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When Gu Biao in China was still dissatisfied with the fact that the first phase of the Bomberman only shipped more than 3,000 units, he didn't know that this achievement had made his peers very jealous.

Even if the number of competing companies has increased to 5 and the sales price of a single arcade machine has fallen again and again, the net profit margin has not stopped.

But in the mid-1980s, arcade profits were more than double the average for other products in the electronics industry.

A machine that costs more than $600 at the factory and a total cost of more than $800 after marketing/publicity is sold for more than $2,000 in October '79.

At the end of last year, when Taidong entered the market, it was folded to 1800,

At the end of February this year, Namco was cut to 1500 after admission,

After Nintendo and Konami entered the market, the price of fixed-screen shooter arcades on the market finally fell to 1200.

There is still 30% of the net profit before tax.

Sony's Walkman only has a net profit of 20% before tax, which is still a patent-protected category. Sharp, a brand-name enterprise that makes TV sets, is generally only 10%~15%.

So, arcades are still an industry that can make capital, technology, and design frenzy.

Taidong, a layman who originally relied on opportunity and luck in history, has only been prosperous for two or three years. Now that even the opportunity has been cut off by Gu Biao, it is naturally more difficult to become a big tool.

However, hungry wolves such as Hudson and Capcom will soon step on Taidong's body and cross over, one after another.

……

Mid-May, Kyoto, Nintendo headquarters.

It was a six-story light yellow office building.

The blue-green sunscreen glass indicates that the building does not need too much lighting, like a vampire's witchcraft laboratory.

President Yamauchi Pu, who is nearly sixty years old, received the project report handed over by his general Yokoi Junpei, and his expression was slightly soothing.

At Nintendo, the team in charge of the arcade project is mainly composed of two core members: Gunpei Yokoi, who was born in the electronics department and is in charge of hardware research and development, and Masayuki Uemura, who is more software-oriented.

Gunpei Yokoi is an old backbone of Nintendo, serving the club for more than 20 years.

When he first joined the company, he was only recruited as a production line commissioning and maintenance personnel, and later turned to research and development, or because of an opportunity in 1965.

At the time, Nintendo was still producing cards, mahjong, and electric gambling machines. Because Yokoi was bored with the work of maintaining the production line, he took the spare materials for the maintenance of the production line and invented a toy by himself - a kind of spring fist that controls the extension and flexion by pressing the button.

(Many people should have played with plastic toys with a grip similar to a pistol, and it will be shot out when you press it.) Now you can buy it on Taobao by searching for it. ）

As a result, when Yokoi was playing a prank with his colleagues in the workshop, he accidentally punched the president Yamauchi Pu who was passing by.

Everyone thought Yokoi was going to be fired. The president asked him to go to the office after work, and then said: If you can optimize the design and make the spring fist into a children's toy that can be mass-produced, I will pardon him and transfer him to the R&D department.

Later, Nintendo's side product also registered a patent and sold millions of copies, and Yokoi Junhei also successfully became the company's R&D backbone.

As for Masayuki Uemura, another cadre in the R&D department, his years at Nintendo are much shorter. He is a rare job-hopper in this era, having jumped from Sharp, who built televisions, eight years ago. However, this job hop also laid the groundwork for Nintendo's in-depth strategic cooperation with Sharp in the FC era and progressive scanning of high-definition displays.

Background is not to mention for the time being, just talk about Nintendo's shooting game arcade, after two months in the market, finally ushered in a sales overtake.

Compared to Namco and Konami, Ren's machines were on the market at night for more than a month. Sales in March were not encouraging, with the fake fixed-screen shooter selling just over 600 units in its first month.

At that time, Namco and Konami had more than 900 and 700 units, respectively. The old Taidong has 1100 and Hanle Electronics has 1300.

However, after April, the situation immediately changed. Nintendo's sales skyrocketed to 1,500 units, and Namco and Konami barely managed to maintain the situation, neither rising nor falling. But Taidong plummeted to 400 units, and Hanle Electronics only had more than 900 units left.

