……

While the world lamented that Monster Hunter felt that the game made by Pokeni was so luxurious and classy, they actually underestimated the other thing that Pokeni was doing.

It can be said that a terrible storm is brewing in Pokeni.

It's just that it has been overshadowed by the success of "Monster Hunter", and no one has reacted yet.

At the time of Monster Hunter's release, Pokeni was implementing a digital revolution in the Omi region.

In September 1999, in the third week after Monster Hunter was put on the shelves, Qingzhiyuan held a unique new product launch conference in the United States.

The theme of the conference is -

[Digitalization will become the future of Pokeni]

It's actually quite big to see this headline, but reporters are not unfamiliar with the concept of "digitalization", because the new president of Sony, Nobuyuki Idei, proposed the concept of digitalization last year.

And Nobuyuki Idei believes that it is necessary to steer Sony's path towards a digital future.

Digitizing Sony is Nobuyuki Idei's mission.

And just one year later, I didn't expect that Qing Zhiyuan on Pokeni's side would also do the same, which couldn't help but surprise reporters and relevant practitioners.

So when Qing Zhiyuan held this press conference, the scene was surrounded by the crowd.

The scene was so loud that it even faintly overshadowed the press conference held when Nobuyuki Idei was president.

……

Although this time the digital content is for the Omi region, there are still a lot of neon reporters and media on the scene.

At the press conference, the young president of Pokeni announced a series of development plans for Pokeni in the future, the most important of which is this-

Digitization.

"What is digitalization?" Qing Zhiyuan said with a smile at the scene, "Game production, from the beginning, is actually very firmware.

Or rather, the game itself is hardware.

Since the days of cartridges, games have been burned on a single board on a ROM, and in this case, we had to change the board if we wanted to change a new game.

It is also commonly known as cassette.

The cassette itself is a kind of thing that has substance, volume, and size, and needs to occupy real space.

The cassette of each cassette is almost the same standard, and you may not think that there is anything at first, but when you buy more games, the cassette will pile up and become a presence in the house that cannot be ignored.

I'm not saying it's a big deal, but for players like me, collecting cartridges is fun.

Cassettes are a product of history, and they will naturally die out in history.

Maybe it can't be said to be extinction, but I think the word change is more appropriate.

CD and DVD are a new medium used to change cassette.

However, I also believe that the medium of CD and DVD should also be changed.

Now, it's time to change that. ”

Qing Zhiyuan paused and said, "What I want to propose today is actually not particularly new, but it has not yet been applied to the digital field. ”

"Have you ever thought about the fact that the games we play are really cassettes, or CDs, DVDs?"

Before waiting for the people on the scene to answer, Qing Zhiyuan revealed the answer:

"Actually, whether it's a ROM cartridge, a CD, or the latest DVD media, it's just a medium for a game.

The game itself, in our expert terms, is nothing more than code.

Mapped to the physical level, it is the binary 0 and 1 circuit switches.

That's why games can be copied and burned into countless identical cassettes.

Each individual person is actually unique, but the game is not like this, we play "Monster Hunter", play "Pokémon", it is impossible to say that the Monster Hunter I play is not the same game as the Monster Hunter you play, there is a huge difference, right? ”

Hahahaha......

The scene burst into laughter.

"Although they are different cassettes, the burned program is the same and the code is the same, which allows players to have a unified cognition and experience."

"Since code is the core of the game, it doesn't really matter if you change the medium."

Qing Zhiyuan continued, "This is the digital content that I want to propose today. ”

"The game itself is a bunch of code and data, and the data itself can be transmitted through the network, and can also be copied by reading and writing, so what Pokeni has to do is very simple:

Digitize your game. ”

When one person mentions digitalization, everyone may still think it is far away, but Qingzhiyuan also mentions digitalization, which makes everyone have a sense of crisis.

The main thing is that Qing Zhiyuan is not a mouth-cannon type of pie entrepreneur, not long after his prediction, P Society will really realize it and make things.

It's scary.

Sony says digital, but now it is still at the level of MP3, and there is no concept of game digitalization.

But on Qingzhiyuan's side, the digitization of games has been put on the agenda.

When game manufacturers see this scene, they naturally feel deep fear in their hearts, and the first thing they worry about is-

Am I falling behind?

It can be said that it is certain to be backward, but as for how far behind, no one on the scene is clear.

Not at all.

However, everyone at the scene actually had only one concept in their brains, and they didn't have any thoughts about the specific implementation, and until now, they still didn't quite understand how Qing Zhiyuan could implement the digitization of the game.

Even if he's right, games are a bunch of code and data, but don't they need some carriers in the end?

Could it be that you can make a game out of thin air that exists in people's brains?

It's like eating air.

In fact, the concept is very grand, and if there is no specific details to support it, everyone will only think that Qing Zhiyuan is painting cakes.

……

But in the next second, Qing Zhiyuan directly gave the answer:

"In fact, we're already halfway through our digitization efforts." Qing Zhiyuan took out a mobile phone from his trouser pocket and showed it to everyone.

