With the advent of the new millennium, there have not been large-scale power outages, or even disasters such as nuclear explosions and nuclear pollution, as some people think, but the impact of the "millennium bug" has still appeared, but the location of the appearance is somewhat different from what people expected. The "millennium bug" crisis did not appear in the United States, where computer technology is the most developed, but instead landed in Africa and showed its power in the West African country of Gambia.

The unfortunate Gambia is also unlucky, those countries that introduced computer systems relatively late, can not catch up with the "millennium bug" problem, those countries that started early, the "millennium bug" problem has been basically repaired, only like them can not go up and down, just catch up.

According to the latest reports, the Gambia is now facing not only power supply disruptions in many places, but also significant disruptions to air and sea transportation, financial and government services, including the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Excise and the Customs. To that end, the Government of the Gambia had also urgently declared Monday, 3 February 2000, a non-working day in order to allow more time to repair the Millennium Bug problem and to reduce the pressure on the departments experiencing the problem.

However, from a global perspective, the impact of the "Millennium Bug" crisis is not as big as imagined, and the scope of the impact is not as wide as imagined, of course, there are factors that governments and enterprises attach great importance to. With the advent of the new millennium, many computer systems in the observation period have passed safely, and the Y2K emergency response teams of many companies have been disbanded, including the two major groups of Dongfang Industrial and VisualSystem. Although I was confident in my computer system, I still needed the necessary precautions for the sake of safety, and now that I have passed it safely, the mission of the temporary Y2K emergency response team is over.

With the advent of the new millennium, Sony Computer Entertainment has gradually revealed the drawbacks of the development system equipped with PS2 game consoles, and many game development companies have complained again and again, so Kutaragi Ken had to let his subordinates quickly find a way to solve it, but the negative impact in the short term has been inevitable, and the most direct consequence is that quite a lot of games have been postponed, so that throughout the first half of the year, Sony Computer Entertainment can only rely on self-developed games to support, just like the hapless Sega company just launched the Dreamcast console。

In order to solve this problem, Sony Computer Entertainment has worked hard to improve the PS2 game development system on the one hand, and on the other hand, through the support of the headquarters, it has acquired as many game developers as possible to enhance the game development strength in its hands, so as not to always look at the faces of those third parties.

There are several game development companies that have entered the eyes of Ken Kutaragi, such as Lost BoysGames in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Level-5 in Fukuoka, Japan, SuckerPunchProductions in Washington State, USA, and even Verant Interactive, an online game company. The reason for the emergence of Verant Interactive is that Sony Computer Entertainment is very optimistic about the future online game market in North America, and on the other hand, it covets the more than 250,000 paying users of the online game "EverQuest" operated by Verant Interactive, although it is not the largest in North America, but it is already a lot.

Bellevue, WA......

Bruce Auberge put down the phone in his hand, and his heart was full of mixed feelings. The call was from Jack Tratton, a friend of the friends they had met before, and the last time the two met was last year, at a game developer party. Bruce Auberge went with the idea of communicating with people, but unexpectedly met Jack Tratton, then executive vice president of product development at Sony Computer Entertainment America, and the two had little to do before, but out of politeness, Bruce Auberge showed him the "Foxy Adventure" he was conceiving, a game with an open-ended plot and cartoon rendering mode.

Jack Trayton was deeply interested in this and expressed his intention to cooperate further, but Bruce Auberge thought that the other party was just a polite, because he heard that Sony Computer Entertainment was in contact with Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, the other party was good at the same type of games as Sack Ponch Productions, and was more famous in the industry, and had successful games as a sign, Sony Computer Entertainment had no reason to look at the obscure Shack Ponch Production Company. After all, Sack Pond Productions has only been established for three years, and the game has only been released with a single "Rocket: RobotonWheels" on the N64 platform, and the game development experience is not as good as that of those established game development companies.

Later, Jack Tratton really didn't contact him again, and Bruce Auberge gradually forgot about it. Who would have thought that after about three or four months, Jack Trayton suddenly called again, re-mentioning the cooperation, and for a while Bruce Oberg was a little undecided.

It's not three or four months ago, when Sack Pond Productions was still basically unattended, and in order to develop a game for the N64 platform, he had to come to the door to ask for help, but I didn't expect feng shui to take turns, and now it's someone else's turn, just three days before Jack Trayton came to contact, the VisualSystem Group also sent someone to contact.

The company's founders, Bruce Oberg, Chris Zimmerman, Nathan Fox, Brian Fleming, and others originally worked at Microsoft, but later Microsoft was acquired by the VisualSystem Group and became a division of Raymond, and they continued to do their previous jobs, developing various commercial software (excluding games). But after a long time, they got a little tired of developing games with commercial software, and wanted to change the environment to engage in game development, originally wanting to change places through internal transfers, but at the beginning, there were only a few options such as "Flight Sim" and "Mecha Warrior", which happened to be not the type they liked, so they broke away from the VisualSystem group in 1997 and self-financed the current Sack Ponch production company, intending to develop games according to their own wishes.

