ethan understood.

"You're trying to pull me down, huh?" he said, frowning.

"Maybe..." Julis Noble shrugged, "I'm not sure."

"Then just say I don't have time." Ethan threw the invitation into the trash can. "If they want to pester you, just tell them directly that we at Destiny Game are not interested in their exhibition."

“I wasn’t interested before, I’m not interested now, and I won’t be interested in the future.”

That's right!

Even if this exhibition has a lot of traffic, Ethan Jones will not go!

Traveling all the way from San Francisco to Chicago just to attend two competitors' new product launches? Isn't this a sign of a donkey kicking your head?

Although Ethan was not sure whether the organizer of an exhibition would be influenced by the exhibitors, judging from the unprecedented behavior of the CES organizer sending an invitation letter to a company that it had never contacted, it was very likely that these people wanted to step on him to get to the top!
This--

There are no doors!

Just when Ethan thought that a strong refusal could stop everything.

After Julis Noble responded to EIA as Ethan requested, within a few days, all kinds of news emerged like mushrooms after rain.

On the surface, they were all reporting on the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, but after a few words, many people would bring up Ethan.

US Weekly stated:

"As the most prosperous and emerging industry at the moment, the electronic game exhibition area will be the biggest attraction of this Consumer Electronics Show, because the two giants in the electronic game industry, MILO and Atari, will officially announce their new products at this exhibition."

"But unfortunately, according to the latest news we have received, the Destiny game, which has been shining in the video game industry in the past two years, has been confirmed to be absent from this exhibition."

Newsweek also reported this fact:

"The latest news from EIA is that they have sent an invitation to Destiny Games, the producer and distributor of Snake and Pac-Man, but the other party has clearly refused to attend the event."

"We are very disappointed with this result, because we thought that Destiny, which has been leading the trend in the past two years, would continue to develop products in secret and surprise everyone, but unexpectedly, they seem to have no new products."

"But this is normal. After all, in the past year, the North American shipments of Pac-Man have exceeded 10,000 units. At the same time, Destiny has also reached a cooperation with Nintendo, the original game company, to authorize the other party to bring Snake and Pac-Man to Asia. When Destiny can make money without doing anything, the lag in product planning is understandable."

Perhaps because the exhibition has not yet been held, the pre-release reports from all parties are very restrained.

They just secretly disparaged the Game of Destiny and secretly said that Ethan Jones had fallen behind his competitors in industry development, but they did not make a big fuss to crush him.

After all, up to now, no one knew what Atari and MILO machines were like.

When the facts are uncertain, they dare not say too much.

Ethan didn't have any thoughts about these reports.

There was no way, because this kind of thing was so common in his previous life.

In the 21st century, many Internet companies will put their competitors on PPT and criticize them when releasing products, trying to let users know how powerful they are in this way.

Competitors who are criticized generally do not respond.

Because they know that when a company starts to drag down its competitors, they already feel that their own products are inferior to those of their competitors. When the top executives of a company feel that their brand is not well-known and can only gain attention through gimmicks...

If competitors respond for one second longer, they will fall into the trap of the other party and provide traffic to the other party!

So Ethan didn't bother to pay attention to such reports and just treated them as a joke.

But unfortunately, his silence did not bring him a safe environment. When he stared at Evelyn and Wozniacki, trying to witness the birth of the collision code in the game, on April 1, the future CES was officially held at McCormick Place in Chicago. With MILO and Atari taking the stage one after another, their new products Apollo and New Generation were finally presented to the world.

Yes, Atari named its new product New Generation.

After passers-by, media, and video game industry professionals tried the game one after another, the positive reviews related to it swept across America like a hurricane.

Various TV media reported the grand occasion of the exhibition on the evening of April 1st, Eastern Time. Many visitors on site expressed their amazement to the reporters after trying out the game.

"Before today, I've never seen machines like the New Generation and Apollo! They are countless times better than the previous Odyssey!"

"They are so easy to use! There are so many games included! I can't wait to try them out at home!"

"You asked me which one I want to buy? Of course I want all of them! Haha, just kidding, these two machines are good, but they are also a bit expensive, so I would choose Apollo because it costs the same as the new generation, but has twelve games."

If these reports are reasonable, after all, the new machines from MILO and Atari can indeed be called excellent, or even perfect, in this era.

Then the next day, the overwhelming print media coverage made people very angry.

Take the Chicago Tribune, for example. Their front-page headline reads:
【On April 1977, 4, Chicago witnessed a new era of video games! 】

The title looks normal, and as for the content, only the first two paragraphs are bragging about Atari's new machine and new generation, and talking about the response it caused at the exhibition.

Starting from the third paragraph, they openly criticized Destiny Game - "Destiny Game, the famous company that has set off the American game market in the past two years, is about to face its Waterloo, because so far, they have never expressed their opinions on the new products of their competitor Atari, which will mean that they will miss the great changes in the video game industry!"

