Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 276 Conscience
In its previous life, before the launch of the Mi 6, Xiaomi was actually quite unsure of itself. On the one hand, it was concerned about whether consumers would accept the price increase from 1999 to 2499 for the Mi 5.

This problem is not a problem in the eyes of later generations, but it was a real problem for Xiaomi at that time.

Nobody knows whether the Xiaomi 6 will be a hit, especially given Xiaomi's somewhat lackluster performance throughout 16.

Based on this assessment, Chu Chen concluded that if he intervened at this time, Xiaomi's willingness to cooperate would be very strong, and its level of cooperation would be higher than that of other mobile phone manufacturers.

In fact, this is indeed the case.

Chu Chen required this level of cooperation because the collaboration he was undertaking was different from those with other anime-style game companies; Chu Chen wanted a collaboration that would "mass-produce" content.

His idea was very similar to Huawei's later foray into car manufacturing.

The idea was simply to try and see if the brand value of Xingchen could create additional "incremental value" for mobile phone manufacturers' products.

Simply put, given the same retail price, can the co-branded model attract customers who originally wanted to buy other brands to ultimately choose it?

Furthermore, for ordinary users, even the standard version of the customized version is essentially just a change in the outer packaging; the phone itself doesn't actually have any hardware changes.

Under such circumstances, can the collaboration attract young users to choose the co-branded product?

This is actually a relatively aggressive sales strategy.

Conversely, this could also affect the sales of Xiaomi's own standard version. The reason is simple: given that the co-branded customized version of Starry Sky is priced the same.

If the collaboration version is in stock, ordinary users are very likely to choose the collaboration version.

Xiaomi's own standard version, once the supply is sufficient, may need to be reduced in price to make up for the price difference.

In addition, every phone supplied to Xingchen is sold at the supplier price. Xiaomi does not need to give the channel a share of the revenue when it sells directly through its own channels. However, when it sells through Xingchen's game store, Xiaomi still has to give Xingchen a profit for every phone sold.

This is all real money.

On the other hand, the premium version of Starry Sky is priced at 299 yuan. After deducting the cost of more than 100 yuan, each premium version of Starry Sky has a profit plus the channel profit obtained from Xiaomi.

It may not be less than Xiaomi's.
This is why Chu Chen chose to cooperate with Xiaomi at this time.

Because Xiaomi currently lacks confidence, Xingchen has more room for negotiation. On the other hand, Xiaomi also needs hype right now.

If Chu Chen succeeds and the co-branded product sells well, he will essentially have created a bargaining chip out of thin air. In the future, collaborations with Starry Sky will be a real "bonus" for mobile phone manufacturers.

This bargaining chip is what Chu Chen wanted after going through all this trouble.

He doesn't make phones, but he can use his "future vision" to pre-select those phones with good reputations and link them at affordable prices, which is essentially making him a phone distributor.

If the distributor system is done well, the crossover version could sell hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of units a year.
Which phone should link with the system, and which phone should not?

Even if mobile phone manufacturers aren't exactly beholden to the stars, they're at least "high-level partners."

of course
Whether this approach will ultimately work is another question. After all, no one has done this before. You have to understand that for manufacturers, releasing a large number of these affordable promotional offers will genuinely "damage" their own distribution channels.

When Chu Chen first proposed this idea, Xiaomi had a long internal discussion about it.

The business world is like a battlefield. Chu Chen's plan, the collaboration between Xingchen and Xiaomi, definitely has an advantage because it essentially uses Xiaomi's standard version as a stepping stone for the collaboration.

By pricing the Xiaomi standard edition, they anchored the cost-effectiveness of the co-branded version. And the most absurd part is that Xingchen didn't actually invest much in the co-branded version. Essentially, Xingchen simply turned the box, which was already necessary, into a "peripheral" item; the phone case and phone stand had very low costs.

However, Xiaomi ultimately agreed to the collaboration request.

Lei Jun was certainly aware of the risks involved, but he was even more aware of Xiaomi's current predicament.

"Let's explode it first. If it really explodes, these are all minor problems."

Xiaomi desperately needs a blockbuster product right now.

Now, standing on the stage, even though the phone hasn't gone on sale yet, listening to the thunderous cheers, Lei Jun vaguely felt that he was in a pretty good position this time.

"Of course, the more complex deluxe version does increase our costs, and Starry Sky has also prepared more generous peripherals for everyone, so it will be priced 299 yuan higher than the standard version, with a starting price of 2798 yuan!"

Even with the shocking news of "no extra charge for the standard version," this price still seemed incredibly "conscientious," and the audience even hailed it as "a true conscience of the industry."

~~~
Shenzhen, headquarters of the Hardcore Alliance.

In the spacious and bright office, Zhang Guangtai was leaning back on the sofa, having a heated discussion with someone on the other end of the screen.

"So, Jon, do you understand what I mean? This company called StarCraft is using a very barbaric method to destroy the Android ecosystem order that we have worked so hard to build."

Zhang Guangtai speaks English quite fluently.

"This is vicious competition, this is dumping! If this continues, they will destroy the entire Android channel ecosystem!"

On the screen is a blond, blue-eyed white man named Jon, the regional head of Google's Android ecosystem cooperation department, who is responsible for business liaison in Greater China.

The meeting between the two wasn't some kind of "Starry Night Rant Session," but rather a "Google Developer Conference."

Few people in later generations know this.

2017 was actually a very important year for Google's return to China strategy. In March, Google Translate mobile version was launched directly in China, and Chinese users could download and use it directly from the app store.

Google also established the Google AI China Center, and this spring, through the acquisition of the Chinese navigation website 265.com, it launched a search engine development project codenamed "Dragonfly".

This project is specifically designed to create a compliant version of the engine for the Chinese market.

This call was actually Google's invitation to the Hardcore Alliance to participate in the 2017 Google Greater China Partner Summit.

Even if the Hardcore Alliance is, to some extent, a "competitor" of Google.

However, Google's influence in China is not high, so this time when it returned to China, Google adopted a relatively humble attitude.

Jon Snow, who was in charge of organizing the meeting, did not expect that Zhang Guangtai would start complaining like a machine gun during this simple invitation meeting.
This was actually Zhang Guangtai grasping at straws in his desperation.

He knew that Google had also directly competed with StarTap overseas and had even been involved in lawsuits. Based on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the fact that Google was not a direct competitor of them in China, he decided to take advantage of the situation.

I was just thinking of talking more with the person in charge at Google.

He hadn't considered that even if Google was willing to help him, the things Google could do in China would be quite limited.
(End of this chapter)