America: My Time

Chapter 144 VCD
Chapter 144 VCD
While John and Robert Iger plotted how to deliver a heavy blow to Disney, Morgan was both tormented and delighted, constantly accepting acquisition offers from John's companies. With Morgan's all-out offensive, the company's expansion accelerated, and when Morgan finally acquired Southern Company, John finally breathed a sigh of relief.

7－11便利店终于到手了，这一次自己不会让它落入到霓虹那群小矮子的手中，而且也开始计划如何收购霓虹7－11，还有湾湾的7－11便利店，完成对7－11的全面收购，彻底整合7－11这个品牌，让7－11成为自己在零售业布局的重要一环。

Before a full acquisition, 7-Eleven needs to be transformed, and the entire US market needs to be transformed. All unprofitable 7-Eleven stores need to be sold off. Within the entire 7-Eleven system, this requires cutting a significant number of stores, especially highway gas station stores, which are almost all targeted for elimination.

John's focus was on cities, and he saw them as the right direction for 7-Eleven's development. He needed to completely dominate the market before other convenience stores could react, completing his nationwide convenience store network. This required massive capital for expansion. Convenience stores are located in cities, where property prices are naturally much higher than outside, resulting in a huge cost. Although the cost was high, it was necessary. In John's plan, at least the majority of convenience stores would be under the company's control, not franchisees.

To complete this grand plan, the assistance of the Bank of Japan was needed. Before the Plaza Accord, obtaining a dollar loan from the Bank of Japan was a lucrative opportunity, so John naturally wouldn't refuse.

While Japanese banks aren't fools and wouldn't leave you without any due diligence and require collateral, large projects like Universal Studios and the expansion of 7-Eleven are guaranteed to be of high quality. Unless Japanese banks are naive, they certainly won't let such lucrative projects slip by, and if they give up, other banks will quickly come knocking.

John has an excellent credit history with Japanese banks. No Japanese bank believes he is incapable of repaying loans. Moreover, all Japanese banks are well aware of how impressive John's assets are in Japan. Even the most inconspicuous farms are profitable. It can be said that every investment is profitable, which is enough to tempt anyone!

John hasn't taken any action yet; it's not the right time. If he wants to teach Disney a lesson, he needs to strike decisively, leaving them no time to react. Now he needs to wait for the right opportunity, for Legendary Entertainment to complete all preparations before making his move. Furthermore, he needs to assess the construction progress of Universal Studios Japan, all of which will take time.

Although John has become more low-key, the media has never forgotten his existence. Although all those in the limelight are now professional managers, everyone understands that the truly capable one is not these managers, but John, who has begun to hide behind the scenes. He is the one driving all of this development and the expansion of the industry.

As various industries expanded wildly, people gradually forgot that John still had Nvidia in his hands. Among all the companies expanding, only Nvidia did not take action, and even the giants on Wall Street instinctively forgot about it.

Does John really not care about Nvidia at all? No, on the contrary, John cares a lot about Nvidia's development. It's just that no one knows about Nvidia's development plan. When they see that there are no changes, they instinctively ignore it!
Nvidia's primary focus is on chip and semiconductor development. At this stage, it's virtually impossible to sustain Nvidia's growth solely through chips and semiconductors, as these technologies are unlikely to generate substantial financial returns. John has meticulously planned for each company, identifying key profit drivers; Nvidia certainly has its own!
Nvidia's profit center in its plans lies in VCDs. While Sony had already developed CDs in 1982, Nvidia had been secretly researching VCDs all along. If John had some concerns before Phoenix Media completed its acquisition of the copyrights from MGM and United Artists, those concerns have now completely disappeared.

John dared to let Phoenix Media expand Blockbuster because he had the confidence that once Blockbuster expanded, it would inevitably provide strong support for VCD, enabling Nvidia to be profitable and supporting its future research and development without having to divert funds from other companies.

The VCD production issue was also relatively easy to resolve. ASUS was the manufacturer, and John had long been prepared for VCD manufacturing, not intending to rely entirely on cooperation with Japanese companies. With Bell Labs and Motorola Semiconductor, they already possessed their own manufacturing capabilities, and Taiwan's costs were significantly lower than Japan's. ASUS also needed to generate profit, and VCDs were the perfect profit driver. Its emergence was a win-win situation, benefiting their entire semiconductor supply chain. While everyone outside believed Nvidia was only developing chip semiconductors, Nvidia's internal research teams had already been secretly developing VCD technology and developing corresponding patents. The biggest problem with VCDs lay in the decoder. To avoid obstacles from major film companies in its rollout, encryption was essential, regardless of its usefulness. This was precisely why research had been so slow!

However, slow and steady wins the race. Nvidia has invested heavily in VCD patents, building a formidable patent wall that leaves no opportunity for any company to circumvent its patents. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of VCDs will inevitably have a huge impact on video recorders, requiring advance preparation to prevent a counterattack from video recorder manufacturers. Similarly, production needs to be planned well in advance. This is no small matter; once the product is launched, a massive influx of orders will follow.

"Boss, the Nvidia One research is complete!" When the secretary handed him the successful report on Nvidia's research, John finally showed a faint smile of joy. The long-awaited VCD was finally a success.

"Good, very good, this day is finally coming. Inform them to work closely with ASUS and accelerate the pace of mass production. We must complete it before the summer!" John made many preparations for secrecy. All research was conducted under code names to prevent any problems with his secretarial team from exposing the company's research plans.

The secretarial team had no idea what Nvidia Research One was; all they knew was a code name. Even if someone on the secretarial team leaked information, it wouldn't cause significant losses to the company or affect its development.

To promote VCDs and acquire more copyrights, Phoenix Media has been quietly working on this. In Japan and Hong Kong, they have acquired the copyrights to many high-quality TV dramas and movies. All of this is for the promotion of VCDs and the development of Blockbuster! Their acquisition of film and TV drama copyrights hasn't attracted much attention; everyone simply believes that Phoenix Media intends to enter the video rental market!
While Phoenix Media was collecting copyrights for TV series and movies, Legendary Entertainment was also collecting music licenses. Its purpose was the same as Phoenix Media's: to prepare for the promotion of VCDs. Both were quietly clearing away obstacles related to copyrights. Only by accumulating more copyrights could they avoid being controlled by others in the promotion of VCDs.

John doesn't believe those Hollywood bastards will watch Blockbuster grow stronger. When they realize the profits and the impact on themselves, those bastards will definitely hold Blockbuster back and restrict VCDs. At the very least, they will strangle VCD development by controlling its copyright.

Being choked is no pleasant experience. John will not act rashly without thorough preparation. Only when everything is ready will he stride forward, leaving the enemy with no opportunity to obstruct him and keeping everything under his control.

Time flies, and May is fast approaching, with summer vacation just around the corner. Legendary Entertainment has completed many preparations, and Nvidia and ASUS have also completed mass production of VCDs. ASUS is working overtime to produce VCDs at a frantic pace to prepare for the upcoming sales. John did not intend to share the first wave of profits with the Japanese companies.

(End of this chapter)