Li Xuan didn't change the friendship that Ash and Mao were destined for, and he also didn't have the ability to change many other things, such as the status quo of the arcade industry being weakened. Oriental Games now maintains a monthly sales volume of about 200,000 arcades, which can contribute $150 million in pre-tax profits to game companies every month.

If this profitability is placed in the United States, it can squeeze into the top 20 in the United States. However, behind the dazzling data of 200,000 units sold per month, the average monthly sales of a single arcade machine are decreasing.

The monthly sales record for a single arcade machine in the Eastern Group was set by Mario Bros. 2 in 1982, with monthly sales reaching 23,000 units at its peak. This is also the only arcade machine in Oriental Games that has exceeded 20,000 units in monthly sales.

And "The King of Fighters", which was once pinned on by Li Xuan and the Oriental Group, was launched at the end of 1983, and the highest monthly sales were only 19,600 units. As early as a few years ago, Li Xuan had been warning within the Eastern Group that the glory days of the arcade would only be short-lived, and it would soon be weakened.

Although others will not refute the boss's words in person, in fact, most people will be skeptical. It wasn't until the sales of "The King of Fighters" on the market were far less than expected that everyone felt that something was wrong. At that time, Du Wenqiang was one of the most optimistic people, and he personally predicted that the peak monthly sales of the "King of Fighters" arcade machine would reach 25,000 units.

Because compared with previous games such as "Tank Wars" and "Mario Bros.", the hot-blooded battle game "The King of Fighters" is undoubtedly more suitable for arcade platforms. But the actual sales curve of "The King of Fighters" slapped Du Wenqiang hard, and he began to think deeply about what Li Xuan kept saying to him before.

In another time and space, the first richest man in the world who is widely known to everyone. It's the founder of Walmart supermarket, Wharton Sr. And in this time and space, the title of the world's richest man in the old Wharton was snatched away by Li Xuan. But starting in 1983, he has been for two years in a row. Firmly in the position of the second richest man in the world and the richest man in the United States.

Walmart's success represents the advent of a new retail model. The large-scale chain store model is stepping on the corpses of countless small community grocery stores, and sending the old Wharton family to the throne of the richest man in the United States step by step.

For the arcade industry in the United States, the owners of neighborhood grocery stores are the largest buyers, and their bankruptcy has directly led to a sharp decline in arcade terminal sales. And that's not the deadliest thing, after all, the grocery store is gone, and there are other community places such as laundries, gas stations, bars, etc.

Another more lethal factor that caused the arcade market to begin to shrink was the decline in arcade-obsessed players. And the culprit in this is none other than the FC home TV game console produced by Oriental Games itself.

The biggest consumers of arcade and FC consoles are teenagers when they can sit on the couch in the living room with a handle and play games. Who wants to run outside on a street corner to play a game. With more than two million units shipped worldwide every month, FC consoles are one of the main culprits squeezing the arcade market.

To the pain of Du Wenqiang and the rest of the management of Oriental Games, the profits of arcade machines are much higher than those of FC consoles. The company can make a profit of seven or eight hundred dollars for every arcade machine sold, while an FC game console can only bring in a profit of twenty or thirty dollars.

But Du Wenqiang can't make a stupid move to control the sales of FC game consoles to protect the arcade market, because the decline of arcade machines is an irreversible trend brought about by the technological progress of the entire game industry. Even if there are no FC consoles, other home consoles will take the market. It was the defeat of Atari that FC dominated the home TV console market.

Speaking of Atari, since the collapse at the end of '82. It has lost the strength to continue to compete with Oriental Games. But at the end of last year, Atari was acquired by Sega, another important rival of Oriental Games.

And Sega, the biggest competitor of Oriental game companies in the arcade field, bought the flagging Atari precisely because of the home video game console market. After all, no one is stupid. Oriental Games can detect hidden dangers, and Sega has an equally keen sense of smell.

In fact, as early as 1983, Sega launched its first home game console called SG-1000. The result is this SG-1000 console. Due to design problems such as the out-of-tolerance maneuverability of the controller, it did not pose any threat to the FC at all.

