Kyoto, Japan, Ren Hell Headquarters Building.

Ren Jigoku's traditional Japanese company started as a production flower and obtained listing qualifications through good sales of poker. Nature also adheres to the principle of being down-to-earth, and what you can do by yourself, you must definitely do it yourself.

Perhaps, American companies will also play some OEM and other means. Find a balance between cost and quality. However, traditional Japanese companies believe that without their own factories, it is like a rootless and lifeblood, which is saved in the hands of others.

Because of this, Ren Hell only has more than 4,000 employees, if you remove the factory part. Only the R&D department remains, and the rest of its people may look like hundreds of people.

No matter how automated a processing plant is, it is still a labor-intensive industry. The profit of this part is far less than the profit of the R&D link. This is also the reason why some European and American companies choose the OEM model.

Of course, Japan has a natural advantage in that it has a large number of people, and all of them are hard-working. Therefore, the products produced can be much cheaper than American products. In the head-to-head confrontation of market competition, almost all European and American companies, as well as those that compete with them, have been losing ground one after another, and finally retreating to high-end fields that the Japanese are not yet able to reach. If, one day, Japan catches up with the pace of high-end fields, it will be almost a catastrophe for American companies.

Yamauchi stood behind Yokoi with a serious expression, watching him fiddle with a home game console from Chiba Games.

Gunpei Yokoi's head was covered with sweat, and he looked at this game console with a complicated expression. Because, on this game console, he can see a lot of elements of the game console he is designing. Among them, the most obvious is the D-pad he just used on the Donkey Kong version of the game watch.

What a hell of a thing.

The sweat on his head was non-stop.

Next to him, there are Shigeru Miyamoto, Sakata and others inside Ren Hell. He is a leader in important positions such as game production and hardware development.

Press the switch.

The dynamic rhythm of "Super Mario" came out of the speakers of the TV. The music, which was originally quite interesting, was indeed like a death knell to everyone.

Shigeru Miyamoto looked at the game that gave him a special feeling. Holding the handle in his hand, he manipulated Mario, who was dressed in red, and kept bouncing. Without paying attention, his subordinate Mario died.

The game screen went black and became an off-hand operation.

Yokoi Junhei I have this handle. It looks almost no different from Mario, except that the color has changed, and the red hat has become Luigi in the green hat. Start controlling it for the game.

In his head, he thought about the principle of realizing the color change. It didn't take long to get a clue. He had already seen the game "Super Mario" before, and it had a capacity of less than forty kilobytes. Knowing that to put so much content in such a small capacity can almost be called a "miracle".

And Mario and Luigi, this pair of characters are the same except for the different colors. The actual implementation principle should look like this.

That's when using the same pixel sprite. Different colors on the index palette. In fact, in the process of gaming, as a professional game maker, the hardware shrinks a little expert. Yokoi has seen many miraculous things like turning mountains into clouds just by changing colors.

He was amazed that Chiba Games had a similar design idea for this home console. If anything, it's different.

That is, the test model of Ren Hell's internal home machine does not have the meaning of a built-in mobile scroll. In fact, they are now designed for home machines with the purpose of it. It is to allow players to sit at home and play Donkey Kong.

Ren Hell is very good at self-study and digging on a successful product. For example. Recently, Shigeru Miyamoto has been working on the sequel to "Donkey Kong". It tells the story of Little Donkey Kong, who saves his father Donkey Kong from the evil Mario.

Yamauchi's thinking is very clear, since Ren Hell is in the arcade market, it is impossible to have dominance, so open up a new market. Be one of the first to enter this new market. Before others reacted, they occupied the entire market with good software and hardware, as well as cheap prices.

Buying game consoles and selling games don't make money, monopoly makes money. Only by judging can we enjoy the greatest benefits.

Shigeru Miyamoto's attention is different from that of Yokoi, he focuses more on the level design of this game.

In fact, game maker is a more difficult profession. He can't be imaginative, and he can't imagine the unattainable. Like a shackled creator, he achieves the best image quality he can achieve despite the limitations of performance.

The more Shigeru Miyamoto looked at the game's level settings, the more he felt that the person who designed the game was really amazing. Because, it can barely say a word, allowing the player to discover all the basic operations of the game with their own exploration. And throughout the game, there is no place to seem boring. The difficulty is moderate, not too difficult but not easy.

He had the same frustration as Yokoi's heart.

Because, after producing the critically acclaimed "Donkey Kong", Shigeru Miyamoto already thinks that his game planning level has reached the first-class level in the industry. In fact, his game design philosophy is much more advanced than most.

He is not repeating the game routines that have already achieved results on the market. Instead, he almost abandoned what he thought was a boring premise and came up with a whole new genre. Although it is the early days of video games, there are many types of games that have not yet been discovered. But even if that's the case, it's not like there are a lot of people who haven't discovered new, beloved game genres. And he found out, and that's telling.

Of course, you can't criticize the rest of the game producers because they are all low-level porters who have no brains and can only carry. They may have their own ideas, their own new types of games they want to make. However, his company does not necessarily allow such behavior.

Because, if it fails, it is a great damage to the company. The money invested in the development of the game is almost wasted.

It is still suitable for companies to carry games, because they don't have to invest much in R&D, and they don't have to bear many sunk costs that users can't see at all. As long as the silent handling, let the company this small boat. It would be nice to be able to continue to move forward in the east wind of the times. As for the matter of pilotage, most bosses are very "self-aware." "Not yet. I retreated from the difficulties and chose to do the easy things.

