In the blink of an eye in 1999, the problem of tight supply of Dreamcast consoles caused by the shortage of PowerVR2 display chips was finally solved, and before Shoichiro Iriko could breathe a sigh of relief, Sega encountered a new problem - the game was disconnected, and since the launch of the signature game "SonicAdventure" at the end of last year, there was no new game that could be sold on the shelves, and this situation lasted for several weeks.

Those players who are unfortunate enough to grab the Dreamcast console, the original joy has gradually been replaced by endless troubles, the same are the same game console players, others are worried about what game to play at the end of the year, even the least choice of N64 game console players at least have a choice, but the players who chose Sega, now there is no need to choose. Every time I think of this, those players who are relatively financially well-off and bought a Dreamcast console while keeping the PS game console laughs, they still have so many choices, and those players who use the PS game console in their hands to exchange for the Dreamcast console with a shrewd mind can't help crying, they can only helplessly endure the ridicule from the friend who is still playing the PS game console next door.

On January 23, the PocketStation, a portable handheld computer with the ability to exchange data with PlayStation consoles, was officially released, and the first 300,000 units were sold out on the same day. Due to its popularity, Sony Computer Entertainment has worked hard to organize a follow-up supply of PocketStation, but as soon as it arrives at the sales store, it is often sold out by waiting players, resulting in a long period of shortage. On the same day, Sony Computer Entertainment implemented its sixth price adjustment for the PS console, reducing the price of the PS to 15,000 yen, intending to continue to consolidate its position in the game market.

Four days later, the Dreamcast console players who had been waiting for their necks to grow finally waited for a big dish, and the postponed "Sega Rally 2" was finally put on the shelves. Many discerning Dreamcast console gamers have been standing in front of the shelves for a long time, and finally picked a set of Sega Rally 2, and they can't think that it will take at least three weeks for the next game to be released, and there will be no more delays. Some players also laughed at themselves, "Maybe Sega wants us to play every game seriously, so the interval between game releases is wider."

At the end of the year, the business strategy lost Heaven was not idle, they launched "Nintendo Star Smash Bros. Bros. to seize the market", with the full collection of Nintendo's video game stars, including Mario, Star Firefox, etc., as well as the fun of four players to play together, this new type of fighting game was well received after its launch, and even became the first choice for many families to enjoy together during the holidays.

……

"President Gao Tang, I can only show you this performance profile for the time being," Xu Yeming took out a document from his briefcase and reached out to hand it to Gao Tang Yoshihiko, who was sitting across the conference table: "If you want to see the actual machine and more detailed instructions, then you must sign this confidentiality agreement first." ”

Gao Tang Liangyan waved his hand arrogantly, pushed away the document that Xu Yeming stretched out, and said, "Xu Sang, you are very insincere." ”

"Well, President Takado, I'll show you a video of the game on my laptop, and the effect may not be as clear as on the actual machine, but I believe it will satisfy you. After Xu Yeming finished speaking, his eyes turned to Takado Yoshihiko, waiting for his reply.

Gao Tang Yoshihiko groaned slightly, feeling that he would not suffer anyway, so he nodded and agreed. Xu Yeming beckoned beside him, and immediately an accompanying staff member sent a laptop over. This notebook is not quite the same as an ordinary computer, it is not a big road goods up and down the assembly line, but a high-performance laptop specially customized for this operation, at about the same size as an ordinary computer, there is a powerful inner hidden performance, and even the display screen is a super-fast LCD screen with a response speed that is purchased at any cost.

Xu Yeming flipped the screen of the laptop, quickly called up the game demo video in his mouth, and then directly rotated the screen 180 degrees, towards Yoshihiko Takado, who was sitting across the conference table, and then pushed the laptop forward to make it easier for Yoshihiko Takado to watch.

The content of the game demo video is actually very simple, in the eyes of ordinary people, it is just in a gorgeously furnished big house, a gloomy man with red hair and black clothes and a handsome man with a white belt on his forehead are fighting each other, but in the eyes of Takado Yoshihiko, he can't help but gasp.

"What!" Takado Yoshihiko exclaimed, "Isn't this Yagami and Kusanagi Kyo!"

"That's them. Xu Yeming smiled and said, "I'm sorry, President Gao Tang, I directly used your game characters without consulting you." ”

"It doesn't matter. Takado Yoshihiko waved his hand and said with a smile. It's not that he's polite, in a situation like this that isn't for sale, even if he's not satisfied, there's nothing he can do about it. Besides, Yoshihiko Takado also saw something else from this video, such as the 3D transformation of "The King of Fighters".

