Chapter 184: Game Magazine and Details
Li Xuan is not saying that he can't see the profits of pagers, in fact, before the maturity of mobile phone technology, pagers have at least ten years of golden sales period. In emerging markets like China, pagers were an expensive and fashionable gadget until 2000.
However, pagers have already appeared in the European and American markets, and companies such as Motorola and Siemens have carved up market share, and it is not easy for new products to seize market share. What's more, those large companies have already built perfect technical barriers, and if Dongfang Electronics fails to obtain complete technology authorization, it will show its skills to infringe on the interests of these giants, and it is likely to directly get into patent lawsuits.
So the best way is to start with some small markets that are not very competitive, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan-Gulf, Southeast Asia, etc. But for Dongfang Electronics, these market capacity is too small, and it can only be regarded as chicken ribs, tasteless food, and it is a pity to abandon them.
Li Xuan can't look down on it, and he doesn't look down on others. At least this digital pager newly developed by Dongfang Shi Yàn Room is much more advanced than the one that only emits BB sound on the market in Hong Kong. Li Ke, a layman, after listening to the technician's simple explanation, felt that the creativity of the digital code card was very bright.
His heart is not as high as his brother's, and he never thought that the pagers he produced would enter the markets of developed countries, and the local market in Hong Kong and the nearby markets of Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia are enough for him to survive.
In fact, these companies under Dongfang Electronics have been busy recently, and they don't have any extra energy to do anything else.
Nobuhiko Tanaka, a fresh graduate of journalism at Doshisha University this year, did not choose to join well-known news agencies such as Kyodo News and Shimbun, nor did he seek employment at well-known newspapers such as the Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun. Instead, I unexpectedly chose a small magazine called "Game World".
His choice made everyone around him very puzzled, and they felt that he had gone astray. But Nobuhiko Tanaka knew that this was what he was truly passionate about. Because he's an avid game fan. The reason why I chose "Game World", a small magazine that has just been established, is because there is a very famous game company behind it - Oriental Games. This company has produced a number of games that Nobuhiko Tanaka likes very much.
In the 80s, access to information was still very closed. In this era without the Internet, the earth has not yet become a village. Fans of the game know a lot of the latest information, relying on word of mouth. For example, if someone plays a fun game, he will recommend it to his classmates and friends.
The arcade machines "Tank Wars" and "Hong Kong Cubes", which were the first to be launched by Oriental Games Company in the early days, did not spend a penny on publicity at all, and became popular in the world step by step with a good reputation. But this approach is very passive after all, and the ingenious thing about "Hong Kong Cube" and "Tank Wars" is that their audiences are very wide. From seven or eight years old to thirty or forty years old, you can have fun. But for some niche games, if they don't know about the niche audience who loves them, they are likely to be buried.
As the scale of Oriental Games continues to expand, its other three game R&D centers in Hong Kong, Japan, and the United States are developing dozens of new game projects for handheld, home, and arcade platforms. The company needed a channel to promote its new game to players, so Game World was born, a professional magazine dedicated to the gaming industry.
In fact, Li Xuan had long planned to buy a newspaper to set up a comprehensive media company, and for this reason, he also sent inquiries to the owners of many newspapers and periodicals in Hong Kong about the acquisition, but he failed to get a satisfactory answer.
Unexpectedly, the first paper media in the media industry he envisioned turned out to be a game magazine established by the company itself. And the action that came up was not small. Game World Magazine is not only distributed in Japan, but is also translated into English, Spanish, German and Chinese and distributed in many countries.
The first few installments of Game World were free trial copies. In the Japanese market, for example, almost every game room owner received several copies of beautifully printed color magazines. The content in the magazine is in addition to some of the latest news in the gaming world. The most attractive thing for players is the game strategy about the most popular game "Mario Bros.".
In the article, the author of the guide revealed many small details that players did not pay attention to, such as the fact that there is a brick in the middle of the map in the first level of the game without a question mark. If Mario jumps on top of it, gold coins will also appear. And unlike ordinary question mark bricks, gold coins can only be ejected once. It is capable of appearing gold ten times in a row.
Many players will be skeptical after reading this paragraph, and go to the game console to control Mario all the way to the location suggested by the raider to do experiments. I found out that there really is such a secret that I have not discovered. This has led to a lot of interest from many players in the hidden secrets of the Mario Bros. game, and once again the game has set off a lot of craze.
In fact, these strategies are all commissioned articles by engineers from the "Mario Bros. R&D team" who took the initiative to release them to "Game World" according to the company's instructions. In his previous life, Li Xuan's great fun in playing games was to find all kinds of details hidden in the shadows. So when developing "Mario Bros.", he deliberately asked the development team to add a lot of easter eggs to the game.
