After formally signing the cooperation agreement with Sony, Chen Zhipeng specially came to the United States to report the situation to Zhang Lexing, and after introducing the details of the negotiations with Sony and the final agreement, Zhang Lexing noticed that Chen Zhipeng's expression was a little strange, as if he wanted to stop talking.

"If you have anything to say, don't worry. Zhang Lexing said with relief.

Chen Zhipeng said: "Boss...... Actually, it's something related to Nintendo's Masayuki Uemura......"

Masayuki Uemura was just an unknown junior at Sharp before joining Nintendo, and it was a coincidence that he was lucky enough to enter Nintendo. When Masayuki Uemura was still working in Sharp's daily sales department, he went to Nintendo to promote the company's solar cells, and he was received by Nintendo's technical backbone Yokoi Gunpei, and after some discussion, the two came up with the idea of making something interesting out of this solar cell. Later, at the suggestion of Gunpei Yokoi, Pu Yamauchi personally came forward to persuade Masayuki Uemura to join Nintendo. After Masayuki Uemura entered Nintendo, the first result he handed over was the ray gun jointly developed with Junhei Yokoi, which used the solar cells that Masayuki Uemura had promoted, so Masayuki Uemura began to show the strength of his technology research and development.

A few years later, Yamauchi began to try to enter the home console market because of the success of the Atari game console, and for this reason it was necessary to have a game console that could be used, and finally this responsibility fell on the shoulders of Masayuki Uemura, who was then the head of the second development department. With the assistance of Gunpei Yokoi and Shigeru Miyamoto and others, after painstaking research and development, Masayuki Uemura finally came up with the Nintendo Red and White (FC) that has been popular for more than ten years.

When NEC's PC-E console was frantically grabbing the market and Sega was about to launch a new 16-bit console, Masayuki Uemura was once again tasked with developing the next generation of Nintendo's red and white (FC) console. Although the slow progress of research and development led to the delay in the launch of Super Nintendo (SFC), with the support of Chen Zhipeng and others, he still successfully came up with the final results and completed the counterattack mission against Sega and NEC, and it was at this time that Chen Zhipeng got acquainted with Masayuki Uemura and Ken Kutaragi and others.

Later, Sega introduced the CD-ROM (optical drive) system for the MD console, and at the instigation of Ken Kutaragi, Nintendo also germinated the development of the SFC console using CD-ROM (optical drive), and also gave the new console the name "PlayStation", during which Masayuki Uemura and some members of the second development department became staunch supporters of the use of CD-ROM, which also laid the foundation for Masayuki Uemura.

After a short honeymoon period, the contradiction between Nintendo and Sony was reborn, and the biggest root cause was that Yamauchi Pu was unwilling to allow Sony to take this opportunity to enter the game industry, of course, the immaturity of CD-ROM at this time also gave Yamauchi Pu a good excuse. After the "Philips" incident, the rift between Nintendo and Sony deepened, and finally broke up completely. In this incident, Sony's Kutaragi Ken almost collapsed, but fortunately relying on Chen Zhipeng's test machine salted fish turned over, Uemura Masayuki was not so lucky, as a few staunch supporters of Nintendo's internal CD-ROM, he became Yamauchi Pu's punching bag, after Nintendo and Sony broke up, Uemura Masayuki was also put into the cold palace, and could only rely on daily maintenance of old machines to survive.

Masayuki Uemura also moved the idea of switching to other companies, Sony was originally a good choice, there was a Kutaragi Ken who was very close to his idea, but because of the "Philips" incident before the incident, he insisted that Nintendo would not give up cooperation with Sony, and as a result, in the eyes of Sony and Kutaragi Ken, he became a shameless liar, and this road is no fun. The desperate Masayuki Uemura was stranded in Tokyo, wanting to try his luck again, but he didn't expect to meet Chen Zhipeng, who came to Tokyo to do business. When Chen Zhipeng participated in the research and development of Super Nintendo (SFC), he had a good relationship with Masayuki Uemura, and when he saw his old friend fall into such a fate, he couldn't help but soften, so he went back to the United States to ask Zhang Lexing for instructions.

After listening to Chen Zhipeng's statement, Zhang Lexing smiled: "Masayuki Uemura still has some ability, but I'm afraid it's not appropriate to participate in the R&D team in Tokyo, so it's better to let him go to Hong Kong and do some auxiliary peripheral research work first, which should be able to be used in the future." ”

"Thank you to the owner. Chen Zhipeng said very gratefully.

……

After lifting Chen Zhipeng's knot, and having Masayuki Uemura, a game console hardware design expert, join, this trip to Tokyo was really rewarding. Before he had time to rejoice in this harvest, Zhang Lexing received a notice to participate in EA's board of directors, which was the first time EA went public this year.

Driving to EA's corporate headquarters in San Mateo, Zhang Lexing felt a strange atmosphere as soon as he walked into the conference room. EA's board of directors originally consisted of only five people, in addition to CEO Tripp Hawkins, there were also Chairman Red Turn, director and CFO Jiang Shaojun, and two other directors representing venture capital, and the number of directors on the board increased to 21 after the listing, most of whom were independent directors who had no interest in the company.