In order to ensure that Sack Ponch Productions would not deviate from the predetermined track because of a certain person, Bruce Oberg and others did not choose the very common president system, but adopted a power-sharing collective leadership system, although there are also the names of the company's president and vice president, but it is not the same as the president and vice president in the usual sense. After breaking away from the VisualSystem Group, Sack Ponch Productions went through a difficult time, because everyone had absolutely zero experience in game development, that is, relying on the good habits formed by developing commercial software, plus a lot of experience playing games, which has sustained it to this day. Now that the rain has finally cleared, Sackponch Productions is starting to be able to attract attention.

But sometimes it's not a good thing to have more choices, Bruce Auberge feels like this now, on one side is the VisualSystem Group DreamBox128, on the other side is Sony Computer Entertainment PS2, a fool can also see that the two sides are at war at the moment, if you want to be left and right, it's not something that ordinary companies can play, at least Sack Ponch Productions doesn't have this ability. The conditions provided on both sides are very favorable, and the game consoles on both sides are excellent, of course, as the first game console to be listed, Bruce Oberg is still slightly familiar with the DreamBox128 game console, at least he has been playing at home for several months, and his understanding of PS2 is more about the data, but judging from the performance of the PS period, he is still more optimistic about the future of the PS2 game console.

"Which side do you think is better?" Bruce Oberg decided to leave the matter to his companions, and everyone was going to worry about it.

"Hmm......" Nathan Fox touched his chin and said, "I've used the DreamBox128 game console, judging from the performance of those first games, the performance of the game console itself is still quite powerful, although I don't know if it can achieve the effect as advertised, but it looks pretty good intuitively." I've also heard that the development system of the DreamBox128 game console is very easy to use, and it is not only possible to develop games on DreamBox128, but also to develop PC games at the same time. So, I think it's better to choose the VisualSystem Group. ”

"I don't think so," Chris Zimmerman stretched out his finger and shook it, "It's true that the performance of the DreamBox128 game console is good, and the development system is also very convenient, but the PS2 is also not bad, although it is rumored that the development system is a bit difficult to use, but we can make an agreement during the negotiation and ask the other party to provide corresponding support, I believe this will definitely not be an obstacle." ”

"That's right!" Brian Fleming nodded, showing support for Chris Zimmerman, and said, "We can't just focus on the performance of the two machines, we have to think about our future. Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games are now officially joining DreamBox128, and their style of play is very similar to ours, and if we go back to join in the fun, the competition will be unprecedented. However, if you switch to the PS2 platform, there are no games of the same type on it at the moment, and I believe that it will definitely achieve good sales results. With the lead, I think it will be much easier to go further down. ”

"2 to 1", PS2 currently has the upper hand, and Bruce Oberg's heart is also a little shaken. Originally, he was a little inclined to the PS2 game console, after all, the success of the PS game console is there, and the strength of Sony is also obvious to all, and it is impossible to let the PS2 game console fail. What Chris Zimmerman and Brian Fleming said also spoke to his heart, especially the competition mentioned by Brian Fleming, which resonated with him, who mistakenly thought that Jack Tratton was polite, because Sony Computer Entertainment was in contact with Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, and now that these two companies have confirmed that they will join the DreamBox128 platform, then Sack Ponchi Productions does not need to join in the fun.

Although he has made a choice, Bruce Oberg is not a rookie who has just come out to start a business, he knows that if some things are to ask others, then the income will usually be very small, but if it is the other person who comes to you, plus there are competitors next to you, the result will often be very different. The current situation is in the favor of Sack Ponch Productions, and with the VisualSystem Group as a backdrop, I am sure that Jack Tratton will reconsider their terms.

The situation was similar to what Bruce Oberg expected, and when he tactfully told the situation, Jack Tratton's side really gave in, not only greatly relaxed the amount of development funds, but also gave them a lot of autonomy in game development, and even arranged a technical support team in Foster City, California, to help them develop PS2 games for Sack Pond Productions. The only request from Sony Computer Entertainment is that it is hoped that "Foxy Adventure" can be released before Christmas this year, and Bruce Oberg can also understand this, after all, this year is the most critical year for the development of PS2, if you don't grasp it well, if you lag too far behind the DreamBox128 platform, maybe you won't have a chance to fight next year.

In extraordinary times, there was less red tape, and after the two sides negotiated the terms, the signing was quickly completed, according to the agreement, Sack Ponch Productions will develop three exclusive games for the PS2 game platform, including "Foxy Adventure", and Sony Computer Entertainment will provide several PS2 game development kits and other technical support for Shack Ponch Productions for free.

As soon as the signing was completed, Jack Trayton couldn't wait to report the good news back to headquarters. After seeing the description of "Foxy Fox Adventure", Ken Kutaragi couldn't help but be overjoyed, he wanted to dig Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games to come over, just because they fell in love with "Crash Bandicoot" and "Little Dragon Pie" that they developed on the PS console, but in the end it didn't work, and for a while, there was a lack of this type of game on PS2, so he was very worried for a while. Now Ken Kutaragi can finally rest assured, with the support of "Foxy Adventure", he is confident that he can compete with the rebels on the two PS game platforms, and his subordinates can also find more similar games without hurrying. With the support of "Cunning Fox Adventure", Sony Computer Entertainment can have more confidence in future negotiations, and there is no need to be led around by the nose like before.

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