Gu Dashan is so good at doing business, and the sales of domestic Tiankun learning machines have jumped to the explosion, which is logical. Those who have attained the Tao are very helpful.

This data not only motivates every executive and employee within it, but also makes peers nervous.

Separated by a strip of water, Nintendo President Yamauchi Pu is also very concerned about this.

Because only one month after the launch of the mainland market, before the June 1st holiday, Tiankun's learning machine also began to kill the market. The momentum of the snowball has the power to push it to the end.

In the first few days, Yamauchi Pu has been paralyzed by the situation that has gradually stabilized in the past two years, and he does not feel that Tian Kun is much of a threat - in the market, Tian Kun's advantage over Nintendo only happened when it was first launched in 83 years, and even in the first half of 84 years.

However, from the second half of 84, for two whole years after that, although Nintendo was defeated by Gu Biao in North America, it managed to maintain its advantage in the local market.

The reason is also very simple, as I said before, mainly because Nintendo has embarked on the road of differentiation from Tiankun, liberalized the content review of third-party game developers, and no longer charged third-party channel licensing fees.

In this case, the Nintendo games on the market are generally violent and bloody, and the scale is much larger than that of the Tiankun, even if the technology is not good, but the content can attract attention and the gimmick is also greater.

Therefore, in the second half of 84, Nintendo began to gradually equalize the disadvantage in the market, and in the whole year of 85, it surpassed Tiankun. It is now the middle of 86 years, and the new generation of products of Tian Kun has returned to the front of the book, and the instant sales market share of Nintendo and Tian Kun in the market is 73 open.

At the same time, while Tiankun is constantly improving, Nintendo is also idle.

These top international giants who make game consoles also know the rhythm of "six or seven years to produce a generation of consoles, and an upgraded version of a small innovation in the middle of three or four years to maintain brand popularity".

It's just that Nintendo's Fc game console was originally launched more than half a year later than Tiankun's home console, and it took the low-end and cheap positioning route, so there is nothing to innovate on the console for the time being.

According to the rhythm of Yamauchi Pu, what Nintendo is going to launch this year is a handheld game console, the name has been thought of, it is called game-boY, and the goal is to replace the old "PLaY-box" handheld that Tiankunjia has been selling for more than 4 years.

There is no doubt that the original game-boY that Nintendo wanted to make could be played with a cassette and a game, which was equivalent to a miniaturized home console. It's basically the same as the original game-boY original product in history, but it's just that it's more rushed, so it's worse in terms of weight and size, and it's still as heavy and huge as a brick.

However, at least in terms of performance, Nintendo's new handheld is much better than the spicy chicken that burned the game directly on the circuit board more than four years ago, and could only play "American Cubes" and "Snake".

After all, the time difference of four years is enough to make a lot of progress in supporting technology.

In contrast, Tiankun Entertainment did not lay out any further handhelds, which seems to be Gu Biao's own lack of vision, or it may be Schulhoff's decision-making mistake.

Tiankun senior management generally feels that the current game circuit miniaturization problem, power consumption rate problem and LCD screen performance are not well solved, and now they are in a hurry to launch a handheld game console with a cartridge, the performance is not good, and there is no need to rush to launch.

It is better to optimize the circuit of the old-fashioned PLaY-box handheld, change more advanced components with the times, and do a good job of compatibility, and reduce power consumption, you can also make the machine thinner and lighter, and replace the battery from the heavy No. 2 battery four years ago to the relatively small No. 5 battery today, but the endurance can be guaranteed to be improved.

In the handheld business, it is obvious that Tiankun and Nintendo have embarked on a completely different path. Nintendo was originally a laggard, so they rushed to seek a decisive major breakthrough in functionality. Tiankun is not in a hurry at all, just wants to make the existing functions more lightweight, flexible and durable, and have a better user experience.

Yamauchi Pu felt that Tiankun's previous layout was completely evil. Therefore, he is very confident that with the killer feature of the new handheld game-boY, within this year, he will compress the living space of the Tiankun brand in Yueben to the limit.

As for the threat of learning machines, he didn't pay attention to them at all in the first place - wasn't that just an adjustment for the hypocritical mentality of Chinese consumers, disguised as a learning ...... Hehe, how much can it improve performance?

However, with the launch of the product, the market data soon surprised Yamauchi.

