Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 241 One is like summer and the other is like autumn
As usual, the purpose of Arakawa's visit was to present Nintendo's agency financial report for the past six months to Ethan. Since the two projects of Snake and Pac-Man had been settled, and Nintendo did not represent the games Snake: Double Battle Edition and Skyfall, the only project that the two sides could settle this time was Star Wars.

Although Nintendo signed a contract with a high guaranteed sales volume under Ethan's pressure, the contract did not stipulate that the guarantee of hundreds of thousands of units should be paid in several installments. The two parties only reached a written agreement that when the agency contract was executed for two years, regardless of whether Nintendo had completed the guaranteed sales, they had to pay the money according to the contract. In this case, even Ethan himself did not know how much money Star Wars made from the book in the second half of last year.

And when he saw the report...

The sales volume of 130,000 units made him smile.

He didn't laugh.

Really!

"Mr. Jones, as you can see, Star Wars has caused a huge sensation in our country. As soon as the movie directed by Lucas and your video game were released, they successfully landed on the front page headlines of major media in our country. Almost everyone was attracted by the performance of the movie, and everyone was shocked by your ideas. Our Nintendo sales phone was almost blown up overnight. Until now, we can receive a lot of additional orders every day. In the words of our president..."

"It's nothing short of a miracle."

"Because even before, when we monopolized the Hanafuda market, the card sales, and the production of playing cards in the country, the number of merchants and customers who came to place orders was not as high as it is now. The sudden surge in the number of people and the still-rising crowds are a scene of prosperity that our president has never seen before."

"And all this..."

"You brought them all."

Arakawa saw Ethan's joy.

The flattery in those words made Ethan smile and he no longer hid his happiness.

no way!
When the Star Wars arcade machine was priced at two thousand dollars and the commission for the Destiny game was 25%, sales of 130,000 units meant that Ethan could take home sixty-five million!

Although compared with Ms. Pac-Man, which made over 100 million yuan in profit after selling 100,000 units in North America, the profit margin of Star Wars is a bit low, but when the Destiny game does not have to bear various costs such as production and sales, this profit margin is actually extremely high!
"Oh, Mr. Arakawa, your president is so polite." Ethan closed the report with a smile.

"No, we're just telling the truth." Arakawa Minoru looked sincere.

As for what he really thinks in his heart?

What the hell does that have to do with Ethan?

Ethan doesn't want to know what Nintendo really thinks of him now. After all, they are already enemies, and the so-called cooperation is just a matter of mutual benefit. Nintendo is unwilling to give up its huge vested interests, while Ethan wants to grab oil without having time to expand the notebook market.

The so-called smiling welcome?

It's just that both sides feel that the current time is not suitable for a falling out.

That’s why, after Ethan finished reading the report—

He leaned on the sofa and looked at Arakawa Minoru with a smile, and said, "Mr. Arakawa, do you have anything else to do? If not, then I have to get busy with other work."

"Although you live in Vancouver, you should be able to see and hear the news in America first, so you should understand that I have been very busy recently."

Ethan's words were not polite, and he almost had the word "show you up" written on his face.

But Arakawa didn't care.

"Oh, Mr. Jones, I understand."

The young man nodded slightly and smiled, "Since the end of last year, your company has been creating miracles. The release of the home console, the debut of the game "Starfield", the sales of "Ms. Pac-Man"... the game "Destiny" has been setting new records in the video game industry."

"These facts have shocked us at Nintendo, and we are also very envious and moved."

"When we found out that Mr. Jones's games have always been leading the industry, and your creativity is more like a lighthouse in the sea, guiding us forward in the dark night, our president said that he must bring more interesting, creative and excellent games that are a beacon of humanity to Asia."

"So, Mr. Jones, I want to apologize to you here, because I still want to take up a little of your time. Please take a look at the new cooperation plan that our president asked me to bring."

As he spoke, Arakawa Minoru handed a document to Ethan.

And this situation...

In fact, this was also within Ethan's expectations.

When Ms. Pac-Man was selling like hot cakes in America and Starfield was creating a storm of public opinion, if Nintendo didn't want to be the agent, there was only one possibility -

The brain is sick.

It's not that Ethan looks down on Yamauchi Hiroshi, nor is it that Ethan thinks that the four kings of Nintendo, Gunpei Yokoi, Masayuki Uemura, Genyo Takeda, and Shigeru Miyamoto are easy to bully. Rather, when he would rather bear the high cost and risk not making money from the cartridge game to make "Contra", it is absolutely impossible for Nintendo to take the lead and make a game that is more awesome than "Starfield".