Since the popularity of 3D fighting games such as Sega's "VR Warrior" and Namco's "Iron Fist", Yoshihiko Takado has actually thought about 3D his signature games "The King of Fighters" and "Samurai Shodown".

SNK is not a big company, and after all these years of accumulation, there is only a 16-bit MVS baseboard (interchangeable with NEOGEO home games), and if you want to develop 3D games on it, it is simply as unreliable as running Windows on Apple II. However, SNK's family background is too thin, and if it wants to redevelop a new high-performance substrate, it will not only cost a lot of money, but more importantly, it will not be able to afford time.

So more than two years ago, under the matchmaking of MidWay in the United States, Takado Yoshihiko bought the 64-bit arcade substrate technology that is said to be super advanced and named HyperNEOGEO64 from Atari in the United States, for which SNK paid tens of millions of dollars, but unfortunately later it turned out that this so-called super advanced arcade substrate is no different from a super trap.

Joyfully moving the high-tech boasted by the Americans back to Japan, Yoshihiko Takado immediately organized the company's game development masters to tackle key problems, and soon "Samurai Shodown 64-I" was launched, but unfortunately it ended up with a "extremely poor graphics, the refreshing feeling of the 2D original work was lost...", and it hit the street gorgeously. Takado Yoshihiko was unwilling, and organized people to tackle key problems, and a year later he took out "Samurai Shodown 64-II" and "Legend of the Hungry Wolf 64", but he didn't expect to hit the street gorgeously again.

At this time, Takado Yoshihiko heard a news, it turned out that this so-called super advanced HyperNEOGEO64 substrate was actually saved by the American Atari company using the failed Jaguar home game console, and the innate hardware architecture was insufficient, not only could not compete with the mainstream Sega Model3 and other advanced substrates on the market, but even in some aspects, it had been on the market. The three-year-old N64 console is not as good, but one thing is not deceiving, the HyperNEOGEO64 baseboard is really 64-bit.

This time, Takado Yoshihiko finally understood, and dared to be the head of the wrongs, and the tens of millions of dollars were used to pay for the research and development of the Yankees, but the money should not be spent, and the HyperNEOGEO64 substrate should not be bought, and now it is too late to start a new research and development. In desperation, SNK had no choice but to pick up the outdated MVS substrate again, and the 3D dream was shattered, so it had to honestly return to 2D fighting.

This situation made Takado Yoshihiko very helpless, especially when he saw that other people's 3D fighting games gradually became mellow from square heads and square brains, and players were more eager to do so, he was even more sad, although he still had to say that "the fun of 2D fighting games is incomparable to 3D games...... The connotation of the game is more important......", but in his heart, he is actually very envious of old opponents such as Sega and Namco.

The 3D fighting video of Yagami-an vs. Kusanagi Kyo just now rekindled the dream that Takado Yoshihiko had buried in his heart, but before that, he still had something to confirm, "Maybe their game console can really help him realize his dream," Takado Yoshihiko thought to himself.

"Xu Sang, show me the confidentiality agreement you just now. A smile appeared on Gao Tang's face and stretched out his hand to Xu Yeming in front of him.

"Okay. Xu Yeming agreed with a smile, took out the confidentiality agreement again, and handed it to Gao Tang Yoshihiko.

Takado Yoshihiko took the confidentiality agreement and flipped through it, and then found the lawyer next to him to review it, and when the lawyer made a reassuring gesture to him, he immediately took out a signature pen and wrote it at the end of the agreement.

Looking at Gao Tang Yoshihiko, who was signing the confidentiality agreement, Xu Yeming sighed slightly, as long as he was willing to sign the agreement, he believed that what would be shown later, the other party would definitely not refuse again, he had this confidence. During this time in Japan, Xu Yeming often had to lead the team to fly around, and sometimes even talked about two or three companies in a day. The big game companies are a bit more troublesome, and some of them are just as arrogant as Takado Yoshihiko, but as long as you put the game demo customized for them, there is nothing you can't take.

After this period of hard work, Xu Yeming has successfully negotiated 32 game development companies, many of which are well-known companies with strength like CHUNSOFT and Yuanqi, and today, he believes that this number will definitely become 33. But although there are small achievements, but he still does not dare to slack off, now there is only a little more than a month before the spring**S, in order to ensure the success of the DreamBox128 console, he also has to attract as many game developers as possible to join, so as to have a greater chance of winning against Sony.