……

Half a month after Juneteenth, Nintendo's headquarters in Kyoto, Yamauchi Pu successively received a series of not very good news from the marketing department.

"President, in the second week after the holiday, about 75% of the distributors who were expected to place additional orders have reduced the size of their Fc orders, and more than half of them have not placed additional orders at all. ”

"There has been a short-term backlog of inventory prepared in advance for the peak season of the Children's Day holiday. ”

"The news from Tokyo that during the Children's Day holiday, Akihabara's Tiankun learning machines sold like crazy, and they opened the door directly and became an instant hit, and the market in Tokyo alone sold more than 10,000 per day during Children's Day. ”

A bunch of bad news caught Yamauchi a little off guard.

"How is this possible? The Tiankun learning machine is not a replacement product of the Tiankun game machine, but it has made some learning functions in disguise, added a keyboard, and some typing and foreign language games. The improvement in the gameplay itself is not obvious, how can it be that the sales are so high?"

He couldn't help but question Masayuki Uemura.

Masayuki Uemura, who was in charge of the report, could only explain stubbornly: "It's hard to explain the specifics, all in all, the Tiankun learning machine has added an archive function, and you also know it." Originally, we thought that the storage function was more for learning applications and convenient storage of learning data. But now it seems that the new companion game developed by Tian Kun to cooperate with this save function is also very popular.

The hottest one at the moment is called "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which is selling very well, and there are public demonstrations and trials at the various venues in Akihabara, and I heard that all the venues are packed.

There is also a one called "Warring States Heroes",After our investigation, we found that it was completely based on the template of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms",The hardware has not been adjusted at all.,Just adjusted the software data、Art pictures,And then the historical background was replaced with the Warring States background of the Azuchi-Momoyama era,Our software department estimated,The development cycle of this game will not exceed two months。 ”

Yamauchi Pu was depressed when he heard this. He felt that this new explosive game was a little familiar, and he couldn't help but rub his temples, recalled it carefully, and asked:

"I remember that in our country, there are similar games to the Tiankun goods you described, but they are on the computer, did Gu Biao plagiarize the results of our designer?"

Masayuki Uemura thought for a moment: "You're talking about Koei's "Three Kingdoms" and "Nobunaga Nobo", right? It was indeed two or three years earlier than Tiankun, and it was indeed a game on the computer.

The things launched by Tian Kun this time are indeed similar to those of Glorious Company, but the materials are all re-developed. It can only be said that it is borrowed from the gameplay, but the gameplay itself is not protected in any way, this is just a design idea.

The crux of the matter is that the barrier to entry for personal computers is more than ten times higher than that of game consoles. The cheapest, specialized word processor on the market now costs $1,200, similar to Wang's.

If it is a full-featured personal computer that can play games, more than $2,000 is the most basic starting price. The Tiankun learning machine is only priced at $200. Gu Biao lowered the threshold of the category of 'savable strategy games', and now it seems that the popularity brought by the lowering of the threshold is very exaggerated. ”

Here we must clarify the fact that Gu Biao did not "invent" the category of strategy games that can be saved.

He only implemented this feature for the first time on a console. But in any case, this is also a ported innovation.

Before Gu Biao, as early as the end of 1981, there was a kind of game that could be archived, but on the computer. And with the popularity of personal computers more than four years ago, those games were destined to be extremely niche, and few people had ever heard of them.

Just like the "Three Kingdoms" series of the glorious company, the first generation in history actually landed on some computers at that time, but it was not a fire at all, and the second generation began to land on Nintendo's game consoles, and the platform was dozens of times larger before it became completely popular.

Yamauchi couldn't help but feel even more remorseful.

It was precisely because he had heard of Glory Company and other industry peers before, but he saw that Glory only made computer games and sales were not good, so he didn't pay attention to it.

Now, Gu Biao has made achievements in the field he turned a blind eye to.

This psychological gap......

There was a sense of frustration that destiny was leaving him.

"I'm going to Tokyo in person the other day to take a look. All dealers, especially those we can't afford to offend and have to accept feedback from them acting as agents for two goods at the same time, we have to pay more attention to it!" Yamauchi decided to face up to all realities.

"Okay, I'll arrange it. Masayuki Uemura slowly stepped back.

In the video game console industry, many relatively small dealers can still be controlled by Nintendo, such as requiring the other party to only make Nintendo's goods.

