Tokyo Video Game Tycoon.

Airi Hayazawa clapped her hands and said, "Wait for me a moment. You guys wait here too. I'll be right back."

After saying that, Airi Hayazawa ran out of the office.

Not long after, Airi Hayazawa returned, holding a Switch prototype that Yusei Take had seen before.

The last time I saw this prototype was a few months ago, shortly after we had finalized the heat dissipation issue with the chip manufacturer.

At that time, the prototype looked rather rough, and the outer shell was not properly installed. It was simply a motherboard with a heat sink and a screen assembled on it.

But now, this prototype has its own casing.

"Zhuyou, this is the heat dissipation channel of the outer shell that we finally designed after continuous research over this period of time. The final temperature of this product can always be kept below 60 degrees Celsius, which should meet your requirements."

"Is the design of the heat dissipation duct completed?"

"That's not all! We've also got the system working!" Aya Tsukino said happily. "You guys bring over the game console docks and give our president a proper demonstration."

Soon, the other engineers brought over a base.

The shape was something like a base, which was somewhat different from the Switch dock in Yusei's memory.

However, the base itself is not particularly difficult to design; it is more of a simple port for charging and connecting to external TVs and monitors, so it was actually the first one to be developed.

The appearance can be changed at any time in the end.

Airi Hayazawa inserted the prototype into its base, and the large screen in the office lit up.

That interface looked very familiar to Zhu Youxing.

Chapter 809 Solving the Problem

809

Hayazawa Airi handed Takeyusei a controller, and Takeyusei began to skillfully operate it.

The familiar game selection screen, the familiar character interface—it's all almost exactly the same as the Switch in the original world.

Of course, this was also the design scheme that Zhuyouxing initially proposed. After Zhuyouxing gave a clear direction, the engineers responsible for system development did not need to spend too much time on it.

"This system is still in its initial version and there are probably still quite a few bugs. However, I have had my people working hard to test the system's stability. Also, regarding the universality that you've been talking about, we've largely achieved that. Now, you can run some old games from FC, SFC, and GS1 on it without any problems. However, some games are developed by third parties, and we found some minor issues during testing. Some of these issues could even become destabilizing factors. That's why I wanted you to come and take a look, and to let you make the decision."

What kind of destabilizing factors?

Aya Tsukino looked at an engineer beside her and said, "You explain it. You developed the game console's system, and you worked with the chip manufacturer to debug the chips. You should be more familiar with it."

“Okay.” A man who looked to be close to forty years old stepped forward.

Just by looking at the other person's hairstyle, you can tell that this is definitely a strong person.

Even in a company like Yuxing Electronic Entertainment, where people work regular hours and have weekends off, having such a powerful hairstyle means he's definitely not an ordinary person. Yuxing couldn't help but feel some respect for him.

"Hello, President. I am mainly responsible for system development. I used to work in the operating system development department of Morgan Group, so I have quite a lot of experience in this area."

So he's an employee from the company with the most powerful operating system. No wonder.

Zhu Youxing seemed to realize something.

"Hello, I'd love to have you working for me."

Without wasting words, the other party went straight to the point: "President, the instability is actually more a problem with the chip we selected."

"A problem with the chip?"

"That's right, President. What you're asking for is versatility and ease of development. We've been working with several chip giants on this requirement for a long time, and they've all come up with different solutions. In the end, the one that meets your requirements and also addresses various aspects like heat dissipation and energy efficiency is practically the only option. However, because of its versatility and ease of development, the chip is very open and its data defenses can be breached very easily. In short... it can be hacked."

Cracking.

This is a fairly familiar term.

Hacking game consoles is something Zhu Youxing has been exposed to since childhood.

In the early days, the country of China where he originally lived had almost no fertile ground for the survival of legitimate games.

Almost all the games that Zhu Youxing can play are so-called cracked games.

These cracked games don't require paying the game developers any money; they're essentially freebies.

For game developers, this is actually a very significant loss.

The more people play hacked games, the greater the losses will be.

Different countries simply place varying degrees of importance on this issue, and game developers can never completely avoid cracking such things.

Zhu Youxing later offered a way to barely solve part of the cracking problem: to lower the cost of the game console as much as possible.

Ideally, it should be reduced to a level that even hackers wouldn't bother to do.

For example, Yuxing Electronics Entertainment still maintains a production line to manufacture and sell FC game consoles.

This thing has sold 400 million units so far, making it an unkillable force in the video game industry.

No matter which game console becomes a bestseller, it's unlikely to surpass the sales of the Famicom.

The main factor is that the current selling price of the FC game console is shockingly low.

