In the eyes of outsiders, Nintendo is a listed company.

There should be countless financial resources behind it, and no matter how bad it is, there will be no financial pressure.

However, the opposite is true, Nintendo at this time is riddled with debt.

And the reason for today's situation is not unrelated to Yamauchi's own toss.

His father disappeared and took over Nintendo at the age of 21. Although Yamauchi has made Nintendo's traditional products, flower ties and poker products to the top of the neon stream.

But when he visited the world's largest poker company in the United States, he was disappointed.

Originally, I thought that such a company headquarters must be located in a high-rise building, and it was very magnificent.

However, when you arrive at the poker headquarters, you are greeted by a small office and factory.

That's it? Hiroshi Yamauchi was disappointed, and the top company in poker was nothing more than that.

How much room is there for Nintendo to grow in this industry?

So Yamauchi, who had a sense of crisis, began to toss.

First, a masonry taxi company was established, and after a few years of operation, because it was unprofitable, it was sold again.

Later, instant noodles that had just appeared in the 60s were very popular, and he couldn't sit still and invented instant rice soaked in water.

He believes that rice is a rigid need for people, and instant rice is a track full of golden light.

So Xingchong built a factory for production, and the result was naturally self-evident, and it was sparse.

Do you think that's the end of it? No, the young Yamauchi Bo started a love hotel again.

You heard that right, it's that kind of hotel. As for the business situation?

Ahem, it seems that in the end, the hotel only welcomed one guest, Yamauchi.

However, Yamauchi still did not give up, and in 1971 he began to engage in Nintendo office supplies and household goods.

Naturally, there is a lack of achievements, but the toy industry that was involved in the same period has finally improved.

Even the developed ray guns sold well, just as the bowling craze subsided and a large number of bowling alleys were transferred.

This made the little genius Yamauchi who was reading the newspaper think of another idea, and it was a big business.

That is to use the light gun to transform the abandoned bowling alley field into a shooting range.

Just do it, after the launch of the first shooting range, the effect was overwhelming.

People lined up to experience this novel entertainment, so Yamauchi struck while the iron was hot and bought bowling alleys.

If I didn't have enough money, I went to the bank for a loan, and finally bought a large number of bowling alleys.

After all the site renovation was completed, I was preparing to do a big job, but I encountered an oil crisis again.

The neon economy fell into a brief recession, and entertainment facilities became the first projects to be scaled back.

As a result, all of Nintendo's shooting range business was reduced to nothing, and for this it was still in debt of billions of yen.

If it weren't for the improvement of the arcade business in the past two years, Nintendo might have gone bankrupt long ago.

Even so, Yamauchi often sighs, "I don't know how long I can last, but every day is like walking a tightrope." ”

This is the current situation that Nintendo is in, because of the legacy of history, with a large amount of debt.

Now that I have finally seen the considerable profits brought by GW, how can Yamauchi not care.

It is no exaggeration to say that GW has almost been regarded as his lifeline.

At first, he didn't take Shirakawa Electric's entry seriously, after all, the other party was a cross-industry outsider.

However, when he learned from Yokoi Junhei that the opponent's handheld was better than his own, he was much more cautious.

Another uneasy opponent, Yamauchi sighed softly.

The other party can compete directly with a giant company like Sony, and live very well, it must not be so easy to get along.

Especially the other party's large-scale investment, Yamauchi is envious.

Maybe Shirakawa Electric at this moment will be stronger than Nintendo in terms of financial resources alone.

At least they don't have any foreign debts, and they don't look like they're short of money.

But the more this is the case, the more Nintendo can't let anything go wrong in the handheld business.

He has already decided that Nintendo will launch a GW handheld every month.

If the quality is not enough, then the quantity will make up.

In short, Nintendo not only has to eat the cake of the handheld, but also eats it quickly.

…

In July, Shirakawa Electric's handheld GAME BOY has gained a lot of attention since its release.

First, the current Shirakawa Electric is no longer a nobody, and every move will be reported by the media.

Second, it is a cross-industry operation, and the video game industry is still an unknown market.

Such a bold move naturally attracted everyone's attention, and everyone was curious about how Shirakawa Electric would perform next.

Some media praised Shirakawa Electric's courage and diligence, and some media sang that Shirakawa Electric was about to encounter its own Waterloo.

As a result, not long after the release of GAME BOY, there were professional media who couldn't wait to evaluate all aspects.

However, the results of the evaluation turned out to be surprisingly good.

At the moment, there are only two companies doing handheld business, and the evaluation and comparison are naturally between the two.

However, Nintendo, as a pioneer, is inferior to Shirakawa Electric in all aspects.

This...? For a while, everyone even wondered if they had reversed the result.

No matter what Nintendo says, it is also a veteran practitioner. From arcade to home console, to handheld now.

