Gu Biao closed the door and discussed with his subordinates for a long time, which made CNN female reporter Isabella feel itchy, and wanted to rush in several times to listen to the other party's discussion.

Unfortunately, the situation does not allow it, and she has no right to infringe on the other party's trade secrets.

After two hours of chatting and selling small bargains with other students from the Waltz Diplomatic Academy, the door of the conference room finally opened, and a group of people came out in a happy but silent voice.

Isabella hurriedly blocked up and asked, "Mr. Schulhoff, is there anything you can reveal? How will your company take advantage of the collapse of Atari? Is the collapse of Atari expected by Mr. Gu?"

Schulhoff was still in good spirits and replied decently: "I'm sorry, I can only say that any attitude that the boss has publicly expressed before is sincere, he and I both believe that Atari is unsustainable, but no one is a god, and no one can be specific to which year and month." ”

Isabella showed a hint of sly eyes: "Then do you have evidence to prove that your company was also 'caught off guard' by the collapse of Atari? If you try to spread public opinion against Atari in the market, it is very easy." Larry King Live that episode ......"

Schulhoff categorically denied that possibility: "We were really caught off guard! At the internal meeting just now, the boss very responsibly rejected our plan to speed up research and development and launch our own home game console in the window period after the collapse of Atari, and demanded that it be launched on the market according to the original plan, rather than seizing the blank period market, but also to give consumers a better experience!"

He even made an impromptu decision to absorb a part of the loyal and reliable Atari technical team, and asked for 'increasing volume without accelerating', and made a review and overhaul of the product to offset consumers' distrust of the industry. He is a true great man, and he hopes to rebuild the order of the industry behind Atari! Even if he loses the window period, loses the opportunity to monopolize the market, and gives other peers reaction and catch-up time!"

Schulhoff's words were so glorious that Isabella thought it was incredible.

Is there such a conscientious businessman in the world?

"May I interview Mr. Gu himself on this issue?" she confirmed.

Shulhoff's wrist is very sleek: "The boss is inside, if you want to ask, go to him." Considering that you are a TV station, we can also provide video materials if you need them, but we edited them ourselves, which definitely reflects the real meeting discussion process just now, but the part of the discussion involving the technical research and development plan involving trade secrets has been cut, I hope you understand. ”

Isabella breathed a sigh of relief. The other party is willing to provide video materials, and it will be much more convenient for them to do news talk shows at that time. As for cutting out the technically confidential part, that's exactly as it should be.

Isabella walked generously into the secret room.

"Hello, Mr. Gu, now it's convenient to interview you. ”

"You're welcome, please be seated. Gu Biao pointed to the sofa next to him.

There is no standard meeting room in the clubhouse, and the rooms are all sofas and coffee tables instead of desks and chairs.

Isabella sat down, deliberately pulled her skirt a little higher, and asked questions from a good angle to the camera. (The camera was brought in by Gu Biao, a small DV, used to shoot meeting minutes, which is a tradition of Tiankun Entertainment.) Journalists are not allowed to bring into the clubhouse)

"Gu, I just heard President Schulhoff say that your company had already carried out research and development of home machines before the collapse of Atari and had achieved considerable results? But you decided to temporarily decide not to take advantage of this change to speed up the market, but to learn from Atari and better polish the product? Can you explain?"

Gu Biao had a calm expression on his face: "Of course, except for the technical details, I can say it." Here's what I thought: I thought Atari couldn't do that, but I didn't expect them to be done so quickly and completely. I didn't think it was going to happen until the middle of this year. Our original development plan was based on this estimate. ”

Isabella pondered for two seconds: "It's just three or four months earlier than you expected, that's a very accurate prediction, you are really a business genius." Can you now talk about the new lesson that you didn't anticipate and that Atari just taught you?"

Gu Biao: "I think the key factor is that the price of the current game cartridge is too high compared to the price of the game console. This is too high, which is nothing in normal times, but in the case of more and more widespread games and lower and lower quality, consumers lose their patience to bet on whether the game is fun or not, and choose not to buy anything.

Atari's game console, when it first came on the market, sold for less than $200 a piece, and that was the market in 1977, and I don't think it was very profitable. Now, more than five years later, the price has been reduced to less than $150, and even lower for some slow-moving dealers—as a journalist covering the tech industry, you should know Moore's Law, right?"

