Today is the twenty-first day that Craig Smallwood has logged in to "DreamBoxLive" with his gold membership account, and since he applied for an account, he has logged in almost every day, and every time he has to play a few games online with the players he has found through the matchmaking service, and of course, he will inevitably look for anything new on it, such as "007 GoldenEye", which is rumored to be released on DreamBox128.

It's a pity that the result every time is disappointing, and I didn't find "007 GoldenEye" as I expected, and I didn't even find an FPS game like "007 GoldenEye", and the same is true today. Disappointed, Craig Smallwood closed the game news section and opened the DreamBoxLive store to take one last look at the new game demo version.

Craig Smallwood's eyes swept over the "New" marked entry on the DreamBoxLive store, and a message titled "Latest FPS demo Halo" caught his attention.

"FPS game!" Craig Smallwood's eyes lit up, and he controlled the controller to move the cursor to "Halo for the latest FPS game demo", and pressed the OK button.

A prompt appears on the screen that it is opening, and after about ten seconds, the page about "Halo for the latest FPS game demo" opens. Craig Smallwood took a closer look, and found that the original "Halo" demo version is an FPS game developed by a company called Bungie, and the demo version currently provided is about one-half of the content of one level, and it is estimated that the playability is not too high, but the capacity is not large, he still chose to download and install, anyway, there are no good FPS games to play now, and it is not impossible to try it.

While waiting for the download, Craig Smallwood called up his friends list, found a few players who also love FPS games, opened the dialogue window, and typed in the sentence "There is a demo version of the FPS game "Halo" in the store, I am downloading it now, if you are interested, you can check it out", and then sent it. Unexpectedly, before the demo version of "Halo" was downloaded, a person named "JonassenFourteen" had already replied.

"I'm playing Halo, it's a great game, you should definitely try it!" [Jonah 14]

"yes, then I'll have to have some fun later. Little Wood (Craig Smallwood's nickname)]

"Well, I won't talk to you more, I still have to continue the ship defense war. Jonah Son XIV

After leaving that last sentence, "Jonah Fourteen" never replied, and Craig Smallwood knew that the guy must have entered the game. "Jonah Fourteen" is an avid FPS fan, which can be found from the previous communication between the two, and it should not be bad to make "Jonah Fourteen" like the FPS game, and Craig Smallwood can't help but look forward to the demo version of "Halo" in this download.

……

Hinataka opened "DreamBoxLive" again, and the "PlayonLine" section, which had been graying out, finally lit up, which meant that he had the opportunity to see the latest news about "Dragon Quest", and he immediately couldn't wait to move the cursor to the icon of the "PlayonLine" section and pressed the OK button.

About twenty seconds later,The page of the "PlayonLine" section opened,Unfortunately, there is no news of "Dragon Quest" in it, but the upcoming "Final Fantasy 9" is everywhere.,What character pictures、The theme of "Final Fantasy 9"、Appreciation of music clips in the game,There is even a game video,But Hikadagen Noya's Internet speed is not fast.,I didn't try it.,Anyway, it's not the "Dragon Quest" he likes.

Bored in the "Dragon Quest" game circle of friends spit out a few bad words, and then discussed the experience of "Dragon Quest 7" for a while, suddenly Hinataka saw a new message, released by a guy who claimed to be a Square Enix employee, "...... In the near future, Square Enix will launch the DreamBox128 remake of "Dragon Quest 5", which will greatly enhance the game graphics, music and other aspects on the basis of retaining the original setting, and may even add some new content ......".

Seeing such news, Hinahara Plateau was a little incredulous, but his eyes couldn't help but light up. "Remake! Enhanced graphics and music!!New content!!" thought as he thought as a smile slowly appeared on his face.

……

In the Oriental Building on Lockhart Road in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, a video conference was being held, attended by Xu Yeming of the Electronic Entertainment Division, Cheng Zhaokang, Zhang Lexing, Yang Xinxin of the Internet Division, as well as Miller Wilson, who is in charge of the game business of the VisualSystem Group, and Zhao Zijie, who is in charge of the Internet business.

Zhang Lexing looked at the split-screen picture of everyone on the TV screen and asked, "How is DreamBoxLive running now?"

"DreamBoxLive has 2.74 million users in North America and is growing at a rate of approximately 500,000 per week. More than one-third of the 2.74 million users applied for gold, and the rest were free silver users...... The 'DreamBoxLive' business in Europe started a little later, and the number of users is still only 900,000, but half of them are gold users......" Miller Wilson said, flipping through the information in his hand.

