"These things will be discussed in detail when the United States has feedback." Chen Zhiwen said: ""Space Invaders" is about to be released, Henry Morgan will take our samples to the United States for testing in the next few days, there should be no problems, according to the previous sales cycle, after half a year, a game will enter a period of recession, so we have to consider making the next game." ”

"Our team has also made several games in the past year or so, but the results have been poor after being sent to the United States for testing." Lei Shengli said with some embarrassment.

Although Midea currently has a lot of business, everyone knows that the most important thing is arcade games, and even all other businesses, rely on the huge profits of arcades to develop, otherwise, there is not enough capital, and under the pressure of operating losses, a lot of R&D investment and technological achievements are impossible. Therefore, Midea has naturally set up a professional game development team internally, and many Chinese engineers have been recruited from Wanwan and even the United States, and two or three games have been made, but the result is not very good, and it can even be said that no one cares.

"I don't need you, I've already written the content outline for this game this time, you just need to follow this development." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said.

Try to make games under his own hands, he naturally knows, failure is normal, success is accidental, even impossible, the history of arcades is very short, can be suitable for arcades, just a few games, and after the popularity of home game consoles, the number of classic games has increased, but most of them are not suitable for arcades, these two business logic is different, one is to play for a short time, play games and then spend money to play, the other is to consume user time to increase fun, completely opposite directions.

The difficulty of the former is naturally much higher than that of the latter, as long as the family game machine is fun, and the arcade machine, it requires the user to have fun in a very short time, and then want to spend money to play another game, but it is very difficult to do this, and if the user plays for too long, the direct customers led by the bar owner will not make money.

The success of Midea has actually attracted the attention of many international electronic giants, some of whom want to come in and get a piece of the pie, but there is no market for several games launched, and even these companies don't understand the market at all.

For his company, he also doesn't expect to develop new arcade-friendly games now, study the technology, creativity, and market demand, and then wait for the era of home consoles and computer games to be able to make its own blood.

Now, it's better to rely on the prophet's cheating, after all, people in this era are all novices in video games, and they are very willing to spend money for the game, and if they earn enough money, the development of their own company can be better.

After speaking, Chen Zhiwen took out a document from the drawer beside him, handed it to Lei Shengli, and said, "This game is called Pac-Man, you can take a look first." ”

"Okay." Lei Shengli took the document, then read it carefully, and about 15 minutes later, he closed the document.

"How?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"It doesn't seem to be as exciting as Space Invaders." Lei Shengli said with some hesitation.

"That's right, this game itself is not exciting, but relaxing." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said: "The few games we launched before have a lot of pressure on players, and this "Pac-Man" is actually to relax and let everyone play the game easily. ”

"Chen Sheng, you mean, it served as a foil for our previous games? When everyone is tired of playing, can you play this to relax? Lei Shengli asked.

"Understandable, right? But it's okay to play alone, mainly because our previous games, or other games on the market, are all overdrawn players' energy in this way, and the players' psychological estimates have reached the limit, so let's take the opposite route and try it. Chen Zhiwen smiled and said.

In the original history, just one "Space Invaders" was popular in the United States for nearly a year, and for such a long time, there are basically no other types of games, all of which are similar plagiarized versions, you know, no matter how fun the game, no matter how delicious the food, no matter how beautiful the girl, after a long time, you will always get tired.

After a long time, players who often play also have a rejection mentality, which is why Chen Zhiwen arranged for his game to be replaced in about 6-9 months, in order to maintain the interest of this group of major customers in the game, and at the same time obtain the best profit for Midea.

A year later, Pac-Man once again completely dominated the entire market because it was so relaxed, and even better, because it existed, many people would occasionally reminisce about games like Space Invaders, so that bar owners could make more money.

In this life, there were magic cubes and snakes before "Space Invaders", although these two games are not the same as "Space Invaders", not so exciting, but they also consume brain cells, according to common sense, after more than half a year, "Space Invaders" appeared in all bars, and some people are tired of playing, they will not want to play this game anymore.

