Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 303: A Cheng Yaojin shows up unexpectedly?
"Julis, do you think Sega's behavior is a little unusual?"

After reading Julis Noble's report, Ethan put down the document and stared at his subordinates.

"Yes, Boss, I think there's something wrong with Sega."

Julis expressed her thoughts, "I thought before that Sega's acquisition of Esco Trading was just to expand their real estate business in Neon, using the operation of arcade games as an excuse to invest heavily in Neon real estate, but I didn't expect that Sega's goal was actually games."

"Although Sega has never had any friction with us in the past few years, it does not mean that we are not competitors. Since our main businesses conflict, when Sega chooses to leave North America and come to Japan, all their actions will pose a threat to us."

"For example..."

"What Sega is doing now is reverse selling."

"This behavior makes me think they are ambitious."

Reverse selling is a marketing term with many explanations.

And now, what Julis was talking about was Sega's behavior of doing marketing first and then deciding on distribution.

The normal process for a company to sell goods is to communicate with wholesalers first, introduce its products to wholesalers, and then push the goods to the market through their channels.

This is the method used by Destiny when selling arcade machines.

Ethan communicated with arcade machine buyers from all over the country and sold the goods to them. After obtaining the arcade machines, these people placed them in their own shops and attracted end consumers to come and buy them.

But what Sega is doing now is the opposite. When launching products, it avoids buyers and directly carries out consumer-centric marketing, that is, selling products directly at retail outlets.

Although this method cannot allow them to gain a large market in a short period of time, it can save them a lot of marketing expenses and slowly win the hearts of the people in a steady and solid manner.

After waiting for other dealers to find out that their products are indeed good...

The related purchases will naturally appear.

On the surface, this kind of marketing seems a bit petty, but in fact, it is actually a manifestation of a company's ambition. They want to achieve long-term success in this industry, so they don't care about temporary sales. They are like a wolf in the jungle, patient enough to wait for the prey to show flaws, and willing to wait for their products to ferment slowly.

"So, you mean, Sega's patience will make them a dark horse in the video game industry? Their steadiness will make them successful?" Ethan asked.

"Yes." Julis nodded and said, "I feel that Sega is now like a poisonous snake hiding in the dark, and it may show its fangs at any time."

“And, their choice was very smart.”

"When they found out that they had to pay high royalties to make video games in North America, they decisively shifted their focus to Neon, which had no patent protection and a huge market."

"This behavior not only allows them to save a lot of patent expenses, but also allows them to test whether their games will attract market attention."

"Once a game has passed the test of a country's market, they can confidently introduce it to North America, which will allow them to achieve success at the lowest cost."

"After all, everyone now knows that North America is our preserve."

Ethan understood.

Julis came here today to tell him that Sega is very dangerous and they should be careful.

And this admonition...

Ethan thought that was fine.

Because in his previous life, Sega was the video game giant that could compete with Nintendo.

In his memory, the fight between Sega and Nintendo was a bloody one. Their home console SG-1000 and Nintendo's home console Family Computer were released on the same day, and the hype and marketing related to it was a mess.

Not only that, when Nintendo came out with "Mario", Sega also launched "Sonic" without giving in. This tit-for-tat fight was a classic battle in the electronic game circle in Ethan's previous life.

When Nintendo was big and powerful and had already monopolized the electronic game market, Sega was still not afraid and fought against them to the end. This crazy and aggressive character proved that they would definitely be a tough opponent, especially after the appearance of Nakayama Hayao, the guy who led Sega to the top...

At this moment, Sega's risk index is actually no lower than Nintendo's.

"Okay, Julis, I see what you mean."

"I understand your concerns. You did a good job this time."

"Thank you for reminding me when I almost forgot about Sega."

Ethan praised Julis's behavior.

At the same time, he also wanted to know what the "Godzilla" game looked like.

Because he couldn't find any relevant information from his past life memories.

When Ethan said that he wanted to play the game "Godzilla" up close, Julis, who came to report the news, looked embarrassed and said, "So far, Sega has not officially sold this game to the public, so playing it up close may not be possible in the short term."