Isabella nodded: "Of course, the clock performance of the chip processor will double every 18 months, and the old specifications will become cheaper." Atari's game consoles have not been upgraded much in the past 5 years, and the gradual price reduction of the machine should also be. ”

Gu Biao continued: "Yes, but you should also see that at present, Atari is selling this "ET Alien", which has collapsed the market, and the price is also $40. Almost the money to buy 3~4 game cartridges can buy a game console.

I think this ratio is too high, which leads to the high cost of trial and error for players, and they are unwilling to try and make mistakes, which further intensifies the conflict between the two sides. You've probably heard a joke before the Atari was done – one of their executives said in an internal meeting, 'Even if we make a brick and sell it to the consumer, the consumer can't afford to return it.'"

Now, if the American people don't want the American console industry to degenerate, and don't want to be occupied by Japanese manufacturers in the future, then the only way is to find a way to rebuild the foundation of mutual trust. Therefore, we did not hesitate to overturn the design that had been developed for nearly half a year and make a big change. ”

Gu Biao said, took out a prototype, put it in front of Isabella, and let the camera shoot it.

This is a similar thing to the FC of the later Nintendo, but there is no shell, and the circuit board soldering is very rough, it is hand-soldered, and many boards are connected with wires.

At first glance, it is a semi-finished product testing machine in the R&D stage.

Isabella was a little curious and a little confused, she was a liberal arts student, how could she read circuit boards.

"You show me, I don't understand. ”

"It's okay if you don't understand it, I'll explain it to you - this slot is the slot of the game cartridge, which is similar to the memory slot of a personal computer. Although the interface of the Atari 2600 console is not the same as this, the type is similar. ”

Gu Biao pointed to the circuit board and explained.

If you use the analogy of later generations, it is equivalent to the interface difference between DDR2 memory and DDR3 or DDR4.

"Understood, and then?" Isabella confirmed, continuing to ask.

Gu Biao: "Then, we realized that as long as this cassette format is adopted, then the production cost ratio of cassette and game console cannot be significantly changed, and the cost of a game cartridge in the future will be at least more than 20% of the game console, which is not conducive to consumer trial and error."

Therefore, I have decided today to keep the design of the rest of the game console, but remove the existing cartridge interface - we will design a new storage medium for the game cartridge to reduce the cost of the cartridge significantly.

Of course, this may lead to some audio processing chips originally designed on the cassette motherboard, and even other unpopular data pre-processing chips, to be transplanted from the cassette to the body, and the cost of our game consoles of Tiankun Entertainment will also increase in the future, and the market sales and acceptance will decrease.

But we think it's all worth it, because in the future, the hardware cost of each cartridge will be cheaper, and players won't have to pay for redundant hardware waste, they just need to pay for the software development team they support!"

Isabella found it unintuitive, but she understood the concept. She thought for a moment and asked a little offended, "What about that...... Can you give us a rough description of the numbers? I don't quite understand what you mean by "this design makes consoles more expensive and cartridges cheaper." If this involves trade secrets, you can leave it unanswered. ”

Gu Biao: "It doesn't matter, although it's a trade secret, I'm still willing to answer - I can tell you this, according to our current design, this game console will be sold to consumers in the end, and it may cost more than 120 dollars." After we made the improvements, the price of the machine would have to rise to at least more than $150.

However, in the future, the price of each game cartridge can be reduced from the current $40 to $30, or even lower, and more than $20 is possible. In other words, as long as consumers buy more than 3 game cartridges in the future, they can earn back from the difference in the price of the cartridges, and the more cartridges they buy, the more they earn.

In this way, it can also allow upstream software developers to make more money, let more independent game companies have a lower entry threshold, and share the benefits of Tiankun Entertainment game consoles after they sell well. We have been committed to establishing a benign credibility in the industry, rather than selling the machine cheaply and relying on the cassette to hack the money back. ”

Isabella did the math: "So, do you think the improved plan can reduce the price of the game cartridge by 30%?

"Of course not, this is a technical secret of R&D. ”

"I'm sorry, I didn't have to ask. "The female reporter was very embarrassed.

"The rest, as long as I am willing to tell you today, you can report it if you want. ”

"Understood, thank you for your cooperation. You are truly a socially responsible entrepreneur. ”

"You're welcome, if you can, try to promote President Schulhoff, and don't promote me too much for the time being. ”