At this time, the appearance of "Pac-Man" is the best time.

"Okay, I see, then I'll immediately arrange for our team to develop this game." Lei Shengli said.

"This is the first time that our Hong Kong team has developed this kind of game, and Pac-Man is more difficult to develop than the previous games, and Woz is not there, are you sure?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

Many things in history are not accidental, just like the emergence of various games, it is basically a basic law, that is, the games that appeared later are more difficult to develop and require more hardware chips than the previous games.

Ping Pong, Arkanoid, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Tank Battles, Mario, The King of Fighters, etc., are this law, with the improvement of chip capabilities, complex games will be developed, and only a few games do not follow this rule, such as Tetris, which is an accidental invention.

Although "Pac-Man" is a light-hearted game, the page background, game running speed, and algorithm requirements are much stronger than "Space Invaders".

"I don't dare to say how sure I am, I only know after I try it." Lei Shengli looked at the hand-drawn picture on the Chinese part, and also knew that this task was not easy, although the Hong Kong team had also developed several games before, but they were all super simple and similar to bricks, which was too far from the requirements of "Pac-Man".

"Okay, then let's try, and if I'm not sure, I'll call Woz to help out." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said: "You also know that Wads is now working on developing a new computer at Apple, and it is estimated that there is not much time. ”

Apple has become famous in the United States since the launch of Apple's second-generation personal computer at last year's Los Angeles Electronics Show, and then the entire company is no longer a garage company, but under the management of the relevant management team, it began to formalize development, Watts became Apple's chief technology officer, and his work in Midea was suspended after consulting with Chen Zhiwen.

For Chen Zhiwen, the value of Watts is obviously greater in Apple, as long as Apple is listed as in the original history, or listed earlier, then he can get hundreds of millions of dollars in shares, as for arcade development, the chip field has developed rapidly in recent years, iterative upgrades have been made several times, and the function has been greatly improved, although for the arcade, it is not overperformance, but it is not as good as in previous years, and the cost cannot be reduced because the number of chips cannot be controlled.

If there is really a problem that can't be solved on your own side, it's a big deal to find Woz again, as Woz's once most generous and "good" boss to him, and also one of Apple's largest shareholders, this face is still no problem.

"The design of the software, I think we should be fine, and the hardware, we may need the help of colleagues in the United States." Lei Shengli said.

"It's good to cooperate." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said, although the United States is a Hong Kong enterprise, but it does not expect the core technology to be mastered by Hong Kong, and the talent pool of the entire Hong Kong cannot meet this requirement, just like Nokia at the peak of the 20th century, the country behind it is only a small population country, and Nokia's large number of R&D bases are still released to the world.

The future of beauty is naturally the same, and here in Hong Kong, it is enough to have a little bit.

"By the way, how is the cooperation business that I was talking about with Toyota?" Chen Zhiwen suddenly asked again.

Lei Shengli said: "Toyota, on the other hand, did not agree to let us be their supplier of refrigeration compressors, and only considered handing over the business of mobile motors and seat fans to us. ”

"Isn't the relationship in place?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"No, we've already met a deputy head of Toyota's purchasing department through an intermediary, and he also wants to pull us into the supply chain of the refrigeration assembly department, but the three companies that supply Toyota in Japan also have deep connections, and they are trying to prevent us from entering the market." Lei Shengli said.

"The cake in here is too big, and it's really not easy for us to get in and separate the cakes." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

In the past two years, Chen Zhiwen, as the boss, has mainly been responsible for major matters such as the acquisition of Hutchison, the merger of Whampoa, the resolution of Hutchison's debt problem, the layout of the real estate market, the construction of Midea Industrial Park, and the attention to the overseas arcade game market.