In Africa, an FC game console plus a 30-in-1 game cartridge costs less than ten dollars, but it can keep someone happily playing for a long time.

So the FC almost completely defeated everyone who wanted to hack this game console.

But other game consoles... can't use this method.

Because the cost is indeed high, it's impossible for Zhuyouxing to donate all game consoles as charity.

In terms of anti-hacking, Yuxing Electronic Entertainment has also done its utmost.

The most important thing to do for every game console, while ensuring its universality, is to prevent hacking.

If a game console is hacked too much, it can also harm the partners.

It is indeed possible for me to earn more money due to the popularity of game consoles.

However, competitors couldn't recoup their costs from this game console and were instead disgusted by the hacking, which would discourage even the closest partners.

Therefore, in order to appease these partners, we must continue to implement anti-hacking measures.

However, in reality, the hacking was not the real source of the problem.

Hacking is essentially a form of re-modification of game consoles, much like the MOD module development in games promoted by Zhuyouxing, which is a player's free choice.

Some people hack games simply to gain more freedom of choice on their game consoles.

Currently, some people have hacked the GSX game console from Yuxing Electronics Entertainment simply to make the console's interface look prettier, or to develop their own custom operating system to make the console's operation smoother and more in line with their own aesthetic preferences.

Different strokes for different folks; you can't expect everyone to accept the operating system interface you designed.

As for cracking games, that should be considered an added value within the field of game cracking.

But this added value can greatly affect game sales.

"How easy is it to hack this game console?" Zhu Youxing asked.

"It's so easy that anyone who is familiar with operating system programming can crack it."

Zhu Youxing fell silent for a moment.

It seems that there are still significant drawbacks in terms of versatility and ease of development.

The original purpose of Zhuyouxing was to make it easier for game developers to create games for their own game console platforms.

Furthermore, if you want to release the game on multiple platforms in the future, it will be easier to port it.

But now this has become a ticking time bomb for myself.

Have you thought of a way to prevent it from being cracked?

“Yes, but that would affect the universality requirement you mentioned, President,” the engineer who developed the system said. “Based on the vulnerabilities I’ve discovered so far, anyone looking to crack it could easily breach the console’s defenses through the ports of many older games. I still haven’t found a way to make these games playable on this console without it being hacked.”

Chapter 810 Reheating Old Rice

810

By using special programs within certain games to guide users into the system's underlying interface and allowing them to do whatever they want, this is a fairly common method for hacking game consoles.

Countless games, especially older ones, could hardly have imagined during their development that they would become major targets for hacking on new game consoles in the future.

Surui Electronics has also suffered a lot in this regard.

Initially, they wanted to emulate Yuxing Electronics by using a more versatile chip as the processor for their game console. They then proceeded to port all the old games to the new console without any testing, which resulted in Surui Electronics' game console being completely hacked within just a few months of its release.

In the end, the situation was barely salvaged by the new operating system's ban on a bunch of old games, along with major modifications to the underlying code to increase restrictions on new games' support for older systems.

However, the complete cracking of the code also caused significant losses for Surui Electronics.

Several third-party game developers, whose cooperative relationship was not particularly close to begin with, also temporarily abandoned their cooperation and eventually went to Youxing Electronic Entertainment on their own.

Although Yusei Electronics' game consoles were inevitably hacked, the impact was much smaller.

Zhu Youxing, a man of foresight, had considered these matters long ago and nipped these troubles in the bud.

This, in turn, helped Zhuyouxing expand its advantage when it competed with Surui Electronics and Youxing Electronics Entertainment.

However, no matter how much the engineers who developed this operating system test and adjust it, it is no longer possible to find a balance between universality and system anti-cracking.

It seems we have to choose one of the two.

Either pursue universality and wait for them to be cracked and cause serious losses, or proactively shut down these old games.

Zhu Youxing asked, "Are there many games like this?"

“There are many.”

Airi Hayazawa said, "Takeyu, I think we should put these games on hold for now. There might be a solution in the future, but we shouldn't waste too much time on these things. Aren't you planning to release the Switch console as soon as possible?"

You have to make a choice...

Is that why you sent me here?

Zhu Youxing looked at the others and asked, "What are your thoughts? You can all share them."

"We... also prefer to temporarily abandon these games. If the cracking becomes public, it will have a significant impact on our reputation. This is much more difficult than the decision Izumi made with that trigger button."

Zhu Youxing did not give an answer immediately, and the people began to discuss it.

Airi Hayazawa asked the person in charge of system development again, "Are you sure these vulnerabilities can't be completely resolved?"