Ethan felt a little regretful about this situation.

But the next second, Julis changed the subject and said, "However, I used a tape recorder to record a live video of the arcade. Although it looks a bit blurry, the specific gameplay has been recorded."

"Oh, really?" Ethan was a little surprised. "Where's the video tape?"

"At this."

Julis handed a palm-sized black box to Ethan.

He stood up and inserted the black box into the Philips projector. He pressed the play button, and the Sony Trinitron screen suddenly flickered. After playing the invalid recording at the front end, a shaking picture appeared in front of Ethan.

Since the game "Godzilla" was not released to the public, in order to play it one had to enter an arcade controlled by Sega, so in order to avoid alerting the enemy, Julis had to avoid the scrutiny of the store clerks while recording. As a result, the perspective of the entire video was very strange, as it was shot from an upward angle.

But Ethan didn't care about the details.

Staring at the screen intently.

As the colorful picture appeared, an interesting level-breaking game appeared before him.

"Godzilla" is a vertical screen level-breaking game. The map cannot be pulled left or right, only up and down.

At the beginning of the game, a human character will be born in the lower left corner of the screen. At the top of the screen, there is a Godzilla high above. What the player needs to do is to control the human character to run to the upper right corner of the map. As long as he touches the aperture-like portal, he will pass the level.

And this process is not simple.

First of all, there is no complete road on the map. The designer sets up obstacles for players in three stages. The first layer close to the player is a fixed brick. Players can only climb up step by step by controlling the game character to jump upwards.

The second layer is a long wooden stake with red spikes on it. If the player touches the spikes, he will die immediately. The third layer is a giant monster Godzilla. Every five seconds, it will move towards the player's position, open its bloody mouth, and spit a mouthful of thick phlegm at the player.

No, it's light waves.

If hit by the light wave, the player will die immediately.

As for how to avoid it...

It is very simple for players of later generations.

Just move the character to a safe location through operation. But for people in this era...

This way of playing is very novel.

So every time a player performs a wonderful operation in front of the arcade, there will be cheers from the audience, and if someone performs a double jump, triple jump, etc.

A sudden loud exclamation will make them the coolest guys at the scene.

Of course, if this game only has dodging gameplay, players will definitely lose interest in this game after playing for a long time. Therefore, when the level reaches a certain level, players can use terrain weapons to counterattack Godzilla.

For example, the spikes on the stakes are red and green. If the player touches the red spikes, the player will die immediately, but if the player touches the green spikes, the spikes will instantly rise up and rush towards Godzilla at the top. If the player hits Godzilla in this way, Godzilla will wail and disappear instantly, and the level will be cleared. But if the player misses, Godzilla will enter an angry state and attack the player at a faster speed. The previous interval was five seconds, but now it is three seconds.

For example, a blue light ball will appear on the map. After eating it, the character controlled by the player can rebound damage once. The player who gets the buff only needs to stand still and wait for Godzilla's attack. But this light ball is not easy to get. It only exists for three seconds, and the player needs to find the right time.

In addition, in order to encourage players to fight against Godzilla, the scoring rules of this game are closely related to the player's operations. Every time a level is cleared, the player will get 50 points for clearing the level and bonus points for the remaining time. Each level is limited to 60 seconds. If the player passes the level in 15 seconds, the remaining 45 seconds are bonus points. If the player passes the level by repelling Godzilla, the player will also get a 100-point kill point.

To put it simply, the faster players clear a level, the higher their score will be.

At the same time, the fewer levels a player passes and the higher their score, the more it proves how awesome they are.

For ordinary people, this algorithm doesn't make sense.

But in the arcade, scores symbolize status.

"This game is well made. How many levels are there in total?"

After watching the videotape, Ethan turned his attention back to Julis.

"I don't know." Julis shook her head and said, "This game has only been running for a month. No one should have completed it yet? Because I haven't heard of any news of it being completed."

"Then do you know how much this game costs?"

Ethan continued to ask questions.

"do not know."

Julis shook her head again.