In addition to maintaining good cooperative relations with Costco and Wal-Mart, the relevant professional managers are also making every effort to expand other customer markets, such as Celtic, the largest supermarket in the United States, several large supermarkets in Europe, etc., and at the same time, they are also looking for suitable distributors in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas, and do their best to develop new customers.

Midea's home appliances are in a very interesting intermediate state, in terms of technology, not as famous as European, American and Japanese brands, but the cost is much lower, and compared with many real miscellaneous brands, the technology is much stronger, thanks to a large amount of money in research and development, the acquisition of patents, and the cost reduction and experience accumulation after large-scale production.

Under this advantage, the sales volume brought by the development business of Midea's home appliance business team even exceeded Costco and Wal-Mart, which is a very good sign, and the company's self-hematopoietic ability is getting stronger and stronger, which is also the goal that Chen Zhiwen has been pursuing.

In the auto parts business, because of the abundant funds, several major Japanese automobile companies of Midea are also very willing to spend money, and the company's team has been developing new business for Toyota.

Midea began to make its own motors in 1973, starting from fan motors, because it has been investing in research and development, or buying overseas technology and production lines, and now the shipments have surpassed Hong Kong's local brand Johnson Electric, becoming the largest motor company in Hong Kong, and the civilian industry is involved, and has been exported in large quantities. Of course, it's not a premium brand.

After having a certain reputation, plus the previous radio supply business is also under the strong quality control there is no problem, Midea naturally wants to pursue more business, motor is a focus, at the same time, from Germany to open a branch of BITZER refrigeration company, also began to make condensing compressors in Hong Kong.

However, it is clear that Toyota's supply chain is very unwelcoming to outsiders, and the small motors and fans on the seats may not be important, but the air conditioning part is different and the value is much higher.

"Yes, the deputy chief Inoue we know also means this, and he also said that if we can supply motors stably and for a long time without problems, then he will try to let us enter the supply chain of air conditioners in two years." Lei Shengli said.

"Well, let's do a good job of the motor and seat fan first." Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.

Two years, for electronic products may have been updated, but in the automotive field, it is a very short time, many parts companies, but also developed for many years, in order to become bigger, for the United States that is not in Japan, it is not easy to do this, the biggest reason may be that the "investment" in people is in place.

"In fact, there is another problem, Toyota, is willing to outsource some low-tech parts, more labor demand, and easy to transport, and those with high technical content are more willing to stay in the local area, probably because they are worried that if something goes wrong, it will be very troublesome to solve." Lei Shengli continued.

"The auto industry does pursue localization, which is also our disadvantage, and it can't be changed for the time being." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said, it is impossible to go to Japan to build a factory now, right? Build it up, Toyota doesn't give orders, that must not be lost.

Besides, the most fundamental reason for doing the auto parts industry by yourself is to be able to participate in the future when the mainland begins to modernize car manufacturing.

In the 80-90s, even if it is a public with a good relationship with China, it is willing to invest in China, but it is not very willing to invest heavily in localization, because many parts of the public are not produced by themselves, and it is difficult to persuade so many suppliers to invest in China.

Volkswagen can also choose to find suppliers in the local area, but at that time, the domestic industrial level was difficult to meet Volkswagen's requirements, which may have its own opportunities, which is a golden opportunity for the development of the automobile industry.

Of course, the best situation is to have your own car company, so that it will be much easier to bring into the industrial chain by yourself, and you can also take the opportunity to develop a complete set of industrial chain in China, but this requires a large amount of capital.

As long as an investment in 79 years is in place, then he can get the automobile industry he wants.

Now in Hong Kong, Midea only needs to develop according to the normal rhythm, especially the many contacts, communication and audits with Toyota, which also let many engineers in Midea's automobile business understand some of Toyota's management methods, quality requirements and so on.

This can not only be used for the current civilian product management of Midea, but also can be of great help to its own automobile industry layout in the future.

PS: Introducing a book, [The Rise of the Reborn Writer], Hong Kong text, the end of the book, you don't have to chase it, you can read it all at once!

(End of chapter)