As soon as these strategies came out, the sales of "Mario Bros. Arcades" and game cards ushered in a wave of enthusiasm, and even promoted a slight increase in the sales of FC game consoles. "Game World" has become well-known among many game fans in one fell swoop, laying a good foundation for the next official release.
While Nobuhiko Tanaka was working on the next issue of "Game World", several other people in the same office building had just received a special leave from their boss to take their families to Hokkaido for a vacation, and the company paid for all the expenses. These people are all software engineers at Dongfang Software, a research and development center in Japan. They have just completed work on the modification of the Japanese version of the east-dos operating system.
The ABC-3 computer is about to be officially launched globally, and Oriental Commercial and Aikang are making all the preparations. Although the previous ABC-1 and ABC-2 computers were also claimed to be sold worldwide, the vast majority of sales actually came from English-speaking countries. It's not that non-English-speaking countries don't have a demand for PCs. Rather, the language problem is a difficult hurdle that cannot be bypassed.
For example, the English version of the East-DOS operating system cannot display Japanese characters, which makes the ABC computer slow down sales in the Japanese market. After all, Japanese people only use Japanese more than English.
In fact, this problem also appeared on the PCs of IBM in later generations. At that time, PCs swept the entire European and American markets, but it was difficult to break into the Japanese market. The main reason is that he is not compatible with Japanese. So much so that the Japanese electronics giants have enough time to catch up, and when IBM begins to pay attention to this problem, Japanese companies such as NEC and Sony have already used the most precious breathing time to quickly catch up and begin to take the initiative to join the melee of the compatible machine market.
Li Xuan was naturally not prepared to make the same mistake, the previous ABC-1 development process was a little rushed, and many details were not taken care of. But now that Akon has become one of the leading brands in the PC market, it's time to go back and fill in those details.
In fact, Dongfang Software Company has already started to develop a multilingual DOS operating system on the basis of the English version of East-DOS. This time, it is to cooperate with the upcoming ABC-3 computer. In addition to the Japanese version that has just been completed, the East-DOS system will also be available in French, German, Spanish and Chinese. For the first time, the ABC-3 will be sold in most countries around the world.
In addition, Aikang Computer Co., Ltd. has also made differentiated adjustments to the design of computers according to the actual situation of each country. For example, the keyboard of the ABC-3 computer for the Japanese, Taiwan, and Hong Kong markets will be different from the keyboard of the ABC-3 computer that will be released in the United States.
Most East Asian countries use Chinese characters instead of characters based on the Latin alphabet, and there is no need to distinguish between case and case, so the case lock key "caps" is used less often. Therefore, in the keyboard of the new ABC-3 computer for the East Asian market, the positions of the "CAPS" and "CTRL" keys are reversed. Move the "Ctrl" on the left from the bottom left corner to make it easier for users to use "Ctrl" to add other keys. to use various shortcut settings.
Compared with these jobs, the status of pager business in Li Xuan's heart is indeed dispensable.
"Brother, I found an internship, just now Miss Liu said that the 'Dongfang Hong' project in Dongfang Shi Yàn Room is just short of people now. We need to recruit some interns who can speak Mandarin!" Li Ying ran over with a smile and patted her second brother's shoulder, "Ah Wen just happens to be able to speak Mandarin. We decided to form a team and apply for an internship in Miss Liu's project!"
Li Xuan glanced at Liu Lili who was not far away. Her eyes met Li Xuan's gaze and couldn't help but dodge a little. After Li Ying returned to the café before, she kept calling Li Xuan her second brother. And she is also surnamed Li, Liu Lili naturally does not find it difficult to guess Li Ying's identity.
Recently, the "Dongfanghong" project team has been responsible for receiving exchange personnel from the mainland to Hong Kong, and it is indeed necessary to recruit some interns who can speak Mandarin to help the exchange staff from the mainland integrate into Hong Kong life as much as possible. This Liu Lili will seize the opportunity, and Li Xuan will not delve into these flatteries that are not too out of line. After all, his identity as a big boss is there, and others will more or less find ways to flatter him.
"I can agree to come here for an internship, but our family lives at Victoria Peak, and you have to travel a long way to come to Sha Tin every day to work. Since you said that you are on a team with Ah Wen, then I will only ask the driver to send you to Ah Wen's house every day, and then you will have to find a way to come to work by yourself. Li Xuan said to his sister with a smile.
"Hey, Ah Wen's family lives in Yau Tong, far away from Sha Tin, and it takes an hour for the two of us to drive from his house. If I want to feel the real room at nine o'clock, wouldn't I have to go out at seven o'clock!" Li Ying pouted unhappily.
"It's not a pleasure to go to work, so it's naturally very hard!If you can agree, I'll let the real yàn room accept you two interns!" Li Xuan didn't allow her to bargain.
Li Ying looked at her friend who was staring at her, and finally nodded and agreed, which is better than going to the street to bask in the sun. (To be continued......)