America: The Godfather of Game Development

Chapter 318 So Sega was killed by me?

How can a simple, low-level online game revitalize the internet?

Perhaps Akinator is not the most perfect answer.

However, in the current environment, it has indeed played an unexpected role.

However, for Lin Lixin, there were just too many things that interested him these past two days.

Lin Lixin sat in front of the television, looking at the black main unit that appeared on the screen.

Sega Genesis.

Perhaps because Micron supplied Sega in large quantities, this American version of the fourth-generation console was released earlier than the Mega Drive.

Motorola processor, Micron memory, MicroNova graphics card —

The configuration is almost identical to the details disclosed by Hayao Nakayama not long ago, with only some minor tweaks.

To be fair, the configuration of this machine is undoubtedly top-notch from any perspective.

It can even be compared to the NovaXeno, a premature product that has already dominated the era.

But this was destined to be a battle of certain defeat.

Just last week, Nintendo and NOA (Nintendo of America) preemptively released information about their next-generation console, the Super Famicom, and the American version of the SNES, which has now failed to launch.

In the timeline that Lin Lixin was familiar with, the Sega Mega Drive was not a failed console.

However, its success was due to taking advantage of Nintendo's complacency with the complete victory of the Famicom and neglecting research and development, thus seizing the North American market first.

However, all of this premise no longer exists here.

North America has long been GAMENOVA's backyard.

With its formidable lineup of first-party games and a host of third-party developers specializing in Japanese games, Nintendo has managed to establish a firm foothold in Japan, even though its technical capabilities are far inferior to Gamenova's.

Not to mention with Gamenova in front of them threatening them, Nintendo had absolutely no arrogant thoughts.

The next-generation console, the Super Famicom (SFC), was released more than a year, almost two years, earlier than it was historically expected.

And what about Sega?

Sonic the Hedgehog, their flagship title, hasn't even been conceived yet, while flight shooting games and Tetris have already become GAMENOVA's signature titles.

There's still no sign of "GT Racing".

Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi once commented on Sega: "Sonic the Hedgehog is Sega's only good game."

While this statement contains a lot of arrogance, it does indeed illustrate the vast difference in the game lineups between the two sides.

EA, which was originally able to help Sega Mega Drive sell like hotcakes in the North American market, was nearly killed by Gamenova. Now it's just living off its past glory and waiting to die with NOA. Who knows when it might suddenly go bankrupt.

In addition, the previous generation of consoles was almost killed off because of the big battle between NovaBo and Nintendo NES.

Sega's home console division is now truly on the verge of collapse, barely clinging to life.

Thinking of this, Lin Lixin clicked his tongue.

"Oh no, looking at it this way—it seems like I've really screwed Sega over?"

While they were busy dealing with Nintendo, EA, and the other two giants that were about to enter the fray, they had been deliberately going easy on Sega, the poor thing.

Looking back now, it seems that every step we took hit Sega's Achilles' heel.

"President Zhongshan, it's not that I want to harm you, it's this chaotic world that has harmed you!"

Lin Lixin silently watched the pornographic videos on TV.

Super Monaco Racing, a 3D racing game slated for release in 89.

A port of Genesis of One-on-One, as well as a host of sports games in the same style.

And so on.

To be fair, the initial lineup of games was indeed impressive in terms of quantity.

But apart from Super Monaco, none of these are as crucial as Super Mario.

At this point, Lin Lixin knew he no longer needed to watch.

Look at what kind of starting lineup Ren has next door.

Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Dragon Quest —

"This hurdle is going to be tough —"

Lin Lixin silently turned off the television, no longer paying attention to these settled matters, and focused on the ATHENA architecture design at hand.

As the saying goes, ducks are the first to know when the river warms in spring.

The stock market is also the first to know a company's business potential.

Faced with this promotional video, which was clearly a do-or-die move, SEGA's stock price on the Tokyo Stock Exchange experienced a severe drop that day.

There is no doubt that capital has already decided to abandon SEGA.

Arcade games alone cannot support such high expectations.

If retail investors are already in such a state, then CSK, which was already eager to cash out and run away, is sweating profusely.

However, amidst this emotional panic, President Hayao Nakayama remained remarkably calm, simply continuing to buy back and acquire shares.

First, it was his own savings, and then it was the exchange of shares in other companies under his control.

He was like a man possessed, desperately trying to protect Sega's bottom line.

But all of this was destined to be in vain.

Once the first week's sales figures were released, the downward trend could no longer be stopped.

Apart from the arcade market, Sega has suffered a complete defeat this year across all sectors, including its overseas business.

Finally, even CSK's president, Isao Okawa, couldn't hold back any longer and revealed his intention to sell his 25% stake in CSK to cash out and leave.

