As the saying goes, fertile water does not flow into the fields of outsiders, after the scale of Zheru exceeded 100 employees, Tang Huan asked Tang Wenmao to open a Chinese restaurant nearby to provide catering services for the company.

Tang Huan, the boss, not only satisfied his appetite, but also played a good role in demonstration, and Zheru's employees became more and more fond of Chinese food.

The place to eat with Bushnell is arranged in Tang Huan's office, exquisite four meat and four vegetables, plus a soup, completely prepared in accordance with the habits of Chinese food, although there are many tricks, but the amount of each dish is not large, while ensuring that the two of them enjoy, it will not be too wasteful.

The problem of food waste in the world's leading power has always been serious, and there is no need to follow this bad habit.

The bearded Bushnell was very free, and after sitting opposite Tang Huan, he directly picked up the bowl of appetizing soup made of tomatoes and took a big sip.

Tang Huan looked at the other party with a smile, and he could see that Bushnell was living a very open and selfish life.

It's no wonder that this person is only thirty-six years old this year, and he has already relied on his own entrepreneurship to become a rich man, and he has tried the hippie lifestyle of psychedelics, and he has also had the experience of holding power, and it seems that even his wife has been upgraded.

"I heard you've been away from Atari for a while, where are you making your fortune now?" Tang Huan said the opening sentence knowingly.

"Now I'm in charge of Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-TimeTheaters, which combines fast food, gaming, and entertainment."

Speaking of this, Bushnell had a stupid look on his face, "When I left Atari in November last year, I signed a seven-year non-compete agreement with Warners, otherwise, hmph, I have to, hum......"

Tang Huan sighed without moving, and his heart couldn't help but be disappointed, it seemed that his preferred plan was no longer feasible, and in the next few years, Bushnell would no longer be able to engage in business that competed with Atari.

It's not surprising how Warner's managers could leave a hidden danger for the Atari they bought at a great price, and its business methods should be so old-fashioned.

As the third-oldest film company in the United States, Warner, which has changed hands several times, has expanded its business scope day by day, and has long been no longer limited to its old business, and its involvement in the field of video game consoles is a clear proof of this.

In 1966, Jack Warner sold his shares in Warner Pictures and Warner Records for $32 million to Seven Arts Productions, a company owned by Canadian brothers Elliot and Kenneth.

Since then, Warner has changed its name to Warner Bros. - Seven Arts Pictures, and Jack Warner has remained as the company's president.

Two years later, the brothers sold their stake in Warner to Kinney National Company for $64 million.

Ted Ashley, also known as Ted Ashley, was the main force behind Steve Ross, president of Kinney Nation, to buy Warner Bros., and after the deal was successful, he took the position of the new president of Warner Bros. and changed the name of the company back to Warner Bros. Pictures.

Disheartened by these successive transactions, Jack Warner decided to retire, becoming the last of the four Warner brothers to leave.

Although the movie's audience was declining, Warner's new owners still believed in the star's box office appeal and signed contracts with many of the box office stars of the time.

In addition, in 1969, Warner bought DC Comics and produced a series of blockbuster movies such as "Superman" and "Batman". Box office stars with the aforementioned film adaptation of the comics made Warners in the 1970s lucrative.

Shortly after the purchase of Warner, Kinney National changed its name to Warner Communications.

It was this company that expanded its business to include Atari and later purchased Six Flags Theme Park.

According to the historical trajectory, by the end of the 1980s, Warner Communication, which was star-oriented, merged with Times Inc., which was good at investment, to become a more famous Time Warner company.

In 2000, Time Warner bought AOL, whose stock price was soaring in the dot-com bubble, and renamed it AOL-Time Warner.

The Atari faced by Tang Huan hides these old foxes who are well versed in capital operation, and it is normal for Bushnell to be cleaned up by others.

However, Tang Huan believes that if Bushnell resigns from Atari's position and rolls up and leaves the company he founded, Warner will definitely pay a handsome compensation accordingly.

Of course, this is a matter of personal privacy, and Tang Huan is not interested in inquiring.

Although it was impossible to take Bushnell under his account, seeing his unwilling appearance, Tang Huan decided to take advantage of the situation to add fuel to the fire and increase the rift between Bushnell and Warner, so as not to get together again in the future.