Because Nintendo is just like any other company, all of its projects are oriented towards making money, but in the process of making games, they place playability in a very high position.

Only Ethan, who can see the future, knows how big the market for video games is!
Bearing the costs himself will allow him to defeat all his competitors!
When his enemies found out that even if they wanted to borrow the gameplay of the Destiny Game, they couldn't afford the high cost of dissemination, they could only stare at the taillights of the Destiny Game and feel resentment for the rest of their lives!
Because they can’t even copy it!

Therefore, Nintendo, which cannot escape the logical circle, must want to obtain the agency. After Ethan opened the cooperation document brought by Arakawa Minoru, the terms inside...

That's really full of sincerity.

Last summer, after both parties settled the "Pac-Man" project, Ethan asked Arakawa if he wanted to continue to be the agent for games such as "Snake Sequel" and "Skyfall". At that time, Arakawa politely declined, saying that he could not make the decision, but he would report it after returning and ask his father-in-law to decide.

And then, there was no further development on this matter.

But this is normal, right?

Because those games did not cause a sensation in North America, even MGM's games were more talked about than them. Nintendo did not introduce them, which was a qualified businessman's behavior.

But now, in order to obtain the agency rights for Ms. Pac-Man, Starsky and Johnson's home console, Yamauchi Hiroshi decisively slapped himself in the face and wanted to reach a long-term agency cooperation with Destiny Game.

They hope to obtain the book agency rights for all Destiny game products in the next five years.

To this end, they are willing to pay 20 million yuan a year, a total of 100 million yuan in agency fees.

This fee has nothing to do with product dividends, it is purely a payment made to obtain agency qualifications. Since their cooperation involves projects that have not yet been released, when future product sales cannot meet expectations, they have classified the products of the Destiny game into electronic arcade machines, home consoles and game cartridges, and then made a minimum guarantee promise for each of them.

In the electronic arcade project, Nintendo's guarantee is a tiered one.

The basic guarantee is 10,000 units. If the sales of the Destiny game in North America exceed 5,000 units, Nintendo will raise the daily guarantee for the project to 20,000 units. If the game sells 10,000 units in North America, Nintendo will claim 50,000 units.

The dividend ratio remains 25.

The meaning of this promise is very simple. In the future, no matter what kind of arcade machine the Destiny game comes out with, Nintendo will at least pay it a licensing fee of US$5 million.

If it is a sensational project like "Snake", "Pac-Man" or "Star Wars", Nintendo will definitely make a lot of money. But if it is a game like "Taken" or "Need for Speed" that is not popular in the North American market, even if no copies are sold, Nintendo will still pay Ethan a licensing fee of 10,000 copies based on the selling price of 2,000 copies.

In the home console project, Nintendo's minimum guarantee is a flat one: one million units.

There's nothing we can do about it, since the game "Starry Sky" is so awesome that it's visibly awesome.

However, since Nintendo has not yet negotiated with Ethan on the price of the notebook for this home console, and they have not seen the product details and are not sure about the production cost of the notebook, Yamauchi Hiroshi is temporarily unable to give Ethan an agency quotation that they can accept.

As for the last game cartridge, Nintendo's minimum promise is 50,000 copies of each game.

Just like home consoles, without knowing the selling price and production costs, all Yamauchi could promise was a 50/50 split of the profits. This profit was not net profit in the conventional sense, but a rough calculation of the selling price minus the production cost. It does not include any sales and marketing expenses, discounts, or transportation costs, nor does it include the financial expenses incurred from loan production.

The problem of false accounts with negative profits has been solved at the root.

To be honest, if there were no conflicts between the two parties before, Ethan would definitely accept the contract because the terms were really tempting. But when Nintendo could backstab Philips and produce a copycat version of MILO Odyssey in an attempt to occupy the living rooms of its own people, why did Ethan still authorize him to sell the home console?

This is not a brain disease!

Ethan believes that after obtaining the license, the first thing Nintendo did was definitely not to figure out a marketing plan, but to let Gunpei Yokoi and Masayuki Uemura research the machine!

and so……

"Mr. Arakawa, your president's proposal is very good, but I can't accept it all."

Ethan handed the cooperation proposal back.

"Which agreement are you dissatisfied with?" asked Arakawa Minoru.

"Then it depends on whether you are sincere."

Ethan did not answer, and said, "If you, Nintendo, are sincere, and if Mr. Yamauchi really wants to be represented, then you will definitely come back with a contract that satisfies me."

Ethan smiled at Arakawa Minoru.

"That's all for today. See you next time."

The decisive figure leaving made Arakawa Minoru quickly stand up and want to continue saying something.

