Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 284 I saw the future!

When Ethan discovered that Casio's expansion speed did not conform to the objective laws of market development, he turned his attention to the rebellious Nintendo.

In his opinion, only if Yamauchi Hiroshi took the initiative to give up the order could Casio swallow up Japan's central microprocessor market overnight with a devastating force.

If you want Yamauchi Hiroshi to give up this business on his own initiative, there must be greater benefits.

If external cooperation cannot make Nintendo profitable.

It must be that their internal research and development has produced a shocking product.

From the perspective of ordinary people, this may be an impossible thing, but for Ethan Jones, who has the memories of his previous life, Nintendo's innovation is absolutely world-class, because Yamauchi Hiroshi has gathered his own four kings, Gunpei Yokoi, Masayuki Uemura, Genyo Takeda and Shigeru Miyamoto.

Since the home console market had already been occupied by their Destiny game, only the handheld product would make Yamauchi Hiroshi take a risk and gamble.

Ethan admitted that he couldn't remember the year Nintendo released the handheld game console, but Julis Noble's previous report made him guess that the genius Gunpei Yokoi might be tinkering with the handheld game console. Because when Julis Noble had already discovered that the replica of MILOVA Odyssey was selling well in Japan, it was because the Japanese were too tired to live. How to bring more happiness to the Japanese must be the direction of research and development for engineers.

and so--

Even if Ethan only has memories of Game Boy in his mind, he will believe that the ultimate move that Yamauchi Hiroshi is secretly preparing for must be the handheld game console!

And since Nintendo is working on this, then...

Why don't they do it?

Since we are going to use a big move, let's gather our energy together!

When the time comes, you take your handheld game console, and I'll take my Fate Cube handheld game console!
Since you want to fight, let’s fight head-on!
Let’s see who is better!

He doesn't believe it!
Is there any other game in this world that can beat "Destiny Cube" on a handheld console?
"You want me to develop this?"

Although Ethan was a little selective in his words, Evelin still understood what he meant.

“This project shouldn’t be difficult, right?”

Ethan nodded and said, "If I remember correctly, you told me before that the reason why MOS 6502 cannot carry the "Destiny Cube" is because their computing power is slightly insufficient."

"At that time, I asked you if you could solve the problem by customizing the chip, and you said yes. But Chuck Pete Chip Company was not in our hands, so the cost might be a bit high."

“It’s not worth it.”

“But now, West Design is in our hands.”

"Bill Mensch, who Chuck Pete calls the best chip architect in the world, is working on the central microprocessor for us, and we also have Fate."

"so……"

"is it hard?"

When Ethan, like a diligent worker ant, removed all obstacles from the queen ant's travel path, the girl laughed out loud at his chattering.

"Okay, Okay, Okay..."

Evelin shook her head and said, “It’s not difficult, not difficult at all.”

"If we still use MOS 6502 as the basis, we will have to customize the chip first and then make the game, but now, Fate 0801 is enough to support the development of Fate Cube."

"But while we were solving the chip problem, we were faced with a new problem."

"That is, handheld game consoles require very powerful integrated technology."

"I have never studied this aspect, so..."

"If I were to develop it alone, it would probably take me a lot of time."

"For example, I need to study how handheld game consoles produce images."

"What's the best surface screen for it?"

"Secondly, how big can this game be, and how much will the storage cost?"

“Finally, what about the existing projects we have?”

“Is the Super Pac-Man game no longer in development?”

The questions Evelyn raised were very realistic. When she was the only reliable researcher in the game of fate, the increase in secret projects meant that they had to make some trade-offs.

Ethan has actually considered these issues.

“The development of Super Pac-Man should be suspended for the time being.”

"We have four projects in the company right now, including console ports of Pac-Man and Star Wars, and two arcade games of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back."

“The two arcade games of The Empire Strikes Back will be released next summer, and those two porting projects will be the selling points of next year’s consoles. Although our game lineup for next year’s consoles is a bit shabby in comparison, after the arcade project team finishes their work, I will also let them develop some console games, so there will definitely be no problem with the release of next year’s games.”

"Not to mention, I have no intention of releasing Super Pac-Man next year."

"As for the handheld technology problem you mentioned..."

“I don’t think this is a problem.”

“Because we have an advantage.”

"Remember Steve Wozniak? He developed a singing calculator at HP. What if we use the same idea of making calculators to develop handheld game consoles?"

“This integrated technology should be enough, right?”

"Let Steve Wozniak provide technical support. If that doesn't work, ask HP for their scientific calculator design drawings and patents. With the principal here, the machine should be made quickly."