……

At this time, in an office on the 13th floor of the Beihang Building in Zhongguancun, Beijing, Wang Juntao, known as "Lao Rong", Su Qiqiang, Wu Tie, Li Xianzhong, Zhang Yi, Mao Yiding, Zhao Chang and others gathered together to discuss Lianbang Software's new project - e-commerce website. There was goose feather snow outside the window, but under the indoor heating, you didn't feel a chill.

"Now that we've decided to do this project, why don't we register a domain name for it first? Wang Juntao raised his head and glanced at everyone in the room.

Mr. Wang has a point, a good domain name can make it easier for users to access. Zhao Chang, the representative of Fengyun Interactive in Lianbang Software, echoed.

"What's that called?" Li Xianzhong tugged at the information on the table with his hand, as if he wanted to find some clues from it.

"Alas, what's the name of the more well-known e-commerce website in the world now?" Zhang Yi scratched his head and tried to think again.

"Isn't it Ebay? Wu Tie said.

"Not this one. Zhang Yi shook his head.

"Oh, I see, it's Amazon, right? Su Qiqiang's eyes lit up, and a name suddenly came to mind.

"Yes, yes, that's it. Zhang Yi nodded again and again.

"What does Amazon mean?" asked Li Xianzhong, puzzled.

"The Amazon is simply a river, a river located in South America, with the largest flow, the largest basin, the largest number of tributaries, and the longest river in the world. Wang Juntao explained.

"Well, then we can think about it along that lines. Mao Yiding interjected: "Since they can use Amazon, then we can use the Yangtze River." ”

"Well, the name Yangtze River is good, at least it can definitely leave an impression on users when it is said. Su Qiqiang agreed.

"Then I'll check it out first. Wang Juntao turned his chair in a different direction and operated the computer to log in to the website of domain name registration to check it, and after a while, a disappointed expression appeared on his face.

Wang Juntao turned around, shook his head at everyone and said, "It's unfortunate that someone has already registered, it seems that we have to think of another name." ”

So the brainstorming started again, but even after thinking of several names, they were either too complicated, or not suitable, or they had already been registered, and finally everyone had to give up the plan to use the name as a domain name, and decided to target the number with a specific meaning.

The first one to be thought of was 960, and it had been registered after a check, Mao Yiding patted his thigh and said, "Come on, just use the height of Mount Everest, 8848." I don't believe it, all of them have been registered, Lao Wang, you check again. ”

Wang Juntao logged on to the Internet again to inquire, and everyone immediately gathered around him and stood beside him to watch. "[Registered]", Wang Juntao did not give up, and inquired again, "[Registered]". Looking at the feedback on the screen, he shook his head helplessly: "Lao Mao, this name still can't be achieved." ”

Mao Yiding sighed in disappointment, and then Zhao Chang, who was standing aside, suddenly said: "Not necessarily, this name may also come back, we can look at the contact information of the registrant." ”

"It's not that easy. Wang Juntao shook his head, but still clicked on the registration information of """:"Oh, that's it." ”

Zhao Chang stared at the screen for a long time, a smile slowly appeared on her face, and under the surprised gaze of everyone, she said with a smile: "It is registered at our headquarters, it should be very promising." Wait a minute, I'll make a call. ”

After speaking, Zhao Chang slipped aside, picked up the phone on the desk and called.

"Can it really work?" asked Mao Yiding, looking at Wang Juntao.

"I don't know. Wang Juntao muttered.

After about five or six minutes, Zhao Chang turned around and came back with a triumphant smile: "Everyone, good news, we have used it, and fortunately, the registrant is also the headquarters, so we have two domain names." ”

"That's fine!" Mao Yiding said in surprise.

When the rest of the people heard the good news from Zhao Chang's mouth, they were all immediately excited, and they were not happy that they had finally solved a big problem. Besides, according to this posture, if you really can't think of a suitable name, you won't be able to go back if you don't do it today, and now that the problem has been solved by Zhao Chang, some people can be said to be happy in their hearts.

Glancing at the happy child-like crowd, Zhao Chang came to the phone again, picked up the phone handle, and dialed a familiar number to go out: "Well, please tell the boss, just say that 8848 has been activated......"

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