Unfortunately, even though the hand was stretched out, it could only remain in mid-air, with the Adam's apple moving, and no sound could be made.

Although no one stopped him, he could only watch Ethan leave.

Because he had witnessed Ethan's violent temper two years ago. He still remembered clearly how he had concluded that Nintendo had betrayed him based solely on his subjective consciousness without any evidence or reasoning.

From that day on, Arakawa Minoru realized that it was useless to reason with someone like Ethan.

You don't have to test his bottom line, because what he wants is your limit.

"Sigh——" Arakawa Minoru sighed helplessly, packed up his things and left the Game of Destiny.

As he drove back to the hotel, the huge Excel advertisement hanging on the city's tall buildings made him tighten his grip on the steering wheel. When Ethan Jones achieved success in other fields and countless cash flowed into his pocket like water, how long could Nintendo remain silent?

he does not know.

But what he knows is that Nintendo doesn't have much time left.

"Father-in-law..." Arakawa Minoru took a deep breath and murmured, "We can't lose..."

It is unknown whether Arakawa Minoru is afraid of Eson, because after sending him away, Eson welcomed Julis Noble, the former head of his company and current director of Nintendo Kyoto Chip Company.

"Oh Julis, long time no see." Unlike his indifference towards Arakawa Minoru, Ethan opened his arms warmly and hugged Julis after seeing her. "How was the past year?"

Last year, Julis did not return home, but only reported her situation in the book to Ethan over the phone. The reason was very simple, that is, her family was urging her to get married.

"Of course."

After sitting down, Julis smiled and said, "When I didn't go home for a whole year, my family didn't dare to urge me to get married, because they were afraid that I wouldn't even go home for Christmas."

"So, when I showed up with presents on Christmas Eve, my family was very surprised and I had a happy Christmas."

"As for life in Benzi? It's okay."

"Although I don't like the food in Japan, they have many restaurants there, you can choose by yourself. If you can't find what you like, just call Nintendo. Oh, by the way, there is a place in their country called Shiga Prefecture, which belongs to Osaka. There is a kind of cattle there, the meat is very delicate, and the texture is very beautiful, just like a piece of marble, and it smells very good when roasted."

"Boss, if you have time to go to Benzi, you can go there and try it."

"Because as far as I know, their kind of cattle are not currently exported."

Ethan has never paid much attention to the private lives of his employees.

As long as they don't break the law or violate discipline, no matter what the employee does, it has nothing to do with him.

But Julis was different. After all, he had sent this girl to the country. When an employee lives alone in a foreign country for work, it would be inhumane for the boss not to understand and care about him!
After chatting for a while, Julis clapped her hands and said with sudden realization: "Oh, boss, you see, I have forgotten why I came here today."

"This is a summary of my work over the past year. It can also be considered a report. Would you like to take a look?"

Julis took out a stack of documents as thick as a thumb from her briefcase and handed it over.

The heavy feeling surprised Ethan, "So many?"

"Of course." Julis smiled and said, "A document represents an event. The beginning is a description of the main content. If you are not interested, you can just discard it. But if you are interested, you can turn to the back because I have attached the information related to the event at the back."

"Oh——" Ethan was very satisfied with this arrangement.

Without saying anything, he started flipping through the pages.

The file that Julis placed first was related to Nintendo, and contained two pieces of information.

The first is the influence of "Star Wars" in the book and the arcade sales statistics of major media. The sales statistics given by "Asahi Shimbun", "Nikkei" and "Yomiuri Shimbun" are between 110,000 and 150,000 units, which is slightly different from the 130,000 units reported by Nintendo.

But this is normal, after all, they are media estimates, not accurate data.

As for the possibility that Nintendo is falsifying data and suppressing some sales data?
This is indeed possible, but it is unlikely.

When Ethan forced them to sign a sales guarantee of hundreds of thousands of units, even if they falsified the data, they still had to pay in the end. Not only was it meaningless, but if they were found out, they would have to pay Ethan according to the immediate settlement penalty clause in the contract.

So, why do they want to quote a price when there is a minimum guarantee agreement?
Isn't this sick?

The second piece of information is the sales of Nintendo's home consoles.

COLOR TV GAME 6 and COLOR TV GAME 15 have sold a total of one million units, bringing Nintendo at least $ million in revenue.

This news made Ethan a little confused, "Why are these two machines selling so well?"

"It shouldn't be!"

Ethan expressed doubts about the sales of the COLOR TV GAME series.

Because the actual demonstration effects of those machines were not as good as the previous Atari New Generation and MIRO Apollo. When he was able to beat Warner and Philips who were unable to sell home consoles with "Pac-Man", "Star Wars" and "Starfield", Japanese people were frantically buying products similar to MIRO Odyssey?