"so……"

At this point, Ethan paused.

Evelyn, who was standing next to the whiteboard, smiled and said, "So my main task now is to develop games, right? Or should I say... this is my doctoral thesis?"

"Yeah~" Ethan clapped his hands with a smile, "Is it okay now?"

"Oh..." Evelyn picked up the marker and ticked the second question on the whiteboard, which was the alliance between Casio and Komodor, and asked, "Can we pass it now?"

"Of course." Ethan smiled and gave a thumbs up.

Evelyn immediately picked up her pen and wrote about the third accident they had encountered last month.

That is, Ron Miller invited Jack Warner's son-in-law to help him fight for power.

Although the White Knight's tactics made Ethan feel disgusted, he had to admit that this was the best way Ron Miller could use to save himself at the moment.

Not only that, they were also very clever in choosing the white knight, because Bill Orr was a notorious capitalist in Hollywood, and it was impossible for him to successfully acquire Walt Disney.

In this case, Ron Miller invited Bill Orr to act as his white knight, which was actually just to raise the stock price of the Walt Disney Group and make it more difficult for the Destiny Game to buy up shares. At the same time, this approach would also allow them to maintain their control over the company as much as possible.

This is a classic business move that kills two birds with one stone.

Ethan thought Ron Miller's operation was very beautiful, but Evelyn thought that Ron Miller might have fallen out with Steve Ross and others. The reason was very simple, because the guy who completely kicked Bill Orr and his father-in-law Jack Warner out of Hollywood was Steve Ross.

Ethan's eyes lit up at the new idea proposed by Evelyn, and he thought it made sense.

But soon, he threw this idea into the trash.

“Even if Steve Ross and Ron Miller fell out, we wouldn’t be allies.”

"Since there is no possibility of cooperation among us, what does it have to do with us whether they fall out or not?"

"Okay, you have the final say." Evelyn didn't dwell on this issue.

Just put a √ on the third accident.

The fourth surprise was that Goldman Sachs took the initiative to release the news that Columbia Pictures had been sold.

And this news...

“Do you think Goldman Sachs and Steve Ross are working together?” Evelyn asked.

"I don't know." Ethan shook his head, "But I think it's unlikely that they will cooperate."

“Then why did Goldman Sachs suddenly attack us?”

"I think this might not be an attack, but manipulation." Ethan took out the information Steve Ballmer had collected over the past few days and handed it to his sister.

With a quick glance, Evelyn discovered that after Bill Orr announced that he was going to acquire Walt Disney, the stock prices of several major Hollywood film companies had risen to varying degrees.

Because they basically have everything that Walt Disney has, and they also dabble in things that Walt Disney doesn't have, with only slight differences in the theme park projects.

In this case, if Walt Disney could be favored by a wealthy man, then the value of other companies of the same type could not be low. Therefore, when Roy Disney criticized Bill Orr and wanted to drive down Walt Disney's stock price, his peers were also hit.

If it was simply stock speculation, then this would be an opportunity for investors to change hands, but if some investment institutions had gone long in advance, then Roy Disney's behavior would be a nightmare for them.

Therefore, it is inevitable to step on the brakes hard.

“You mean Goldman Sachs might have bought a lot of shares in Hollywood giants?”

Evelyn frowned.

It's not that she didn't believe Ethan, but Ethan's judgment was beyond her understanding.

“Although Hollywood moguls have great influence, the entire Hollywood market is only worth a few billion.”

“A lot of energy is spent on this…”

“Isn’t that a bit wasteful?”

Evelin had already said it very subtly.

Ethan smiled and shook his finger, saying, "The size of a company does not represent how much profit it makes."

"On the surface, Hollywood companies are not worthy of Wall Street's attention, but their low market value allows Wall Street people to leverage unlimited profits with minimal chips."

"Let me give you an example."

"If Goldman Sachs had started operating at the beginning of the year, that is, they had entered the market after we pushed down the share prices of Hollywood companies, then in just three months, their chips invested in Hollywood would have tripled. This would be a big win for any investor."

"If they choose to cash out at this time, then the return they earn is fixed, but if they continue to hold on and find new buyers for some other companies like they did with Columbia Pictures, then the return on the transaction will be higher again."

"Because in addition to the gains from cashing out, they can also get transaction commissions from both the buyer and the seller. If the buyer is an excellent company, they can also take this opportunity to obtain the other party's stocks."

"From the current situation, this is probably the kind of business that Goldman Sachs is doing."

"Although it sounds outrageous, this is finance. Pursuing extreme profits is what capitalists love to do the most. There is no such thing as pre-cutting in this industry. All the caution that the public can see is just the capitalists' clarion call to cash out."

