On December 24th, the day before the last Christmas at the end of the century, near noon, Zhang Lexing returned to his special plane "BL901 Global Express" and flew back to Hong Kong, because he had made an appointment with Chen Zishan, and the two of them would spend the last Christmas at the end of the century together.

Opening the cover of the porthole, Zhang Lexing looked out the window, Tokyo on the ground was getting smaller and smaller, but he could still vaguely distinguish the places he had been in the past two days, and he couldn't help but think of Akihabara, which was located outside the East Gate of old Tokyo and near the Hibiya Line, the place where he had been lingering the longest.

Akihabara is commonly known as AKIBA, and it used to be a world-famous electric street, and many people will bring one or two pieces back from Akihabara when they travel to Tokyo, but after the financial crisis, the number of Japanese otaku (that is, the legendary otaku otaku) has increased significantly, and many of them have gathered in Akihabara, so that there are more stores related to otaku, and there are more corresponding anime and games, especially the most obvious thing related to the otaku's favorite "beautiful girl game". The computer street has become a sacred place for otaku.

Zhang Lexing has heard that Autumn leaves have several major characteristics: first, there are many maids who distribute flyers, and there are many maid COS service stores, but they generally refuse to take pictures; second, there are quite a lot of arcade halls directly under the manufacturer, such as Sega, Namco, etc.; third, there are many otaku idol activity venues; fourth, the content of the mouth is relatively prosperous, games, animation, magazines, DVDs, comics, novels and other aspects are all available; fifth, there are many types of ancient stores in the game......

But when Zhang Lexing really stood on the streets of Akihabara, he found that some rumors were not necessarily true, maybe it was because he came early, he turned around for a while, not to mention the maid who handed out flyers, and even the legendary maid COS service store didn't see one, fortunately, although the beautiful girls who handed out flyers were not dressed as maids, they still looked quite eye-catching.

There are really a lot of arcade halls directly under the game manufacturer, although they are competitors, Zhang Lexing couldn't help but go in and visit when he passed by, on the one hand, he wanted to see if there were any new arcade games, and on the other hand, he also wanted to know what the arcade hall here could learn from, so that the domestic Oriental Video Game City could operate better.

The room where Zhang Lexing belongs to Sega has a total of three floors, and the total area is about the same as the arcade hall in Beijing. The first floor of this arcade hall operated by Sega is mainly UFO machines, that is, claw machines and some amusement machines, except for those that are not suitable for the domestic situation, Oriental Video Game City basically has them, but in comparison, the surrounding area of the claw machine is still more abundant here. The second layer is mainly some arcade games developed by Sega itself, especially the most fashionable music games now, they have also followed the trend, and the third layer is dominated by fighting and shooting games, not only Sega's "VR Fighter 3", but also arcade games developed by other companies, such as "Street Fighter Zero", "The King of Fighters", etc., not all of them are new games, and some old games with a time interval of not too long are also available, but they will be specially marked on the machine with "old substrates" In order to facilitate the player's choice, from this point of view, Oriental Video Game City can learn it.

It is said that Japan is a very workmanship place, Zhang Lexing saw this very well in Akihabara, and he even found as many as five floors on the side of the road, known as the "AV factory", which he had never seen in other places, and perhaps only in a place like Japan where the workmanship culture is very developed. The decoration outside the door of the "AV Factory" is relatively simple, and there are no large-scale special posters, which are said to be because the law stipulates this, but once you walk through the door, the situation is different, and it is full of a dazzling array of tempting goods and blood-spurting posters, which are enough to make many people who are not strong enough to "evolve" directly from humans to beasts.

However, Zhang Lexing did not come to appreciate the Gongkou culture this time, his main purpose was to see the sales of the video game market during the Christmas period, and the primary target was naturally those video game stores. In order to see a more real situation, Zhang Lexing did not notify the local company on this trip, but went directly to Akihabara with the people who came on the same plane, and according to the homework done in advance, he went to several relatively large video game stores to observe the situation.

Perhaps because of the approaching the end of the year, Zhang Lexing looked at the sales stores of Nintendo, Sega, Sony or Blue Bird (DeamBox128), there were long queues outside, and the expressions of players waiting to buy the game were the same frenzy, but the lines outside the sales stores of Sony and Blue Bird were longer. Of course, just looking at it from a distance, he can't actually see any results, after all, he can't go all over the video game stores in Japan in one go, and he doesn't have the time to count sales one by one. However, just looking at the paper or electronic reports, he still couldn't feel the situation on the spot, so he still came......