This time. With the acquisition of Atari, Sega combined the R&D capabilities of the two companies. Naturally, Oriental Games does not dare to underestimate it. According to the information gathered by Du Wenqiang, Sega's new generation of consoles is likely to be launched in the second half of this year.

In order to meet Sega's challenge, FC-2 had to go public ahead of schedule to seize the market. This is also the main reason why Oriental Games Company still unswervingly chose to launch FC-2 in March this year when FC-1 sales are still hot.

"Li Sheng, our most important task this year is to ensure the success of the release of FC-2! "The King of Fighters 2" and "The Legend of Zelda" are the two killer features we have specially prepared to escort FC-2!

The King of Fighters 2, which will be released this year, will be the first time we will release a video game disc on the FC-2 platform before the arcade!

Compared with the previous "The King of Fighters 1", "The King of Fighters 2" will be more colorful and gorgeous, both in terms of character modeling and skills! We hope to be able to drive the sales of FC-2 game consoles through the first-mover advantage and relying on the huge popularity of the "King of Fighters" series!

And "The Legend of Zelda" is an epoch-making game, this exploratory game with tasks and monster fighting upgrades throughout, and the playability and substitution are far from other games on the market!" Du Wenqiang said confidently.

The performance of the FC-2 console is absolutely top-notch, and the biggest issue in front of it is the price. The FC-2 will retail at $399 in the U.S., which is double the current best-selling FC-1. And for Oriental Games, FC-2's profit margins are even worse than FC-1.

"The FC-1 is still selling well. We don't need to force FC-2 to completely replace FC-1 all at once, it's unrealistic. We don't need to pull out the seedlings. In another year or two, the cost of manufacturing the FC-2 will drop significantly. At that time, it will naturally be able to take on a big responsibility!

Therefore, we must not restrict the release of new games on the FC-1 platform in order to force FC-2 now, which is likely to give other competitors an opportunity. We only need to make proper publicity and guidance based on the huge difference in performance between the two hosts.

For example, no matter how much the FC-1's 6502 processor improves its performance, it is impossible to achieve the same effect as the FC-2's ERM-1 processor. The difference between the two is like the difference between driving a sports car and walking, so when we promote the launch of the FC-2, we want to highlight its high performance!

It doesn't matter how much the new console sells in the short term, it's important to establish its reputation and get all players to recognize the FC-2 as the best home console in the world! Even if they can't afford it now, when the price of FC-2 drops in the future, it will naturally become the first choice of all game fans!" Li Xuan said disapprovingly.

Oriental Games has excellent earning power, and there is no need to be impatient to let FC-2 take the lead. The company's most important thing is to firmly control the dominance of the home TV game console market and not let other competitors take advantage of it.

The FC-1 console has established an advantage in the 8-bit generation, and the consoles of the same generation have hardly the slightest chance of turning around. The only way out for the other competitors is to beat the FC-1 with the performance gap of the next generation. And the main task of FC-2 listing is to block this offensive path of other opponents!

"Put a long line and catch a big fish! Compared with Li Sheng, I lack this kind of long-term vision!" Du Wenqiang slapped Li Xuan's ass slightly.

"Just know your weaknesses! Your vision really shouldn't be limited to the game company's one-third of an acre. In the past 1984, the total number of ERM-1 chips sold by the Oriental Research Institute was about 20 million.

The FC-2 only needs to reach one-tenth of the sales volume of the FC-1 to increase the shipment of ERM-1 chips by more than 10% this year. Don't look at the fact that gaming companies may not have high profit margins on FC-2 consoles. However, upstream Oriental Research Institute, Oriental Semiconductor and other companies can grab huge profits from ERM-1 chips!" Li Xuan said with some anger.

In the Eastern Group, when it comes to Li Xuan's number one cronie, Du Wenqiang is definitely well-deserved. He was the first subordinate recruited by Li Xuan. made great contributions to Li Xuan's accumulation of the first pot of gold. But this Du Fat Man has been a little reluctant to make progress in the past two years, and he is just guarding the game company's one-third of an acre.