Although there are rumors in the market, Hanle Electronics has invested its production capacity in new games because of the decline in the unit price and profit margin of the old fixed-screen shooter game. But in any case, this proves that Nintendo's price war and channel sinking are very effective and can be eaten away step by step.

"Yokoi-kun, I have reassured you a long time ago, and it is as I expected!" Yamauchi Puzhi was satisfied, and walked to the window with his hands behind his back, overlooking the living beings.

"You couldn't be wiser, you're in control. "Yokoi is very convinced.

Last month, he was still worried about the product for which he was a project manager.

Yamauchi Pu said with a thoughtful smile: "In the business of arcades, once the innovation stops, the fight is cost control and channels. In particular, let the channel dealers see the long-term favorable conditions for exclusive distribution and long-term cooperation with a large society like ours!

We at Nintendo have never moved our headquarters to Tokyo because we have been rooted in Kinai to show our history that no matter how big Tokyo is, it only accounts for 20% of the total population. Even if the people of Tokyo are rich, they only sell 30% of the total sales. And more entertainment venue operators, they don't react so quickly, and they don't have the frivolity of Tokyoite. They are nostalgic for the old and trust only those they trust all their lives. ”

President Yamauchi's approach is very clear: Nintendo is a century-old company that deals in gambling equipment, and its channel accumulation with various entertainment venue operators is far deeper than that of other peers who have only entered the electronic entertainment era.

In the initial market distribution process, everyone rushed fast, that is because the customers are smart people who dare to be the first in the world. When doing business with smart people, the channel is not important, they will do everything possible to pick the best and most cost-effective, or the best value for money.

Just like if the mobile phone is only played by hardcore players who know how to run scores, Xiaomi will definitely have the brightest shipments, even if Xiaomi has the fewest purchase channels.

But smart people and bold people, after all, there is only a little bit, and after being deeply cultivated by Hanle Taidongmenggong for half a year, the operators of entertainment venues who dare to fight have been absorbed.

The rest are all old-fashioned conservative operators who only dare to run mahjong halls and card houses. Maybe the owner of a chess and card hall is fifty years old or older, or even born in the Taisho and Meiji eras.

When they bought a pachinko machine, they cowered, and in the end, because Nintendo, which had been making mahjong tables for them, also began to produce pachinko machines, so they followed the test to operate pachinko machines.

If you want to pull these old people with rotten minds and no knowledge, but a large number of people into the arcade market, you can only count on Nintendo!

Just like after the hardcore mobile phone player market was sucked dry, when it came to the world of the factory girls, the OV brothers broke through!

……

Since the report data is good, of course, Yokoi Junhei can only listen to President Yamauchi vent his previous depressed words.

At the end, he also had to remind: "President, in the past two months, we have observed that in addition to Hanle Electronics, there is a new company rising in Xiangjiang, and their arcade machine has a logo of 'Tiankun Entertainment'." However, the shipping channel is the same as the original Hanle Electronics.

Even the owners of the game hall who bought Tiankun Entertainment's new arcade machine were the ones who originally bought Hanle Electronics' 'Thunderbolt Fighter' and 'Tank Battle'. It is equivalent to that Tiankun Entertainment has not developed new customers, and directly let the old customers who have tasted the sweetness expand the scale of operation. Today, the cumulative shipments, I estimate in proportion to the scale, at least more than five or six thousand units, and not far behind the peak season at the end of last year. ”

Yamauchi's brows furrowed slightly: "That's obviously the creative team and team of the same company." A few months ago, I heard that Sony's Akio Morita had visited China to inspect Hanle Electronics in the new special zone on the other side of the Xiangjiang River, which had just received trust debt financing and built its own factory.

I knew that the creative team behind Hanle would not be willing to succumb to the asset value algorithm on the mainland side - have you analyzed the selling points of their new products? Have you ever thought about how to imitate them?"