"Tell me what you think of this machine...... Yamauchi said, looking at everyone and touching the handle.

He doesn't play video games himself, it's Donkey Kong and game watches that connect to the company portal. Haven't touched it. I have to say, what an amazing thing this is for someone who leads a gaming company.

It's like Yuki Chiba, the supreme commander of the de facto Chiba game. Even if she doesn't like to play video games, she spends a lot of time playing all the games in the world. Only by doing so can she make what games are good and what games are bad. Only when you have more knowledge can you not be fooled.

If you don't. She was really afraid that one day, she would take the unfun game as a masterpiece.

Not playing a game doesn't mean not knowing the game. Or, President Yamauchi, who has already watched all the video games under the help of his secretary.

In the future, there will be many such people who obviously don't like to play games, but they like to spend money to watch others play games. The reason why he spends money is probably because he can experience the pleasure that comes from watching.

Lin Yan didn't know either. Watching other people play games, what can be so good. It's not a girl who plays the game, and there's no ball.

"The machine is quite mature and stable, ahead of the company's schedule. At least more than five months later. Yokoi said after thinking about it.

Yamauchi nodded, then turned to Shigeru Miyamoto.

"The design ideas of the game content are also very mature. There are no more than five game planners on the market who can produce such rich content and completeness. Shigeru Miyamoto thought for a while and said.

Sakata, who is actually responsible for the hell home game console project, said, "I'm worried about one issue right now. It is. This machine uses a lot of designs that share my ideas, and if the other party has a registered patent, it will be a big problem. We had to change the design and get around the mountain of patents on the other side. ”

The rest of the deputies also finished expressing their opinions.

The televisions were turned off, and the room was silent. Yamauchi looked around at these talents who came out in the arcade production and game watch production, with a serious face and no expression. Even if he didn't say a word, it brought huge pressure to everyone who did it again.

To every employee inside Ren Hell, Yamauchi Pu is like an emperor. Not only the emperor, but also the kind of tyrant who is too serious and does not give people much intimacy.

It's not that everyone hasn't discussed their own president in private, but no one dares to comment on it in person. Because, for a family member who even holds an important position in the company, he can use forcible means to get them out. It's much easier to let outsiders get out of the house than to let the family get out.

Yamauchi's silence also caused many people to question. Whether someone handed over the design drawings in the confidential stage to a friend is also a very confusing thing.

The working environment in Japan is not easy and always a little depressing. In this oppressive circle, most people like to protect themselves.

They are reluctant to accept tasks and take responsibility. Because, if you don't have a task, it doesn't mean that you won't make mistakes, and if you can't make mistakes, you won't delay promotions and salary increases. As for how the company should develop when everyone starts to be perfunctory, no one really cares.

Perhaps, among some people, the company is a very huge monster, even if they don't work so hard, they won't starve to death this monster.

After looking around, Yamauchi nodded dispensably. He thought for a while, and then said to Sakata and Yokoi Gunpei, "How much more time will it take you to make a home game console?" ”

"President, at least half a year to a year." Yokoi Gunpei glanced at Sakata and saw that he didn't mean to speak. Knowing that he didn't want to take on this responsibility, he said it himself.

Yokoi Junhei, in the current Ren Hell, is a very interesting character. He was almost in the hell of Ren, and he was the first person under the mountain of Pu. The person Yamauchi Pu trusts the most is him.

This is not because Yokoi Junhei may be the illegitimate son of Pu Yamauchi, such a "hot news". It was Yokoi Junhei, who achieved it with his own strength.

More than once, with the products he invented, he saved Ren Hell who was about to capsize.

After Ren Hell went public in Tokyo and the Big Board, he had plenty of money in his hands. With so much money, what Yamauchi Pu thinks about the most is to expand the scale of the company as soon as possible, to blossom in many ways, and finally establish a three-dimensional ecological Ren Hell Empire.

However, for a company engaged in the production of flowers and cards. It is still too difficult to let it transform into instant noodles, taxis, office buildings, and hotels.

No one in hell knows how to do these things. So, of course, the business crisis that Ren Hell has fallen into is about to go bankrupt.

At this time, Yokoi Junhei relied on the toys he produced, super strange hands, to save the almost bankrupt Ren Hell. The toy, called Super Strange Hands, sold a million copies during the Christmas shopping season in the United States that year. A cash flow injection of tens of millions of dollars instantly saved Ren Hell from the capital chain that was about to collapse.

The second time was when the gaming watch was launched. Toys like Super Weird Hands can only be used as disposable consumer goods. Because, no child will like to buy an outdated toy. The little ones are buying what others are buying.

Therefore, although Ren Hell was stabbed with a super strange hand of heart booster, he soon fell into a crisis. Because, its fundamental business model has not changed.

And when Gunpei Yokoi made a gaming watch, after success. Yamauchi made up his mind. Strip off all the industries that are not related to video games, except for the card flower book, which are the "feelings" of the company. Concentrate on the field of video games.

This time there was a result, it was Shigeru Miyamoto's "Donkey Kong". This video game doesn't have to be too powerful. It can even be said that the first peripheral copyright development income may be greater than the profit from the sale of arcade machines. (To be continued.) )