This makes no sense!
If it is said that Japanese people have not been baptized by excellent games, it is understandable that they are fascinated by those ball games. But when Nintendo introduced Ethan Jones's game to the Japanese market as early as two years ago, why are Japanese people still buying collections of mini-games?

What's the situation?
Ethan raised his head in confusion.

Julis shrugged and said, "I was also confused by this matter at first, but when I heard the term death from overwork, I finally understood why the Japanese people would buy COLOR TV GAME."

"Boss, I don't know how much you know about Japan, but there is one thing you should know. That is, since 1968, Japan has surpassed West Germany and become the world's second largest economy."

"But behind the rapid development is a work attitude that is almost life-threatening."

"According to statistics from Kyodo News, the average Japanese worker worked 500 hours more per year than the West German worker. Although they received corresponding rewards in the end, with the support of overtime pay, everyone's income increased dramatically, but at the same time, the high-intensity work also left them with no time for entertainment."

"According to my visits, I found that many Japanese people still love to play Snake because it is a quick and easy way to pass the time, and COLOR TV GAME has a similar effect. More importantly, this product brings electronic games from the streets to people's homes."

“When people don’t want to move around after get off work and just want to lie down at home, but they can’t sleep due to mental emptiness and need comfort, COLOR TV GAME is their first choice.”

"So, one million is probably just the beginning, and I estimate it will be higher in the future."

"unless--"

"We sold the mainframe made by the chairman to them."

"Oh——" Ethan understood.

He was familiar with the death from overwork that Julis mentioned.

Or perhaps, no one in this world understands death from overwork better than him.

In the future, the social situation of Japanese people will also make Nintendo's switch crush Sony's PS and Microsoft's XBox in Japan. This is not because the switch is so good, but because it meets the needs of Japanese people.

"Time factor?"

"Okay." Ethan nodded slightly and kept this matter in mind.

Pick up the second file, this one has records related to Sony.

Before, Ethan had told Julis to pay more attention to Sony, because when Destiny Game invested money in the optical storage project, Sony might become their potential enemy.

And under Julis's attention, Sony's situation also appeared in front of Ethan.

By the end of 1978, Sony's main business revenue was all related to semiconductors. The radio industry, once a pillar industry, has now retreated to the second line, and the revenue is dominated by Trinitron TVs. This world's largest TV brand provides Sony with nearly 40% of the group's revenue.

At the same time, their magnetic recording equipment also sold very well, occupying a large market share in North America and Europe. Even the former king HP was defeated by them.

But all of the above are not the focus of Ethan's attention, because he does not make radios, televisions, or tape recorders. What really makes him frown is that Sony released a product last year -

TCM-100.

Just looking at the code name, Ethan had no idea what he was.

But the picture Julis attached to the back made his heart skip a beat.

It was a palm-sized plastic box with a hollow transparent plastic sheet on the front and symmetrical black swirls inside. There was a push button on the top of the plastic box, and a nylon string on the side that could be hung on the wrist...

When this photo appeared, Ethan quickly flipped through the information.

After searching for a while, he saw some related information.

【Sony released a small monaural tape recorder codenamed TCM-100 last year. It was named PRESSMAN because of its small size, lightness and portability. Since the product is an experimental product, Akio Morita announced that only units would be produced for public testing.】

The fact that it was still being tested put Ethan at ease.

But the next second he looked up again, pointed at the picture in the file and said, "Can you get it?"

"Uh - it should be possible." Julis glanced at the content and replied.

"Go back and get it, and give it to me when you're done, okay?" Ethan opened his eyes wide.

"Okay."

Julis didn't understand why her boss suddenly became so anxious, but she nodded anyway.

Following her response, Ethan breathed a sigh of relief.

Julis may not understand why he was so excited, but for Sony fans who were able to recharge their faith and buy the shutters on the Sony building, the pictures and introduction of TCM-100 were no different from the explicit instructions!
because--

The PRESSMAN, of which only 500,000 units were produced, looks similar to the Walkman!
Note: ① In reality, Space Invaders sold 100,000 copies in the first year of its release. This is mentioned in the first chapter of this article. The 130,000 copies mentioned in the article are not exaggerated. ② The term "death from overwork" comes from a copybook in the 1970s. It is not a bug. ③ Sony was the world's largest TV manufacturer until 2006. Those who have heard of Trinitron should know that this product is super cool, one of the most legendary products in the 20th century. Even IBM used Trinitron when choosing monitors.

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(End of this chapter)