So, Tang Huan asked sympathetically: "When you sold Atari to Warner, didn't you agree on the structure of power distribution?" ”

"Of course, there is an agreement, and long-term employment of me and other employees is one of the conditions. On top of that, I negotiated a fairly favorable bonus plan and was assured that I would have autonomy over the product line after the Atari acquisition. ”

Bushnell shrugged helplessly, "But the promises of those capitalists, you know, ended up being." ”

Tang Huan sighed regretfully, "I won't tell you the truth, I took the liberty of inviting my brother here today to let you, a pioneer in the video game industry, help me run the Xiaobawang game console, and by the way, prove that since you can create Atari, then you can also defeat Atari." But you've reached a non-compete agreement with Warner, so you can only give up. ”

"If you can create Atari, you can also beat Atari." After Bushnell muttered excitedly a few times, he slapped his thigh in despair, "Alas, what you said is what I want to do, but the scope of my current work has been limited by Warner, helpless, those damn capitalists." ”

Tang Huan secretly smiled bitterly in his heart, at present, you and I are both bosses, and we also belong to the category of capitalists, and I don't know who you want to scold, brother.

"However, even if I can't go out myself, you can defeat Atari only a matter of time." Bushnell made a statement.

"Why?" Tang Huan put on a posture of listening to his ears.

"Ray Casal, a shirt merchant, has carried out a personnel purge since he took office, and the outstanding technical strength I have accumulated has been quickly weakened, and many people have left." Bushnell was dismissive of his successor.

Although it feels normal for Casal to adjust personnel after taking office, Tang Huan naturally wants to do a full set of acts, and echoed, "That's really self-defeating, so the company's creativity will inevitably be affected." ”

"Don, although we met for the first time, we are bosom friends, and I think so too." Bushnell had a look of acquaintance on his face, "A few of the best programmers left Atari and founded Activision in early October of this year, and most of Atari's organization and work were on the verge of collapse. ”

Looking at the gloating look on Bushnell's face, Tang Huan suddenly realized that Activision was not the famous Activision company. In 2008, Activision merged with Vivendi Games to form the new "Activision Blizzard" company, making Blizzard Entertainment its subsidiary.

Activision was founded by Jim Levy (Jim Levy) in the music industry, and four of Atari's top programmers, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead.

It can be said that Activision, as the first third-party game publisher, was born out of Atari.

Because of this deep connection, the first product released by Activision was a game cartridge used on the Atari 2600 console.

Because of the complex conflict of interest, Atari sued Activision, only to lose the case, and other manufacturers took the opportunity to land on the Atari 2600 platform and developed a large number of games of varying quality to compete with Atari.

In the previous life, the collapse of Atari had a lot to do with the loss of control over its own hardware platform, and it simply could not eliminate all kinds of inferior games that caused user dissatisfaction, while Nintendo learned a lesson and created a strict margin system, thus maintaining the orderly long-term development of game consoles.

"Although those people are the core technical strength, I am afraid that you have left more than that." Tang Huan complimented.

"That's true." Bushnell nodded triumphantly, "But what's the use, this guy Crain doesn't care about the follow-up upgrade and development of the Atari 2600 at all." ”

Speaking of this, Bushnell smiled, "The actual game performance of the Xiaobawang game console is so good, I bought a few out of curiosity, took it apart and looked at it, and found that it surpassed the Atari 2600 in terms of hardware specifications." When I developed the Atari 2600, the memory was still relatively expensive, so it was only equipped with 128 bytes, which was too far from the Xiaobawang. ”

As soon as the conversation changed, Bushnell scolded angrily: "Casal, this short-sighted guy, he doesn't understand the current level of development of the semiconductor industry at all, and if he doesn't improve the Atari 2600 for a long time, defeat is an inevitable result." What's more, the game console competitors on the market are not the only ones. The more recent a product is on the market, the better its performance. ”

"If you say that, I can rest easy."

Tang Huan laughed, but there was not the slightest joy in his eyes.

Bushnell's remarks are just one-sided words, and the current game console market has just taken shape, and it is a mess that cannot be applied by conventional theories.

Therefore, the popularity of a product may not be insured by relying solely on the technology gap.

Isn't Microsoft's DOS an example in the previous life, although it is backward, but it is still making a lot of money.

It would be naïve to believe Bushnell's cannonballs.

However, the other party did let himself know a lot about the recent situation of Atari, and it was not without gain.

Seeing people and talking about people, talking about ghosts, and dealing with all kinds of people is one of Tang Huan's strengths.

Bushnell was treated to great satisfaction, and when he was leaving, he put his arm on Tang Huan's shoulder and said, "When you have time, go to my Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theater for a visit, it's very interesting." ”

"Be sure to visit then." Tang Huan agreed, and personally put Bushnell in the car and watched him leave.

When Tang Huan walked back from the side of the road, he happened to meet Tripp Hawkins again.

"It seems that the will of God is like this, and EA must be born in his own hands." Tang Huan's eyes flashed, and he secretly pondered in his heart.