"What, are you worried that the crew of "007" won't be able to use the money?" Tang Huan laughed at Andy Albert's surprise, "I know a lot about "Octopus", and there are a lot of articles to do. ”

However, until now, the actor of James Bond has not been decided. Due to Warner's disruption, Eon's side felt that it would be better to continue with Roger Moore from the original team for the sake of safety. Andy Albert tested Tang Huan's thoughts.

"Their concerns are very valid. Tang Huan pondered for a moment, "The reason why Roger Moore doesn't want to renew his contract is because of two reasons, everyone is not happy to cooperate, and he dislikes the low salary. In this way, you personally go out to talk and show our sincerity with practical actions. ”

"The bottom line in terms of that remuneration ......"

"I remember that the salary of the last two James Bond of Sean Connery was a fixed amount plus royalties or a percentage of the box office, so give Roger Moore a basic salary, a few million dollars, and try to avoid the way of sharing. ”

"Understood, I'll do it myself right away, it's a bit tight now. Andy Albert ended the call in a frenzy.

"Seeing no, Warners attacked us from two directions: video games and movies. Tang Huan spread his hands playfully.

Hawkins smiled and said, "Atari will release the successor to the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, at this COMDEX, although the detailed hardware specifications are not yet certain, but it is certain that the Atari 5200 is not compatible with the Atari 2600." ”

"Is it possible to regain control of the hardware platform that was lost with the Atari 2600 in this way?" Tang Huan thought for a moment. "That's fine. Since Atari was in such a hurry to come out. Let it explore and see how the market reacts, so you can assess how likely it is to succeed. ”

……

Influential large-scale exhibitions often play a positive and positive role in promoting the economy of the host country to some extent.

This year's COMDEX came to Atlantic City, New Jersey, located on the Atlantic coast of Absecon Island, known as the Boardwalk Hall - Esplanade Convention Center and Casino, the largest casino on the East Coast of the United States.

After Tang Huan bragged to people from all walks of life at the COMDEX forum, he paid a private visit to the micro-service in the exhibition hall. There are a lot of new faces at this exhibition.

I have to say that where there is money to be made, capital with a keen sense of smell will jump there.

As Hawkins mentioned, Atari released the next generation of the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, and its performance made Tang Huan relieved and disappointed.

To put it bluntly, Atari really doesn't have any dry goods in its stomach, and the so-called next-generation home video game console, the Atari 5200, is just a modified version of its personal computer product, the Atari 400/800.

What's especially bad is that the Atari 5200 is not compatible with the Atari 2600. Apart from a handful of demo games, there are no ace games on the new platform.

That's all there is to it. The Atari 5200 can't even compare to the 1981 version of the Xiaobawang game console!

Could it be that Atari in Silicon Valley was just in a hurry to make a deal to the Warner executives in New York?

Tang Huan shook his head speechlessly, he was still counting on the Atari 5200 to explore the way to fight for control of the game platform from scratch, but now looking at this situation, it is lucky to be stillborn.

Compared with Atari's sluggishness, ColecoVision, a new home video game console launched by ColecoIndustries, is eye-catching.

Coleco is also an established company, founded in 1932, initially mainly producing leather goods, and in the fifties and sixties, it switched to plastic products and toys.

Coleco was keen to grasp the opportunity in the 1970s, when Atari pioneered the video game industry, and in 1976 he began to venture into the field.

Therefore, Coleco is also quite qualified, and ColecoVision is a product that can be called excellent.

There are basically two options for the CPUs used in today's home TV game consoles - Zilog's Z80 series and MOSTechnology's MOS6502 series, with ColecoVision using the former, the 3.58MHz ZilogZ80A of the second source NEC.

None of these configurations are much of a deal, and what really stands out about ColecoVision is that it claims to offer arcade-quality graphics and gameplay style.

This means that ColecoVision has put a lot of thought into the hardware design of the entire system, and the secret lies in the video processor used by Texas Instruments, a Texas Instruments TMS9928A, and the 16KB graphics memory on board.

Tang Huan took a closer look, and the selling point promoted by ColecoVision was not an exaggeration, and the effect it achieved even posed the most direct threat to EA's 1981 version of the Xiaobawang game console.

At the same time, Coleco has also carefully prepared the supporting games that can run on the hardware platform of the new game console, with a total of 12 new games debuted, and another 10 new games announced by the end of the year.

"It seems that in the North American market, after EA's Xiaobawang game console, Atari's Atari 2600, and Mattel's Intellivision, Coleco's ColecoVision will become the fourth important game console platform. ”

Tang Huan nodded and smiled playfully, "It's just a pity that this product was born at the wrong time, and it is difficult to get a good market for a year." ”

After sighing regretfully, Tang Huan continued to walk down. Soon he saw a product worth shining with - Vectrex from General Consumer Electronics.

and the Little Overlord game console, Atari 2600 these connected TVs. Unlike video game consoles that use raster graphics. Vectrex is a home game console with vector display, and manufacturers provide matching vector displays in addition to game consoles.

Monochrome-only Vectrex is designed to simulate colors, static graphics, and decorations by covering plastic screens.

In fact, vector displays are used in many mainstream arcade games at this stage, and Vectrex is introducing this technology to the field of home video game consoles. It is also licensed for such high-quality games.

The CPU used in the Vectrex console is Motorola's 8-bit microprocessor - 1.5MHz MC68A09, and the external equipment is a ray pen and 3Dimager.