Meanwhile, unlike the fiercely competitive console and financial markets in Japan, everything is fine in North America.

Micron's second-phase wafer fab has finally completed its initial construction, and the first 0.5-micron wafer has been successfully fabricated.

Of course, this is just a test wafer fabrication for the lithography machine; the real ATHENA is still under intensive design.

Early that morning, Vivian was dragged out of bed by a phone call from Lin Lixin and rushed to the laboratory, yawning all the while.

As soon as she stepped into the room, Lin Lixin tossed a thick stack of documents into her arms with a "whoosh".

"Can you write RTL?"

"Uh...yes."

Vivian stared blankly at the document in her hand, and instantly all sleepiness vanished.

This is a well-organized specification document.

The detailed definitions of the instruction sets, formats, and various models that the ATHENA architecture needs to support are clearly recorded here.

In other words, this thing is their instruction manual for designing ATHENA.

"Only 91 instructions?"

Vivian looked at the section on instruction sets in surprise.

This is undoubtedly a RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) processor.

However, it has nearly twice as many instructions as mainstream architectures.

Even so, it is still extremely simple compared to Intel's 86 architecture, which often has thousands of instructions.

"Besides the thirty-odd instructions that the processor needs, the rest are game-specific instructions, which can greatly optimize game performance for us."

Lin Lixin explained without looking up.

This approach is truly unprecedented and will likely never be repeated; it represents a genuine effort to optimize game performance from the hardware level.

Game-specific commands are not just a simple matter of algorithm optimization.

This time, Lin Lixin directly added dozens of lines of code to the architecture at the instruction level, lines that would never be present in a normal processor.

Examples include vector dot product, matrix transformation of vertices, and block data operations.

These instructions are very complex to implement and often require a combination of many instructions to achieve.

If placed inside the processor, this would increase the computation time several times over.

By making them into dedicated instructions, the processor can directly call this part of the existing circuitry and complete the operation in the time it takes to execute a single instruction.

A single call can save several times the time, and in the world of video games, such calls often occur countless times every second.

Such an operation is simply unacceptable for traditional processors.

Even an architecture like the 86, which is designed for complex instruction sets, will not include instructions that take up space and have limited use in the processor.

"Your task is to translate this document into hardware logic and describe it using Verilog."

Lin Lixin's hands were typing rapidly on the keyboard. "Before you finish your work, I will develop this automatic layout software to automatically generate blueprints for photolithography for us."

At this stage, the lithography pattern can be handed over to Micron to begin arranging production.

He looked at the code on the screen and quickly calculated the time in his mind.

If all goes well, the world's first processor truly designed for video games could be born in as little as one month.

GAMENOVA headquarters.

More than a month later, Hayao Nakayama returned to this place once again.

A month is enough time for a lot to happen.

His mindset had undergone a complete transformation since this trip.

They personally pushed Sega into a fire pit.

Sega's home console division is now practically a complete ruin.

Lin Lixin's goal has been achieved.

GAMENOVA, MicroNova, and Lin Li-hsin himself each hold 20% of the shares, achieving absolute control.

-

Hayao Nakayama retained his position as president of SEGA and resumed his role as president, while retaining 25% of the company's shares.

Hideki Sato, Yu Suzuki, Yuji Naka, and others who were originally part of SEGA and leaned towards the Nakayama Hayao faction held 7%.

The remaining portion was given as a symbolic year-end bonus to a few people in the GAMENOVA development department.

In a sense, Lin Lixin has now officially become his superior.

"President Lin! Isn't it time?"

Nakayama Hayao's voice was urgent.

Sega's market share in Japan is being eroded rapidly, every single second.

It's not just making Nintendo uncomfortable; if this continues, they'll really go out of business.

"We need a game that Nintendo can't do—a true 3D next-gen game! To beat their game lineup!"

3D is destined to be the trend of the future.

It seems that 2D is really nearing its end.

No matter how beautiful the graphics are, they're still only at the level of arcade games.

3D is still a virgin territory waiting to be explored.

3D————

Lin Lixin pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "We don't need 3D. Japan has its own way of doing things. I do have a pretty good 2D project."

He smiled and reached into the drawer to pull out a small, well-packaged box.

It's like something used to hold expensive watches or jewelry.

"However, the price is that Genesis may have to be discontinued and a new model may be made instead."

Lin Lixin slowly opened the box, revealing the contents inside.

It was a nearly square object.

Unlike the common DIP black strip package of the past, this thing has pins leading out from the four sides, giving it a futuristic feel.

Its information is laser-engraved on the packaging.

【GAMENOVA—ATHENA】

A processor with a clock speed that can reach a full 80MHz.

"The visuals have hit a bottleneck; the race for speed has only just begun."

Lin Lixin grinned.

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