"It has been about four weeks since the opening of the 'DreamBoxLive' service in Japan, and more than 1.95 million people have signed up so far, including 950,000 gold users...... The 'DreamBoxLive' business plan in mainland China was launched in July, and the relevant servers are currently being deployed...... The 'DreamBoxLive' business in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other regions is also waiting for server deployment, and the time for business development is tentatively scheduled for July...... "Xu Yeming also introduced the business development in Asia.

"At present, the 1,000 'cloud' server clusters in Japan have been brought online, carrying no more than 30% of the average load of existing users, and there is still a relatively large potential to be exploited, and there should be no need to add servers in the short term...... It is expected to deploy about 100 'cloud' server clusters in Hong Kong and about 200 'cloud' server clusters in Taiwan...... The current plan is to build a shared 'cloud' server cluster with a scale of about 600 units in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu, and then reasonably divide and allocate the resources of the 'cloud' server cluster according to the development of the 'DreamBoxLive' business...... "Cheng Zhaokang, as the third speaker, added about the deployment of server clusters in some parts of Asia.

Zhao Zijie, who spoke at the end, introduced the situation in North America and Europe: "The 'DreamBoxLive' business server cluster in North America and Europe is shared with 'GameLiveNetwork', and the current scale is 2,000 and 900 respectively...... According to the plan, a portion of servers will be appropriately expanded every year for the next three years to ensure the normal operation of the 'DreamBoxLive' business and the 'GameLiveNetwork' business......"

"Hmm......" Zhang Lexing nodded after listening, the information introduced by these people is basically the same as the information he learned from other sources, judging from the number of user development alone, the results of "DreamBoxLive" are still quite good, and the annual fee for gold membership alone is about 115 million US dollars.

Seeing that everyone had finished introducing, Yang Xinxin said the topic she was most concerned about: "Now the profitability of the 'DreamBoxLive' business is still relatively poor, of course, this is mainly because the business has just been launched, and there is not much paid content on 'DreamBoxLive'. The increase in DreamBoxLive's users, especially the increase in free users, will further expand the loss situation. ”

What Yang Xinxin said is indeed the truth, and the "GameLiveNetwork" business is different, the "DreamBoxLive" business is only aimed at the users of the DreamBox128 game console, although some gold membership level users have been developed, but when it comes to profitability, the current membership fee income is not enough to see, and the annual fee of the gold member cannot even recover the cost of the server cluster.

Zhang Lexing had considered this issue, so he didn't think much about it, and quickly replied: "The current situation is like this, the 'DreamBoxLive' business itself will not create much profit in the short term, the key is to increase the adhesion to DreamBox128 game console users, but also to enrich the game applications on the DreamBox128 game console, and increase the attraction of new users." If we can achieve the popularity of the DreamBox128 game console in key regions to more than 20 million units, then the next development will be relatively much easier, we can not only make money by launching games on it, but also develop the DreamBoxLive store with the scale of 'DreamBoxLive' users, and launch more projects that attract users to pay, such as low-cost games released through the Internet, game add-ons that can only be downloaded through the Internet, Game music selection, even including physical transactions such as game peripherals. As long as the scale of users can be increased, supplemented by appropriate 'DreamBoxLive' content, then there will naturally be more people willing to swipe credit cards for DreamBoxLive stores in the future, and this is a sustainable profit project that can be done for a long time, unlike selling hardware that is basically a one-time transaction. ”

"Well, I know, you mentioned it when you talked about 'GameLiveNetwork'. Yang Xinxin nodded, her face still with a hint of worry: "But now that there is a competitor PS2, will the future development of DreamBox128 be smooth sailing?"

"Don't worry about this problem, we already have a countermeasure. Zhang Lexing said and sent a reminder message to Xu Yeming.

Xu Yeming immediately understood, and continued: "For PS2 game consoles, our main strategy is to open the way for game masterpieces, plus price wars. After preliminary preparations, we have already arranged the game launch cycle for the next two years, and we will always maintain strong pressure on the PS2 console by adopting a mix of big games and excellent titles. In addition, due to the high production batch of DreamBox128 and the improvement of the production line, the current cost of producing a DreamBox128 is only about half of the initial one, so there is enough room for the price war to operate. Starting from these two aspects at the same time, I believe it will have a big impact on the sales of PS2 game consoles, our plan this year is to complete the sales of 30 million units, and the global sales of more than 60 million units, of which Japan will strive to reach the level of 19 million units, North America aims for 25 million units, and Europe 18 million units, these three regions will be the focus of this year...... The specific sales plan will be attached to the subsequent email, please pay attention to it. ”

……

Then continued to chat for a while about the development plan of "DreamBoxLive" and DreamBox128 game console, although the worries in Yang Xinxin's heart did not completely disappear, but finally had some confidence, Zhang Lexing hurriedly switched the video conference to a new venue at this time, ready to discuss with Hong Mingjie, general manager of Oriental Electronic Entertainment Co., Ltd., Li Chunlin, general manager of Creative Workshop, Wang Hao, general manager of Fengyun Investment Holdings, and Chen Jingyi, general manager of Fengyun Interactive, about game development.