"Before I came back, Nakayama Hayao only announced that he would discuss sales with other arcades, but he didn't officially sell it, so I don't know what price Sega gave for this machine."

Perhaps Julis felt embarrassed because she didn't know anything about the game, or maybe she thought that the single game was not important, so after shaking her head repeatedly, Julis said, "Boss, although we don't know many details about Sega, there is one thing we can be sure of."

"If Sega wanted to bring the game back to North America, they would have gone to Paramount."

"Because there is no royalty fee for distributing games through Paramount."

“Although I don’t know when they will make that decision.”

"But I believe that day will come soon."

“Because this game is really good.”

"And when they make this choice, the alliance between Philips, Disney, Paramount and MGM will be officially dissolved, even though the alliance is now bankrupt..."

When these words entered Ethan's ears, he was stunned for a moment.

The next second, Ethan finally understood what the purpose of Julis's trip was.

Did Julis come back this time to remind him to be careful with Sega?

of course!

That's why Julis came back!

But this kind of caution is only the most superficial meaning that Julis wants to convey!
Even Sega may announce its return at any time!

What she really wanted to say was that the enemy camp was likely to collapse directly!
Previously, in order to maintain its pitiful share in the video game market, Philips took the initiative to take the lead and formed an offensive and defensive alliance with MGM, Disney and Paramount.

Philips took out its video game patents and licensed them to three other companies at low prices, while MGM, Disney and Paramount took out their own well-known copyrights and made them into games, hoping to impact the electronic game market dominated by Ethan Jones.

In that confrontation, MGM was considered the winner because their games sold well;
Paramount had a mixed bag of results, although they sold a lot of arcade machines, they also got a bad rap;
As for Disney...

When Ethan released "Starfield", the video game produced by Ron Miller became the victim of the game of fate and could not be deader.

When the fact that both parties suffered losses in the cooperation came to light, the Miffy Duck group fell into an awkward situation. They could continue to attack, but no one wanted to be hit on the head by Ethan.

More importantly, in the first half of last year, the entire North American continent was talking about the National Electronic Game Competition, and in the second half of last year, countless players were discussing the "Starfield" game.

There are only 365 days in a year, but Ethan can show 366 faces in front of the people. This fact caused the Mifedi Alliance to fall into silence last year.

When an alliance that was originally formed for profit fails to make any money in a whole year, disintegration is inevitable. And now, Sega has achieved success again?

This situation will definitely put Paramount out of the alliance!
After all, everyone knows that Sega and Paramount have the same father!

When this fact comes out, Philips and the others will definitely feel as uncomfortable as if they had eaten shit!
Because they sold the patent, but failed to successfully snipe Ethan Jones!

This is simply a case of losing both the wife and the army!

But the reality...

At the end of February 1980, the head of Neon Sega, Hayao Nakayama, announced that they had sold 13,000 "Godzilla" arcade machines in just two weeks, making a profit of more than 26 million.

US dollars.

"This result proves that our country's development speed in the field of electronic games is not far behind that of the United States! Even if they developed first! Even if they got a head start! Our Japanese designers have not been completely left behind by them!"

"In the past, American games were very popular in Japan because Americans had the advantage of being inventors and had the help of time. But now, what I want to say is that when we Japanese officially start to exert our strength, all the advantages of Americans will vanish!"

"Godzilla is the best proof!"

"You know, the sales of 13,000 units in two weeks has surpassed the record held by the current gaming giant Destiny! Because when they first entered the video game industry, the total sales of Snake in North America was only 10,000 units! And this is the result of their sales for a few months!"

"After we broke the blockade of the Destiny Game with thunder and created a new sales record, we can tell you with confidence that the future belongs to us! It belongs to us, Neon!"

"And what we are going to do next is to sell your favorite video games to North America!"

“We will cooperate with Paramount! Let North American players appreciate our creativity!”

"Although this transaction has just been completed, we believe that today will be the end of the US's export of our games!"

"Tomorrow, they will surely be inspired by our excellence—"

"Shiver!"

(End of this chapter)