Zhang Lexing sat in the "BL901 Global Express", and when he looked at Tokyo on the ground through the porthole of the plane, a paragraph suddenly popped into his mind, "...... Quietly I go, just as I came quietly, and I wave my sleeves without taking away a cloud." This passage is from Xu Zhimo's "Farewell Kangqiao", but it is very appropriate to describe him at the moment. When he came to Tokyo this time, he really didn't notify anyone, he came quietly, stayed quietly for one night, and then quietly left, and he didn't buy as much as a tourist, except for the kitchen on the plane to replenish some ingredients, so it can be said that he basically didn't buy anything, because he had already prepared Christmas gifts and the like, so he didn't need to bother in Tokyo.

The plane gradually passed through the clouds and began to change to level flight, Zhang Lexing closed the cover of the porthole, loosened the seat belt, and stood up to go to the small gym to exercise. At the same time, the "BL901 Global Express" is slowly adjusting its direction and flying along the route towards Hong Kong......

A few days later, the latest sales statistics of DeamBox128 game consoles were released, as of December 26, the global sales of DeamBox128 game consoles have exceeded 30 million units, of which North America has broken through the 10 million mark, Japan is only one step away from 10 million units, the cumulative sales in Europe have reached more than 6 million units, and even the mainland has achieved more than 2 million sales, it can be said that in the competition of a new generation of game consoles, DeamBox128 game consoles have achieved considerable advantages。

On the screen of the video conference system, Xu Yeming is introducing the recent market situation: "...... According to the latest market statistics report, the current distribution of the main market share of the home gaming market is as follows: Nintendo's 'Dolphin' console is not on the market, and the performance of the N64 console has declined, but with its absolute dominance in the portable handheld market, they still maintain a market share of nearly 42%. The situation of Sega is not good, the Saturn console has completely withdrawn from the market, only circulating in some second-hand video game stores, and the sales of the Dreamcast console have not improved much, even during the Christmas season, and in the case of continuous shrinkage, Sega's current market share has fallen to less than 10%, which is the worst among the major manufacturers.

Sony Computer Entertainment's new PS2 console has been an eye-catcher, with 900,000 units sold in just a few days, which is very close to the situation when the DeamBox 128 was launched in Japan. Although the PS2 console is just starting out, with the number of more than 70 million units accumulated by the previous generation of PS consoles, they have a market share of about 32%.

After half a year of sales, our DeamBox128 game console has achieved global sales of 31.2 million units, and currently accounts for about 14% of the home game market share......"

After listening to Xu Yeming's introduction, Zhang Lexing explained: "Well, it has surpassed the old manufacturer Sega in just half a year, and this achievement is still very good, and it is worth being proud of." I believe that the main reason for this achievement is that we can lay out in advance, accumulate enough game development strength on our own, and also attract many game developers to join, so we can always maintain a strong attraction to players, coupled with the performance of the DeamBox128 game console itself is quite strong, which can have the current good results.

However, it is not yet finalized, the DeamBox128 game console has not yet formed a decisive advantage, and the portable handheld market is also fundamentally involved, whether it is Sony Computer Entertainment or Nintendo, there is still the possibility of a turnaround, and now is not the time to take it lightly, we still have to work harder. ”

"Boss, you can rest assured that the follow-up marketing plan has been determined, and now you just need to wait for the right time to execute. Xu Yeming on the screen said with a resolute expression: "I will personally come to watch Japan, and there are special people to take care of the North American and European markets, I believe that there will be good news soon." ”

"Very good," Zhang Lexing nodded with satisfaction and said: "We must keep an eye on them, especially the PS2 of Sony Computer Entertainment, and the price can be appropriately lowered when necessary. ”

……

At the same moment, the Nintendo headquarters in Kyoto, Japan......

Yamauchi Pu rubbed his somewhat sore temples and sighed softly, he was in a bad mood right now, and the reason was the two reports in front of him. One of them is the initial report of the Christmas business war, from the above, Nintendo's current situation is very bad, especially in Japan, under the siege of the two new generation of game consoles, the N64 has almost fallen into a desperate situation, and the sales of the game have also fallen sharply, if it is not for the support of GBC, Yamauchi Pu doubts that Nintendo will not be able to hold on. However, in comparison, Nintendo North America is doing quite well, at least the situation is not as bad as in Japan, of course, this may be related to the relatively high ownership of the N64 in North America.

But in any case, the current situation is already very unfavorable for Nintendo, and it doesn't matter if the new generation of portable handheld GBA is launched later, anyway, the current portable handheld market is basically monopolized by the GB family, but the "Dolphin" console is more troublesome. It's also strange to talk about this thing, Yamauchi Pu himself, who made him be confused by the return of the N64, and forced the listing plan of the "Dolphin" console to be postponed, and now it's impossible to think about it in advance, after all, the game console is not something that can be sold after it is produced, and there must be all kinds of accessories, and there must be a first party, a second party and a third party to develop the game, which is not a temporary idea that can be conjured, so although Yamauchi Pu is very anxious, I really want to "dolphin" The console is about to go on the market, and I can only think about it.