As for a large electronics distribution center like Akihabara, there may be Nintendo and Tenkun stores in the same mall, but they are all operated by different companies and different merchants. In principle, it is rare for a single dealership to carry both Nintendo and Tenkun at the same time.

Unless you're old enough to do so, both Nintendo and Tiankun can only turn a blind eye. Or you give each other a little face on the surface, and register two distribution companies at the same time, you are in charge behind the scenes, but in fact, you are acting for the goods of the two companies.

And these people are often the most dangerous. Once the Tiankun is strong, they may be pulled over with more resources.

……

After coming to Tokyo, Yamauchi quickly saw the strength of the Tiankun learning machine with his own eyes.

Accompanied by Masayuki Uemura, he first spent two full days inspecting the entire Akihabara.

In the building of each electrical appliance store, most of the game machine stores, as well as all the arcade halls, have placed trial or trial operation of the Tiankun learning machine.

The crowd of black presses is around the game console to point out the strategy, even if it takes a long time and you don't get started, you will never get tired of it. As for those who feel hot after watching it, they directly pay for chopping their hands, which is n times more than the trial play.

Switching to other action and shooting arcade games is completely unthinkable in the environment of the 86-year-old book. Because those games have a poor sense of substitution and presence, you have to play them yourself to be interesting.

But strategy games are not, strategy games are inherently turn-based and slow-paced. If you don't have to play yourself, you can also point out strategies, talk to each other on paper, and enjoy social currency, which is at least a lot more fun than watching others play chess with older people.

In particular, Tian Kun's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has created more two-player battle modes than the glorious "Three Kingdoms" and "Nobunaga Ambition". Allowing two players on a game console to operate two controllers and control a monarch to compete for world dominance provides social currency for onlookers. {The original generation of the previous glory on the computer only had a single-player mode, and it was not possible to play in hot seats}

At the same time, the owner of the arcade hall is also happy to get a few things that don't make money, absorb the popularity of more onlookers, maybe the onlookers are red and itchy, so they go to the machine next to them to rub a few plates of others.

At the same time, Yamauchi Pu has seen with his own eyes the base of buyers of the Tiankun learning machine - because of the label of the learning machine, many middle school students and primary school students are grandly pulling their parents to buy it. He also dragged the demo to see the demo in front of him, so that his parents realized that "even if this machine is not used to learn typing and English, but is really used to play games, it is still a strategy game that can learn history and geography, not pure plaything".

The threshold was lowered all at once.

Those who look back at history know that it is still 3 years before the birth of the "Heisei scum house".

Even strictly speaking from the effect level, it should be 5 years - because it is not after the change of the era name of Heisei, the new generation of citizens immediately became scum houses, and the herbivore man who is despised, and the low-desire society was said to collapse after the bubble of the housing market collapsed in 91.

Now that the property price is still skyrocketing, I am full of confidence, and the family still attaches great importance to the education of young people, mainly post-70s teenagers.

Tian Kun's very sincere and well-deserved "learning machine" attribute has of course won the parents.

According to Yamauchi's survey and short-term data, at least in this June, the new sales of the Tiankun learning machine have been re-equaled with Nintendo Fc.

As for the machine's sales, the Tiankun made 50% more than Nintendo—perhaps some people thought it should be twice as high. Because the original price of the Nintendo Fc was $100 card, and the original Tiankun machine was three percent more expensive than the Nintendo Fc, and now the learning machine has upgraded its performance and sells for $198, shouldn't it be twice as much as the Fc?

However, those who do this do not take into account the appreciation of the yen since October last year.

Nintendo's machines are all priced in yen.

In the U.S. market, Gu Biao is still a 198 learning machine, but after converting back to yen, there is no 50,000 yen, and now it is only 30,000 yen.

In this way, the expensive disadvantage of Tiankun in the book is not so obvious.

It's just that in the mid-80s, when the yen appreciated, the world's top three game console manufacturers were all themselves, so American consumers could only pinch their noses and endure price increases, while domestic consumers had no feeling.

But now it's different, and now the game console industry is no longer the only one.

Therefore, after the yen exchange rate increased, Gu Biao launched a new product, which immediately made Yue himself feel the pressure of being poured back from exports.

Yamauchi Pu has worked hard to accumulate advantages in the local market for three years, and he was leveled by Gu Biao.