The development cycle of "Tank Wars" took nearly 5 months, mainly because the program was too large and the memory of this era was too small. At present, the relatively large ROM chip on www.biquge.info the market is only 2.88MB in size.

In order to compress the program to 2.88MB without affecting the experience of the game, it is a great test of the technician's skill.

Of course, in order to have a better display effect, the game "Tank Wars" uses expensive color picture tubes, and the cost of a 23-inch color picture tube alone is as high as 3,000 Hong Kong dollars.

In addition to using a color CRT screen, a graphics card is required. However, the price of designing and producing a dedicated graphics card is very expensive.

The members of the "Tank Wars" project creatively used four 6502 chips to form a multi-core processor, and the central processing unit was used instead of the graphics card.

"Four processors, you're great!" Lin Qi couldn't help but praise.

"The boss is overrated, this is something that cannot be helped, in order to save money, I have to use 4 pieces of 6502. Zhao Ruofei said embarrassedly.

"This kind of creativity is ahead of its time. Now, the computer industry will also regard Moore's Law as the truth, but sooner or later, after the progress of processing technology gradually slows down, a single CPU can no longer pile up performance, and the future computer will sooner or later take the route of dual-core, quad-core, and eight-core. Lin Qi said in a firm tone.

The reason why you don't need a display chip is because it's not cost-effective to design and produce a graphics card dedicated to an arcade machine.

Because, no matter how popular the arcade machine is, the sales volume is estimated to be 100,000 units. In order to design and produce a dedicated graphics card for machines with a demand of only 100,000 units, the price of each graphics card is at least $1,000 or more. If you really use such expensive parts, then the "Tank Wars" arcade machine, don't want to sell it.

Even this game, great attention is paid to cost savings, but due to the use of color picture tubes. The production cost of the whole machine is expected to be 6000 Hong Kong dollars. In addition, 1,000 Hong Kong dollars per machine will be distributed to game developers, which means that the actual production cost will reach 7,000 Hong Kong dollars.

Such a price is more expensive than the current market retail price of the "Chinese Cube" arcade machine!

The current arcade hardware cost of "China Cube", except for the 6502 chip, which cannot be localized, basically uses cheap domestic parts for other components, and the hardware cost is compressed to less than 2000 yuan, plus the foundry fee is also the cost of 3000 yuan. As for the ex-factory price, it has also been reduced to 6,800 yuan per unit. Of course, due to the onslaught of handheld computers and computer platforms, the arcade "Chinese Cube" has now shrunk to five or six hundred units a month.

If it weren't for the timely filling of the orders for the handheld machine of "China Cube", the two major foundry companies of Aika Electronics and Xinai Electronics might have lost money because of the continuous decline in arcade orders.

Now, the order for the arcade machine of "Tank Wars" can make up for the problem of idle arcade production capacity of the two major foundries.

"The factory price of the "Tank Wars" arcade machine is set at 12,800 Hong Kong dollars!" Lin Qi said, "Early trial production, 50 units per day. After a large number of orders are placed later, we will start to ramp up production. ”

HK$12,800, which is not expensive. After all, the market retail price of arcade machines is generally between 1000~3000 US dollars.

No matter how expensive it is, even if it is an arcade hall, it is likely to be very hesitant to buy goods.

……

February 15, 1981.

Apliu Street, Hong Kong.

The news that the new game "Tank Wars" will be released in the game hall of the new venture electronics company has been spread in the self-operated arcade.

"Tank Wars? New startup electronics company has a new game?"

"I thought they were making a lot of money on blocks, and they wouldn't be developing new games. ”

"It's exciting enough to hear the name, I don't know if it's a false name!"

As the first self-operated game hall under Xinchuang Electronics, it has changed a lot. Nearly 200 games have been placed in the originally empty halls. Because the new venture electronics company's own game that has been listed, there is only one kind of game, "Chinese Cube".

Moreover, the "Chinese Cube" arcade machine has been hit too hard by the handheld machine, and the average daily revenue of each arcade machine has dropped to about 50 Hong Kong dollars. Although it is no longer considered a huge profit, the profit is okay.

At the same time, the number of machines in the game hall has increased to 200, and the variety of games has exceeded 50, and after players have more choices, the daily income of the game hall has also stabilized at about 20,000 Hong Kong dollars.

At present, there are not only this one, but as many as 13 game halls operated by the new entrepreneurial electronics. The total operating area is over 6,000 square meters, and the number of game consoles is also more than 3,000. It's just that 80% of these machines are arcade machines produced by other game companies.

However, with the continuous development of independent arcade machines by new start-up electronics companies, the self-operated arcade halls will gradually be replaced with their own games in the future.

"A new game is coming!"

At around nine o'clock in the morning, there was a commotion among the players in the game hall.

Because, a total of more than 100 "Tank Wars" arcade machines, have been moved to those game halls operated by the new venture electronics company.

With the new game carried and tested complete, players can't wait to get on board.

"Yikes!"

"Dead?"

"Is there shit in your head? "Tank Wars" is about fighting, and in addition to killing the enemy, fighting is of course to protect your own nest!"

"Ah, your own nest can actually build a wall and use the wall to block cannonballs?"

"Great!"

"Hit the street, look at your stinky level!"

"It's fun, it's still fun to fight. ”

The employees of the new venture electronics company, as spectators and participants, couldn't help but feel excited when they saw the players in the game hall immersed in the fun of the new game!

Perhaps, "Tank Wars" is not the best game, at least, in terms of the creativity and gameplay of the game, it may not surpass "Space Invaders".

But it is a game developed by a Hong Kong company, so that the local market, there will be a sense of intimacy.

In this era, as Hong Kong's economy continues to take off, the public's sense of identity with the city has reached an unprecedented level. The growing popularity of Hong Kong films, Cantonese records and Hong Kong comics in Hong Kong has largely benefited from Hong Kong people's sense of identity with the local culture.

Now, thanks to the growing presence of new start-ups in Hong Kong, they have also established a strong local self-operated territory.

Perhaps, even if the entire Hong Kong market is monopolized by the new venture electronics, it is still an insignificant small market. However, this small market has become the self-reserved land of Xinchuang Electronics, and at least the performance of its new products can be guaranteed......

Of course, hegemony does not depend on defense, but on offense.

Lin Qi treats the Hong Kong market as a "beta market", allowing a small market of millions of people to test the game's bugs and players' evaluations. After collecting a lot of feedback, the product will be more mature if it is further improved and introduced to the global market.

Treating Hong Kong as a "closed beta market" is not to look down on Hong Kong players, on the contrary, since it is to be tested in Hong Kong, then it needs to receive more feedback from Hong Kong players. This way, players will have a greater sense of engagement and interaction.

Compared with players in overseas markets, you can play more mature games from the beginning, and these two experiences may have their own characteristics.