"From the current market environment, what the American people need is a cheap and versatile gaming machine, not a money-eating beast like an arcade machine!"

"When Atari catches the pulse of the times and meets the needs of the people, the old product of the era, the arcade, will definitely be swept into the garbage dump of history! At the same time, the fate game, which has been slow in pace, may face the cruel fate of being eliminated by the market!"

The New Yorker also expressed a similar view, and their perspective was written from the perspective of Milova. The first half of the article praised the Apollo product.

But later, they also openly called out Ethan Jones -

"We want to know where is the man who brought us so much joy over the past two years and is considered by Steven Spielberg to be the greatest genius inventor in the gaming industry?"

"Why hasn't he said anything since Milova announced the new machine?"

“Is he overwhelmed by such a great product as Apollo?”

"Or does he know that whether it's the Snake arcade machine or the Pac-Man arcade machine, they are all businesses that can't last long? The greatest significance of their existence is to take advantage of people's curiosity and make a lot of quick money?"

When Ethan saw these reports...

His expression was like an old man on the subway looking at his phone, he almost shouted "idiot"!

In a country that emphasizes capitalism, isn't it possible to start a company for the purpose of making money?

Could it be that he is here to do charity?

Isn't this kind of statement funny?

Reading the overwhelming reports of slander, Ethan's eyes also burned with flames of anger.

Although Ethan knew that these actions of Milova and Atari were very normal, after all, he had used public opinion offensives to disgust these two families when he obtained the help of Ralph Bell the year before, but he was just stating the facts back then, right?
There's no such crazy diss, right?

And now?

No matter whether it is Milova or Atari, those guys would like to buy the manuscript to trample him into the ground!

Those unabashedly provocative words would make even the most well-mannered person angry!
"What the hell—"

"A bunch of hanged men!"

Ethan admitted that he was indeed a little angry at the moment.

But at the same time, he also knew that this might be the real purpose of Milova and Atari.

They just want to force themselves to speak out! Force themselves to speak in front of the public! Because only when Ethan Jones responds, the public will know that the media reports are not fiction!

Their Atari and MILO machines are really awesome!

It’s so awesome that even the guy who dominated the North American game market in the past two years is now broken!

And precisely because Ethan knew they needed such a gimmick, he would not respond.

He didn't want to be a stepping stone for these two companies' publicity.

So he threw all the reports into the shredder. After a muffled buzzing sound, countless fragments fell into the transparent waste paper box like snowflakes.

At the same time, he called the company's administrative director, "Julis."

"Ah?" The girl appeared.

"Starting tomorrow, you don't have to buy me newspapers anymore." Ethan made the decision.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Jones."

Julis Noble was stunned at first, then nodded quickly.

However, just when Ethan thought that he could stop the enemy's harassment attacks by turning a blind eye, the next morning, when he got up early and was about to drive to the company, a bunch of guns and cameras suddenly appeared in front of him.

The dark camera was like a crosshair, locking onto his face;

The long microphone was like a long pole, sticking unscrupulously in front of Ethan.

This situation made Ethan frown, but before he could ask the reason, the reporters started chirping like an early bird seeing a worm -

"Mr. Jones! I'm a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle! I want to interview you. What do you think of Mirowa's new console Apollo?"

"Mr. Jones! I'm a reporter from the San Diego Union-Tribune! We want to know what you think about Atari's new product and new generation release?"

"Mr. Jones! I'm a reporter from the Sacramento Bee! We want to know..."

"Mr. Jones! I am..."

"Mr. Jones!"

"Jones..."

The overwhelming words were like waves, and Ethan frowned!

Looking at the dark crowd, Ethan immediately started cursing in his heart!

Although these people came from different newspapers and belonged to different media, judging from their coordinated actions, they were obviously paid!
And a group of paid media blocked his doorstep early in the morning to interview him?
'Oh! Sxxt!'

'Melowa and Atari are so fucking disgusting!'

'If I don't speak, do they want to force me to speak?'

Ethan couldn't help it, at this moment he really wanted to give those two guys a few punches!
Note: ① Let me explain here that although the organizer of CSE mentioned in the article is now called the Consumer Technology Association, they were never established by consumers themselves. The earliest organization was called RMA, which was the Radio Manufacturers Association of the United States. Later, as television became popular, many radio manufacturers started to make televisions, so they changed their name to RTMA, which is the Radio and Television Manufacturers Association. At the time point in the article, it was called EIA, the Electronic Industry Association, and its members were all companies. They did have some cases of pulling each other down, and in reality, the company that was forced to withdraw from CSE by its competitors was called Apple, that was in 1992 before Jobs returned, and its product was Apple Newton.

PS, although I have asked for leave, I will feel uncomfortable if I don’t write, so…just pretend that I didn’t ask for leave today.

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(End of this chapter)