The reason why he wanted to convene these people to the meeting was that after reading the analysis and statistics report from the Fengyun chain Internet café newspaper, Zhang Lexing's mind flashed and he thought of an idea that he felt good about, and planned to let them try it, maybe they could find a new way.

Looking at the split-screen picture of everyone on the TV screen, Zhang Lexing asked: "Have you read the recent issues of the Internet café game statistics report provided by the system?"

Hong Mingjie, Li Chunlin, Wang Hao, Chen Jingyi and others all nodded, the big boss called everyone for a meeting, how could he not do some homework in advance. Otherwise, if you miss the cowardice and affect the big boss's perception of yourself, then the future career path will not be easy.

Looking at everyone's expressions, Zhang Lexing continued: "According to the data analysis, I found an interesting feature, I don't know if you have noticed. There are two types of Internet café customers, one is the old customer, that is, the person who often goes to the same Internet café or several Internet cafes, and in most cases, several people go to the Internet café to play online games. The other type is considered new customers, who go to the Internet café for entertainment in most cases, and the Internet café they go to may not be fixed, they usually play games alone, and they often try some new games. ”

Everyone nodded again, they also have similar content on the analysis data, in fact, this kind of thing is also very common, new customers often have, they belong to the fresh blood of the Internet café, and it is also possible to bring new popularity, and the old customers are indispensable for the Internet café, they are an important support for the popularity of the Internet café.

"Internet cafes often have new customers, many of whom may not have computers at home, and Internet cafes are the only place they can access computers, so they naturally have fewer opportunities to play computer games, and the corresponding experience is not too rich. So for this kind of person, many games may be so complicated that they may not understand how to play without spending an hour or two, but many people only have an hour or two to play in an Internet café, so these seemingly complex games are likely to be an obstacle for them to come back to the Internet café. So I thought, why not develop some games that are suitable for this kind of novice based on the characteristics of Internet cafes?"

"A game for Internet cafes?" Wang Hao said with a little doubt, and several other people also had questions on their faces.

That's pretty much what it means. Zhang Lexing nodded: "In my imagination, the game dedicated to the Internet café should be the kind of easy to get started, it only takes five minutes to master the basic gameplay, and you can experience the fun of the game in about ten minutes, but you can continue to play repeatedly, the number of levels can be more, but the process of each level is best controlled within an hour, so that players can play more happily in a timed cycle, and will not appear to have to soak in three in order to play a level. Four hours, or a few days, I believe that such a game might be more suitable for the unique environment of an Internet café. ”

"Boss, I probably see what you mean. Li Chunlin nodded on the screen and said: "Do you plan to let our creative workshop develop a game customized for the Internet café environment, so that players can get started easily, but they can't clear the level quickly, or they can repeat the game many times, that is, they can maintain a strong adhesion to the player, but the game time at each stage can't be too long......"

Zhang Lexing nodded with satisfaction, Li Chunlin already understood what he meant, in fact, he took Hong Mingjie, Li Chunlin, Wang Hao, Chen Jingyi and others together for a meeting so solemnly, just to try his novel idea of "Internet café special game", first invest part of the manpower to develop an experimental game, and then put it in the Fengyun chain Internet café to test it, and then adjust it according to the feedback.

Although Zhang Lexing is personally optimistic about the "Internet café special game", but after all, he has never heard of this kind of thing, that is to say, this step has never been confirmed by others, the so-called "easy to get started, but can not be cleared quickly, or can repeat the game many times" conjecture, is only based on his own feelings of going to the Internet café, whether other players will have the same idea, he is actually very uncertain.

It's just that from the perspective of probability and statistics, there should not be too few people who have the same idea as him, but how many will there be, whether it can support the market of "Internet café special games", everything is still unknown, so Zhang Lexing did not plan to rush to put the entire creative workshop into it, but planned to try two games first, if it succeeded, it would be good, even if it failed, it would not have much impact.

As for game ideas, Zhang Lexing has a few ready-made ones, such as "Plants vs. Zombies", which seems to be quite suitable. If the strategy of "Internet café games" is successful, then it can be further refined, such as games for different age groups, games for people with different preferences, and even some games suitable for women. Just like marketing, only by fully grasping the preferences of different users, and then targeting the right games, can we better occupy the market and give players the opportunity to feel a more unique game experience.

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