The game company is important to Dongfang Electronics though. But Li Xuan naturally hopes that Du Wenqiang can take on more important responsibilities, such as taking over Han Peng as the president of the Oriental Group in the future. And Du Wenqiang's performance now. So Li Xuan couldn't see this possibility at all.

Du Wenqiang smiled, he didn't know Li Xuan's thoughts, but he was not a person with great ambitions. For example, although Han Peng, the president of the Oriental Group, has a high position, he has to work overtime almost every day, and he runs around the world for at least half a month in a month.

Han Peng used that "Tangyuan" private jet even more times than Li Xuan himself. Du Wenqiang didn't want to experience this kind of high-intensity work, and his current position as president of Oriental Games may be the easiest high-level position in the Oriental Group.

The profitability of Oriental Games is very good, and it has established an unshakable hegemony in the three major fields of arcade, home and handheld. Du Wenqiang, the general manager, only needs to manage the company step by step.

"The Legend of Zelda project has almost been developed, right? Bring me the trio of Tajiri Tomo, Miyamoto Shigeru, and Ken Sugimori!" Li Xuan said directly after reading the information of these three people compiled by Du Wenqiang.

Du Wenqiang has been following Li Xuan for so long, so he naturally knows his boss's character very well. Since he said so, it is likely that he is preparing to go out in person again. This made Du Wenqiang's eyes can't help but flash a bright color, Li Xuan has not participated in the production of new games for nearly two years. The last game he worked on was the King of Fighters series, which is now in full swing on both arcade and FC consoles.

Oriental Games has always contributed the largest proportion of profits to the entire group. It can be said that the previous expansion of the Eastern Group up to now has been achieved by relying on the strong blood transfusion capacity of the game company.

For example, in the past, Oriental Group borrowed more than $4 billion from banks in order to acquire RCA. In just one and a half years, the Eastern Group has paid off half of it, and the biggest contribution is naturally Oriental Games.

But in the last year or two, Li Xuan has paid less and less attention to the game business. This did make Du Wenqiang a little dissatisfied, and he also tried to lead the company to create a brilliant performance. But what discouraged Du Wenqiang is that although there are many good games that have emerged in the company in recent years, there is still a certain gap compared with Li Xuan's works.

For example, on the GameBoy handheld, the game that has been far ahead in sales is "Hong Kong Cube". The number one selling cassette on FC consoles is the Mario Bros. series. These two games were both planned and even written by Li Xuan back then.

Now Li Xuan has finally shifted his interest to the game again, which makes Du Wenqiang a little excited.

"Li Sheng, what new game are you going to develop this time?" Du Wenqiang asked curiously.

"FC consoles were launched a little later than the GameBoy, and now they have all started to be updated. Previously, due to display technology, GameBoy had to design a special display for each game in terms of hardware design, and replace it with the game.

Now, after unremitting efforts, the LCD project team of the Oriental Research Institute has developed a mature new generation of display technology, which will soon be able to achieve large-scale industrial production, and the next generation of handheld computers can truly realize the separation of machine and card!

You've prepared two games, The King of Fighters 2 and The Legend of Zelda, to protect FC-2. I'm also going to design a new game to escort the new generation of GameBoy-2!" Li Xuan explained with a smile.

As early as last year, Dongfang Games Company started the hardware design work of the GameBoy-2 console. The new generation of handheld will use a 6502 improved processor specially customized by the Oriental Research Institute as the core CPU, while the original GameBoy on the market is actually not dedicated to the CPU.

"If I were going to add an infrared communication device to the game console, so that the two game consoles could be networked for battle and data exchange, how much would it cost?" Li Xuan, accompanied by Du Wenqiang, asked several members of the GameBoy-2 hardware development team to communicate with him.

"It's probably going to be about four or five dollars more!" the leader of the development team thought for a moment before replying.

"This is completely acceptable, then add this part, I hope to design a finished product for me as soon as possible!" Li Xuan said in a decisive tone. (To be continued......)

PS: I've been revising all day today, and I'm feeling uneasy when I see that several books on the shelves have been hung......