If it was Morgan Stanley that made the move this time, Ethan would definitely think that the other party had teamed up with Steve Ross, because they had previously led the acquisitions of Commodor and Rockwell.

But when the one who made the move was Goldman Sachs, profit-first judgment became the mainstream.

There's nothing we can do about it. Who made Goldman Sachs like to do this kind of thing?
Compared with Morgan Stanley's ruthlessness, they prefer to stab people secretly.

When Ethan concluded that Goldman Sachs was ill but not a big threat, the fourth problem was solved. As for the fifth problem, Taito and Namco released a series of copycat products...

Ethan can't solve it, and there's no way to solve this kind of thing.

Again, when the way of playing a game cannot be patented, learning from others becomes inevitable.

Not to mention, he was actually the first one to learn from it.

Therefore, what an excellent game company operates is never the game itself, but the character images that can be protected by copyright. They are the greatest wealth of a game company.

Ethan hadn't done this before, but now...

With the launch of McDonald's Happy Meals, the trial sales of various doll costumes in Los Angeles, and the combination of movies and games, the skyrocketing sales are enough to prove that they have taken the first breakthrough step.

Next, we will continue to work hard on cartoon animations, cartoon TV series, comics, etc., to create their own stories for these characters and make these IPs gain more value.

These things cannot be borrowed from.

Because all successful IPs actually develop in line with the trend of the times.

Without the support of historical factors, how can they move the world?

After going through the five questions one by one, the goals of each company became clear to Ethan. When there was a way to deal with the CD problem, Nintendo's support could be directly broken through, Roy Disney was responsible for the stock price problem, and the fake could never become the real one, the only thing Ethan needed to worry about was Komodor's plan on the computer.

But the problem is...

The idea of cheap computers is really hard to crack!

From ancient times to the present, no merchant likes price wars. Firstly, such practice will affect the company's profits and increase the company's financial pressure. Secondly, such practice will affect the company's reputation.

When a company becomes rich by talking about cost-effectiveness, after they gain a large market share and want to move into the high-end market, they will find that their customers will vote with their feet.

As long as a company that has become famous by engaging in price wars dares to raise the price of its products, its original loyal fans will definitely choose the new, cheaper products that have appeared in the market.

Because a brand has never been built through price wars.

But it is built on real technology.

In this situation, Ethan could actually foresee Komodor's fate.

They will definitely pay the price for the cost-effective ideas they are exploring.

But even if Komodor will eventually be swept into the dust of history, it does not mean that Ethan can ignore the coming impact. When Apple already has a huge market share in the computer market, he will not accept the slightest decline in market share. Of course, Ethan also believes that the two Steves and Lawrence Rockefeller in New York will not accept it either.

In this case, resistance becomes inevitable, and in business, there is only one way to fight against cost-effectiveness, and that is to launch products that are far ahead!

As long as people in the market know that cost-effectiveness is of no use to them and that only technological iteration can lead to the greatest improvement in productivity, the price war plan will fail directly!
But in this era, improving the hardware configuration of computers makes no sense for ordinary people. When spreadsheets are not popular, people do not need very good computers.

To put it more simply, it is actually Andy Bill's theorem.

In the IT industry, improvements in hardware performance require software to quickly digest them.

Only in this way will people continue to change products.

And want to use software to improve hardware performance?
this……

It's a bit difficult.

Just as Ethan was thinking about what other good software he could copy, a quick ring suddenly rang in the quiet study. Since Evelyn was close, she reached out to answer it. After answering twice, she said to Ethan, "Steve Ballmer wants to see you."

"what's up?"

"He said Steve Jobs is at the company and wants to see you urgently."

"Ah?" The sudden search made Ethan a little confused.

But before he stood up to ask for the phone, Evelyn said, "Oh, Steve Ballmer said that Steve Jobs is urging you to come over now because he said he saw God."

"And this time, God didn't put on your clothes!"

"WTF?" Ethan frowned at the inexplicable words.

He didn't know what was wrong with Xiao Qiao.

I picked up the phone and listened carefully. Then, a loud shout came from the other end of the phone.

"Tell Ethan! Even if Yellowstone volcano erupts today! He has to come today!"

"We're going to Xerox's research center together!"

"They just showed us a technique!"

"Under their operation, the computer seems to have come to life!"

"MFxxk! I'm not lying!"

"Yeah! Stephen feels the same way! He even swears by the name his mom gave him!"

When the name Xerox entered Ethan's ears, he was struck by lightning!

Because he knew what Steve Jobs saw.