Yokoi Junhei shook his spirits and hurriedly analyzed the highlights of the "Pac-Man" and "Bomberman" gameplay that he reviewed and the reasons for quickly attracting consumers.

Then, he came to his conclusion: "Copying a similar game, changing the mechanics and graphics a little, of course, can make some money." But I'm afraid that my peers will copy it, and judging from the saturation rate of shooting games, the total profit of this kind of follow-up will not be too high. However, I will definitely not relax in this work, and I am already arranging a work that imitates 'Bomberman' called 'Gold Digger'.

In addition, the successful experience of Tiankun Entertainment has also inspired us: even in the current field of fixed-screen shooters, there are many ways to play that can be deeply explored. Only by redesigning from the bottom of the gameplay can it be possible to make huge profits. And as long as it is a brand new gameplay, once it is listed, it can be monopolized for at least four or five months before imitations appear. ”

At the beginning, only "Thunderbolt Fighter" and "Tank War" were popular, and the market analysis department of their peers generally attributed their success to "because they opened up the electronic arcade market from scratch".

Therefore, this kind of success is considered "unrepeatable".

The success of "Pac-Man" and "Bomberman" again, and at a time when the sales of shooting arcade machines have begun to decline, they exploded against the overall trend of the market, which refreshed everyone's three views.

Several giants have realized that it is not the creation of a new hardware that will make people make a lot of money, even in the field of existing hardware, a new design and major innovation from the bottom of the gameplay will have a future.

In this way, the passion for originality was finally completely ignited.

"Do you have any good ideas?" asked Yamauchi casually.

Gunhei Yokoi: "I think that in the original fixed-screen games, the characters all moved on a horizontal plane, at most a horizontal plane looking down. This results in a game that is too short to play.

I was inspired by the latest release from Tiankun Entertainment, and I felt that we could make a game that could be played on the same screen with a level of progress and progression. I call this project Donkey Kong. In addition, if the company can invest more in R&D and bear higher future hardware costs, it is also possible for us to force the game of horizontal scrolling map. ”

Gu Biao, who was far away in the capital, didn't know that the "Donkey Kong" proposed by Yokoi Junhei would also be a popular work in history.

Even the 'Gold Diggers' he mentioned earlier will take a lot of the market from the 'Bomberman'.

After all, Gu Biao does not have the existence of Baidu in his brain, he only knows a little about the general trend of the development history of the game, and it is impossible to cut it one by one according to the historical sales rankings. After the creativity of the Japanese manufacturers is stimulated, the fierce competition is inevitable.

"What is the benefit of the game that you have been talking about scrolling the map on a horizontal axis? Can't you make up for it with the design of the stepped floor?" President Yamauchi was obviously reluctant to spend more on hardware.

Yokoi Junhei finally explained: "It's just the difference in the screen, and the design of the stepped floors can already cleverly make up for the problem that the fixed-screen game process is too short." If it really doesn't work, you can pass a few more levels. However, the pixel size used to display the protagonist and objects in fixed-screen games is only that large, which is not conducive to the long-term performance of beautiful picture quality. ”

Yamauchi Pu immediately stopped: "Then wait a little longer - wait for your 'Gold Digger' and 'Donkey Kong' to make it, and see the market reaction, which one sells better." If Donkey Kong's sales are indeed higher, it means that the elongated pipe card process, as well as similar elements, are decisive in promoting the price and sales of the arcade machine. Let's invest in R&D again.

Spending more money is not a skill, once a certain arcade machine adopts a more expensive CPU, all future products will be downgraded, which will make arcade hall owners feel cheated. How low the net profit of the arcade will be in the future, no one can predict it, and there will be no way back if you take a big step. ”

President Yamauchi's decision was actually not wrong at all. Anyone who does not know history can be so cautious.

"Dichotomy, control group test", what a classic and efficient business decision.

So he wouldn't think of upgrading the Motorola CPU and engaging in the epoch-making design of horizontal scrolling for at least half a year, so he could only accept his fate.