Red Turnapp and Jiang Shaojun's expressions were very relaxed today, and it seemed that nothing unfavorable should happen. Zhang Lexing noticed that Hawkins's face was very bad, as if someone owed him five million and didn't pay it back. But the most surprising thing was that Mak Jiajun was actually here, he happened to sit with a man with a gloomy gaze all the time, and the two of them whispered something from time to time.

Zhang Lexing sat down next to Jiang Shaojun, and before he could ask clearly, Red Tenapp had already taken the microphone to announce the start of the meeting.

The first to speak was the grim-eyed man next to McCarjun, who said: "CEO Mr. Hawkins's business philosophy can no longer bring faster growth to EA, and I propose to remove him as CEO and replace him with Larry Probert......"

As one of the founders of EA, EA seems to be like Hawkins's child, and now the child is about to be snatched away by others, no wonder his face is so bad today.

Since Hawkins founded EA in San Mateo in 1982, the development has been relatively smooth in these years, although it was also dragged down during the Great Depression caused by the Atari shock, but with Hawkins's efforts, EA quickly stood up again. Before EA went public, Hawkins managed to grow the company to $1 billion, which was three years longer than the expected six years, but it was still achieved. Today, EA has become one of the leading game developers and publishers in North America with several best-selling game franchises, distribution channels and a lot of money through IPOs. It is said that EA has developed to today's status Hawkins can be said to have contributed a lot, but I didn't expect that not long after the successful listing, the sound of wine glasses colliding with each other at the celebration banquet was still as if it was just yesterday, and Hawkins's CEO status was a little unreliable.

Hawkins' previous business philosophy was to focus on the development and publishing of computer games, especially the distribution of computer games. But as Nintendo gradually regained the former glory of the home console market and began to carry it forward, Hawkins couldn't sit still, he felt that EA could no longer ignore this huge market, so when the MD American version of the console (Genesis) entered the North American market, Hawkins took action, and soon EA and Sega began to fight. Hawkins' choice is no problem in Zhang Lexing's view, after all, the game market brought by game consoles has great potential, even greater than the computer game market. But now it seems that the rest of the board did not agree with Hawkins' choice, and they did not know what kind of change they were going to bring about as their successor, Larry Probert.

After the gloomy man finished speaking, Larry Probert stood up and introduced his business philosophy: "I think EA is developing too slowly, and if we continue to move forward at this speed, our opponents will have a lot of opportunities to catch up, so we have to make some changes......"

Larry Probster's philosophy is simple, publishing is EA's main business, in order to ensure that there are enough games for distribution, it is necessary to acquire more game brands, which can not only discourage competitors, reduce the number of games they can choose, but also bring a lot of games for EA to publish, and greatly accelerate the development of EA. Zhang Lexing didn't really like this kind of concept, and the acquisition could really make the company grow quickly, but it was a disaster for the game development studio, because the businessman and the game designer think completely differently, one is only concerned with how to make more money faster, and the other is concerned with how to make a game that is popular with players. Under the collision of the two, the businessmen who carry the power of capital will inevitably control the future direction of game development studios, and at that time, boutique will gradually become fast food.

Although he didn't like Larry Probert's takeover, Zhang Lexing found that most of the directors except for his own side seemed to be very satisfied with this kind of big proposal, and Hawkins seemed to be really precarious. Initially, Zhang Lexing also owned 67% of the equity of EA, but unfortunately it has only been regarded as an issuance channel for EA, and has not attached much importance to it, coupled with several financings and this year's listing over the years, Zhang Lexing's equity in EA has only been diluted and partially realized after only 35%, strictly speaking, it can no longer have a decisive impact on the company.

Taking advantage of the break before the vote, Zhang Lexing blocked Mai Jiajun's way at the door of the toilet: "Mr. Mai, what the hell is going on, why are you here?"

"My friend Carl and I have only recently joined the board, so maybe your men haven't had time to tell you yet. Carl thinks there's a lot of room for growth in the value of this company, but now the CEO can't do it, it's too conservative, so we need Larry Probert to come in and he can bring more benefits to the shareholders. ”

"But Larry Probster's set is not suitable for the long-term development of the game industry, it is a desperate fish. ”

"I'm sorry, but we're only concerned about this company's stock returns. By the way, when I wait for a vote, I hope Mr. Zhang will not object, which will be beneficial to everyone. Mak Ka Chun straightened his suit and walked away.

"You ......" Zhang Lexing was very uncomfortable, and the urge to vote for a veto was surging in his heart, and he turned around and walked towards the conference room. After walking a few steps, Zhang Lexing suddenly thought that the United States could not do anything about himself, anyway, what he really wanted to revitalize was the domestic game industry, and whether Larry Probert came to power or not had nothing to do with him. Thinking of this, Zhang Lexing's mood gradually improved again.

Without the support of Zhang Lexing, Hawkins completely lost power and stepped down, and EA entered the era of Larry Probert. Shortly after taking office, Larry Probert made a move to acquire DistinctiveSoftware, a studio that developed sports games for EA's rival Accolade, beginning EA's more than a decade of acquisitions.

For the sake of more security, Zhang Leji started the idea of establishing a second distribution channel in Europe and the United States, where the target was a game publishing company now known as Mediagenic, formerly Activision, which was facing bankruptcy, and in Europe, a small company headquartered in England, EidosInteractives, which was ready to be acquired and reorganized into a game publishing company under the Oriental Industrial Group.

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