Will this proper industry leader lose to a new rising star?

However, the public will not care who has the most professional handheld.

Beautiful looks, fun games, cheap prices, that's all there is to it.

So not long after it was launched, GAME BOY, whose reputation was gradually fermenting, became a fashion darling in one fell swoop.

The tension and excitement of "Thunder and Lightning" and the simplicity and fun of "Snake" have deeply attracted young men and women.

This kind of portable game console can use fragmented time to bring entertainment and spiritual enjoyment to the public.

I have to say, this is indeed a pioneering feat.

So in less than two weeks, Shirakawa Electric's GAME BOY announced that it had sold 200,000 units.

This figure makes the market even more boiling.

"Game Console" magazine directly exclaimed, "A new game force has been born! Shirakawa Electric will be a giant in the future!"

This result is too eye-catching, although the handheld is cheap, but it can't stand up to sell so much.

Now the name of "Thunderbolt" can be described as famous.

Of course, Shirakawa Electric's handheld is extremely popular, and Nintendo's handheld is naturally not bad as a pioneer.

This market is basically blank, plus the handheld price is cheap.

Shipments have far exceeded the expectations of the two, and the market is far from saturated.

Such a big piece of fat made many onlookers directly red-eyed.

So before July ended, more than a dozen clubs began to set up a portable game console project business.

Not only them, but even some big factories are starting to move.

…

"Your company's game handheld business seems to be doing quite well lately."

In an auditorium in Tokyo, Norio Ohga listened to a speech on the rostrum.

While casually chatting with the people around him, he chatted about the recent handheld trend.

Shirakawa Kaede rolled his gaze in some surprise, "What, Sony is also planning to enter the field of video games?" ”

Norio Ohga smiled elegantly, "Sony's current strategic focus is on the stage, and Sony doesn't know much about video games, and he doesn't plan to get involved. ”

I hope you can always think like this in the future, Bai Chuanfeng secretly teased.

Seeing that Norio Ohga no longer spoke, Shirakawa Kaede also turned his gaze back to the rostrum, where a speech debate was taking place.

Establishment of a standard for next-generation audio formats.

Since most of the parties involved are Japanese companies, this year's International Audio Association Conference was also held in Tokyo.

As a member of the CD camp, Shirakawa Electric was naturally invited.

Moreover, Shirakawa Kaede was personally invited by Norio Oga to participate in the audio conference as a representative.

Anyway, it's in Tokyo, and it's a meeting related to the setting of industry standards, so Shirakawa Kaede will naturally not be absent.

At this moment, there are two sides of the debate on the stage, one side is the representative of Sony, and the other side is the representative of JVC.

They are competing with each other on the disc format they have developed.

The battle is more fierce than imagined, after all, it is a battle of formats.

If anyone loses, then it means that all the previous research and development efforts have been lost. A lot of manpower and material resources have to be wasted.

However, seeing He Dianxiong's confident appearance, he knew what the final result was.

Sure enough, in the actual disc trial session, the CD jointly developed by Sony and Philips ran smoothly, and the sound was clear and fidelity.

And the AHD disc developed by JVC and Panasonic, although the sound quality is not bad, but the fluency is not good, and the disc is stuck in less than two minutes.

Seeing the other engineer's sweaty pounce on the machine to remedy, Shirakawa Kaede shook his head, the end was decided.

Unsurprisingly, in the final selection process, the rotating president of the association announced that CD will become the mainstream format of the next generation of audio.

With thunderous applause at the scene, representatives of Norio Ohga and Philips jointly took the stage to give speeches.

They looked forward to the bright future of CD and their vision of working together to contribute to the audio industry.

Finally, Ogashi ambitiously announced that Sony would fully commercialize CDs and their players in the Japanese market in '82.

Tsk, big companies are different, and they are very confident.

The format has just fallen over there, and the launch time of the companion player has been announced here.

The R&D time starts today, which is actually very tight.

After all, it's a new technology, a new product, and there's no reference to it.

Fortunately, Shirakawa Kaede knew that the CD would win, so he had already laid out the layout in advance.

The stupid bird flies first, hoping to catch up with giants like Sony.

"I heard that Shirakawa Electric has set up a branch in the United States?" Norio Ohga, who returned to his seat, asked casually.

"After all, it is the country where the patent of the Shirakawa Electric Walkman is registered, alas, it is too late to go back, and I am ashamed of the fathers and fellow villagers of the United States."

Norio Ohga was stunned for a moment, and this guy's shamelessness refreshed his impression again.

However, he did not bother with Shirakawa Electric stepping overseas.

Although Shirakawa Kaede is a little shameless, he also points out that he has overseas patents.

The Walkman is a native product of the European and American markets.

Isn't that how it should be, what's so surprising?

Whether it is local or overseas, everyone competes fairly and depends on their ability.

(End of chapter)