The other report is a proposal from Nintendo North America.,It was Yamauchi's son-in-law Minoru Arakawa who wrote this proposal.,It's said that everyone is their own people.,But as soon as he saw the content of this report.,Yamauchi Pu still almost couldn't help but scold Minoru Arakawa's wife.。 The reason for this is that Minoru Arakawa actually proposed in this report to relocate Nintendo's headquarters to the United States," ...... At present, North American companies have contributed 70% of the revenue of the whole Nintendo...... Headquartered in Kyoto, Japan, and isolated North American companies, it is necessary to change the current situation, both in terms of the convenience of management and the relationship between income and status...... Therefore, on behalf of the North American company, I propose to relocate the company's headquarters to Redmond, Washington, so that it can be managed nearby......"

Before he finished reading the report, Yamauchi's heart was on fire, in his opinion, Minoru Arakawa's report had no good intentions at all, and it was obvious that he wanted to coerce the performance of North American companies to force the palace," ...... This Arakawa still wants to turn the sky upside down!" Yamauchi Pu thought indignantly in his heart: "It seems that I can do some prevention." ”

At the same time, the University of Tokyo Hospital ......

Shoichiro Iriko hurriedly walked into a special care unit and whispered to Mika Hosokawa, a nurse sitting near the door, "How is Mr. Okawa's condition today?"

"It's not bad, I ate a lot in the morning, but don't talk to Mr. Okawa for a long time. Mika Hosokawa replied.

Shoichiro Iriko nodded gratefully, then came to the bedside and called softly, "Mr. Okawa, Mr. Okawa!"

Okawa Gong was resting on the bed with his eyes slightly closed at this time, and when he heard a somewhat familiar voice, he slowly opened his eyes and found that it was Shoichiro Irito. He smiled reluctantly and said, "It turned out to be Zhaojun." ”

"Mr. Okawa, I heard that you are not feeling well, so I came to see yours. Shoichiro said humbly.

Okawa raised his hand and waved it, saying, "Don't be so troublesome, your work is more important." ”

"Mr. Okawa, I'm ......" Before he finished speaking, Shoichiro Iriko hesitated.

Okawa Gong saw that Shoichiro Iriko had something to say, so he encouraged, "Say it, it's okay." ”

"Mr. Okawa!" Shoichiro Iriko bowed sharply, then took out a document and handed it over: "This is our proposal, please be sure to take a look." ”

"Well," Okawa didn't answer, but asked vigilantly, "What is this?"

"We decided that the Dreamcast console was no longer viable, and we wanted to exit the home console hardware market and become a game developer. Shoichiro Iriko explained.

Okawa Gong slowly raised a hand, waved it violently and said, "Throw it all away!"

After speaking, Okawa closed his eyes and stopped talking to Shoichiro. Shoichiro Iriko sighed, put the papers back in his briefcase, and then turned and walked away.

"Maybe my days at Sega are coming to an end. As he walked in, Shoichiro thought in his heart.

Also located in Tokyo, in the Sony Computer Entertainment headquarters building......

Ken Kutaragi is watching the PS2 sales performance report that has just been delivered, and it can be seen from this that the sales of the PS2 game console are still relatively good, with 900,000 units sold in just a few days. However, in the DreamBox128 global sales exceeded 30 million units, and the sales in Japan were close to 10 million units, 900,000 units seemed incomparably small, and more importantly, the games launched on the DreamBox128 game console were not at all comparable to the unlucky ghost of Sega, and the threat to the PS2 game console was impossible to eliminate in a short period of time.

But what makes Kutaragi Ken more big is that the development system of the PS2 game console is in a hurry, and the new system of PS2 will not be able to grasp for a while, many game developers complain that the development of PS2 games is too difficult, and there are even more excessive, actually take out the development system of the DreamBox128 game console and compare, what to say" DreamBox128 has more processors, and the development system is very easy to use, not only the information is complete, but there are also many development examples, and the PS2 development system is simply a mess compared to it......"

This is simply unbearable, and if it weren't for these third parties who develop games for Sony Computer Entertainment, Ken Kutaragi would have been eager to get rid of them all, "It seems that it would be safer to buy a few more game development companies!" he thought to himself.

After thinking for a while, Ken Kutaragi turned over the investigation report on the sales of the DreamBox128 game console, and after carefully looking at the numbers on it, he slammed the report on the desk and said hatefully: "Hmph! Don't be too complacent, it's not time for the final decision!"

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