After playing Vectrex's random built-in game "MineStorm" for a while, Tang Huan nodded with satisfaction, don't look at this thing as a bit niche, but there must be a market, and it is full of creativity, which is worthy of recognition.

After glancing at the $199 retail price tag, Tang Huan casually instructed his entourage, "Record it and find a suitable opportunity." Bought the company. ”

Because there weren't many people watching the crowd at this booth, the service staff at Vectrex wasn't too busy. Seeing that Tang Huan was very interested in his own products, he found an opportunity to come over and talk, and happened to hear what Tang Huan said.

"Sir, are you so interested in our products, are you going to buy one?" asked the other party happily.

"It's not interesting to just buy a game console, if you want to buy it, buy your company. After the assistant replied with a smile, he caught up with Tang Huan's footsteps leaving.

"Neurotic ......" The employee of General Consumer Electronics, who felt that he was being teased, cursed in an annoyed whisper.

……

This year, EA did not make any major adjustments to the hardware of the first generation of Xiaobawang game consoles, but only optimized external devices such as controllers, Gain1981 version of the Xiaobawang game console has been very perfect, and the real technical upgrade can only wait for the second generation of Xiaobawang game consoles.

Of course, EA can't be idle and inactive, the results of its work are mainly reflected in the software field, in addition to the Japanese company Miyamoto Shigeru and others continue to launch games on the Xiaobawang game console platform, the American company has been cooperating with Zheru's graphics processor plan, as well as the Fangyuan computer platform, improve the game engine, and launch video games on the personal computer platform.

In other words, EA wants to make Fangyuan PC its second game platform, and has ported a large number of best-selling games on the Xiaobawang console platform, and has also launched two beta versions of new PC games - turn-based "Monopoly" and "Grand Voyage".

Therefore, there is an interesting phenomenon on COMDEX, many people take the demo disks of "Monopoly" and "Grand Voyage" as a standard, and choose the Fangyuan computer and its compatible machine that suits their hearts.

This shows how popular these two games are, especially "The Great Voyage".

You must know that Tang Huan's Fisher treasure hunting fleet not only found the legacy of the Spanish treasure ship in the Age of Discovery, but also discovered the Titanic this year, which has become a legend.

In this context, the "Grand Voyage" video game launched by the trend, after EA released the product rumor, it has become the focus of attention of the industry and game fans.

EA's "Monopoly" and "Grand Voyage", even compared to the first version of similar games in the original plane, are still much worse in terms of visual effects, after all, the performance of personal computer systems is there now.

However, players at this stage are not demanding in this regard.

Therefore, "Monopoly" and "The Great Voyage", which are full of playability and connotation, touched the hearts of the public as soon as they appeared.

Ordinary people can only lament that EA, the leader of the video game industry, is really diligent in innovation, but people of insight have noticed that EA is increasingly investing resources in personal computer platforms, so as to carry out various analyses, which can be regarded as feeding a large number of media people.

Compared with EA's business strategy, the intention of Fangyuan Computer and Zheru Software is upright and clear at a glance, that is, to actively expand the sound processing capabilities and application fields of microcomputers.

To this end, Zheru has launched two software: audio editing software Audition and composition software CompositionMagic, so that the MIDI function of Fangyuan computer has a very intuitive embodiment.

Nearly all of the hackers who teamed up to create a product that was acceptable to the masses were music lovers, and the freedom that the PC represented to break through the monopoly privileges of the mainframe computer was also very popular with the artists.

As a result, personal computers have always had a delicate relationship with avant-garde artists, and the creation process of Audition, CompositionMagic, and MIDI itself was professionally supported by musicians.

Thereupon. The Fangyuan computer, which is increasingly outstanding in terms of sound function, has quickly gained recognition from people in the American music industry.

Of course, this benefit is not unique to Fangyuan Computer, and its increasingly powerful compatible machine camp also shares the benefits.

However, Tang Huan was not satisfied with these developments, and he decided to push it vigorously in the second half of the year.

……

AS FOR THE RIVAL OF THE FANGYUAN COMPUTER STANDARD CAMP, THE IBM-PC STANDARD CAMP, IT IS A LITTLE LONELY ON COMDEX.

Compared with the lively atmosphere of Fangyuan Computer, which has compatible machine allies such as HP and Japanese manufacturers, the blue giant is still singing a one-man show.

Fortunately, the troika on its platform -- spreadsheets, word processing, and databases -- is thriving, which can be regarded as the harvest of Don Estlic's previous active layout.

Because in addition to the purpose of attracting customers, Zheru will not develop products with complete functions like Fangyuan computer platform on the IBM-PC platform, so there are many software providers that are not suppressed, and the competition on the IBM-PC platform is very fierce.

For example, in the field of spreadsheets, VisiCalc, which has taken advantage of the first-mover advantage to gain a technical advantage, has raised the price of its products from $100 to $250 per copy to increase profits, while latecomers such as SuperCalc and Multiplan have unceremoniously launched fierce competition.

In particular, Microsoft's Multiplan, under the painstaking efforts of Gates to steal teachers everywhere, has increasingly shown its advantages in learning from others.

However, Tang Huan can't see the achievements of these entrants, and those who can still survive in two years are called true heroes.

In this way, Tang Huan still quietly continued the plan to acquire all kinds of small fresh meat on COMDEX. (To be continued......)