In fact, the scene couldn't see the content at all.

"A minute ago, the company's program director, Ken Akanishi, told me that we had done the digitization of every game from Pokeni and every game from Sega.

In other words, now our games are not displayed in the form of integrated circuits, but are packaged into data packages. ”

"You can understand that we have extracted the soul of the game and formed the data. From now on, it is no longer a strong binding relationship with hardware. ”

"How will these packets be applied?"

Qing Zhiyuan said with a smile, "We expect to start from October, in two years, all the digital games of Pokeni and Sega will be put on the Dandelion game platform.

Players don't need to buy CDs or cassettes to download them directly from the Internet, and they can play them on DC consoles and PCs.

At this point, we can guarantee that there is absolutely no difference from the host.

Even after we reset it, we will optimize the program and graphics, which means that players can enjoy Pokeni's game without leaving home. ”

What?!

As soon as Qing Zhiyuan's words came out, the audience was in an uproar.

Maybe many reporters haven't figured out too much what form this is and how to achieve it, but for people in the game industry, the concept of game digitalization proposed by Qing Zhiyuan is tantamount to a shocking thunderbolt.

With a bang, the whole world shook and deafened.

No matter how many game masterpieces Pokeni has developed before, how leading the world has become, how good the quality is, and what new game categories it has created, in fact, it is not as fierce as [digitalization].

Although everyone hasn't thought too clearly about whether digitalization can be successful for a while, anyone who knows knows it -

This is what really shakes the foundations of Rentendo and Sony.

This is a shout, a challenge, and a declaration from Pokeni for the game carrier.

What do you think the game console industry is fighting for?

Is it a game console?

It seems to be so, but in fact, what is really fighting for is the carrier, which is the right to mint coinage.

If you release a game on my gaming platform, you have to make the game according to our specifications, whether it's a non-heaven cassette or a Sony CD, it's all made according to the format they have developed.

That's the rule.

Every cassette, every CD, is actually their profit.

However, now Qing Zhiyuan wants to break this thing and make the carrier become another form, to be precise, so that the game no longer depends on the carrier itself, and becomes something that can be circulated at will.

It's horrible.

"They're flexible, they're no longer tied to hardware."

"It's like a blackboard, where we can draw all kinds of patterns, erase them, and redraw them, and games are those picture books, which are templates for drawing."

In this case, as long as the players are connected to the network, we will send it along the network, which is simple and convenient. ”

Qing Zhiyuan talked for about an hour, and everyone finally had a general understanding of the digitization of games.

I don't know exactly what the process will be, but everyone has a vague sense that this is a huge storm.

will probably sweep the whole world.

After the speech, it was time for questions from reporters.

"So Mr. Qing Zhiyuan, why is this digital initiative being implemented in the Omi region and not in Neon?"

"It's not that it's not being implemented in neon, it's not there for the time being.

There are objective reasons why we chose the North Rice region,"

Qing Zhiyuan explained, "Now the Internet speed in the United States is the fastest in the world, and it is also the first country to use ADSL. ”

Qing Zhiyuan smiled, "Our expectation is to promote digitalization to the world in the future, so that all countries with network transmission foundation can play the game of Pokeni."

No, to be precise, it is possible to play the games offered by our platform.

Not only Pokeni's own, but also Sega, as well as other game manufacturers, we also welcome everyone to publish their own games on the Dandelion Games platform. ”

Oh, the network transmits the data, the data is installed in the localized storage, and then becomes playable.

Until then, it was nothing more than a bunch of data streams.

"At the end of the day, you still need media, right?" The reporter continued to ask.

"Yes, but the media is readable and written, it's a hard disk." Qing Zhiyuan said, "In the future, there will be new hardware storage devices that can be easily read and written smaller than hard disks, which is also the inevitable of the times."

We already have this concept in the design, but it will take time to develop.

In the future, Sega DC game consoles will have their own hard disks that can be read and written, and there will be other devices that can expand their capacity, so there is no need to worry about the size at all. ”

Qing Zhiyuan concluded: "One is that it needs a physical carrier, and the other is that it can be transferred at will.

This is the essential difference between digitizing and making burned fixed discs and cassettes. ”

"Okay, I see, thank you, Mr. Qing Zhiyuan."

……

"And what about the charging model?" Another female reporter from the United States raised her hand and asked.

This is also a problem that many players and game manufacturers are very concerned about.

"Just like the current dandelion game platform, dandelion coins are used for game purchases."

The press conference lasted for almost 2 hours, and Qing Zhiyuan patiently answered the reporters' questions, and finally the audience gave a standing ovation.

The applause at the scene was thunderous and enthusiastic.

"It's over, it's over, the world is going to change!"

"It's going to change again! Pokeni is going digital this time, and I can guarantee that there will be a large number of followers, and the concept of digitalization is so advanced that I get goosebumps all over my body when I hear it live. ”

"Yes, with the advent of a new era, how can such a big and good news not be exciting?"

"It's all in the fate of Paradise and Sony, if you think about it, if you are like Pokeni in the future, you can download the game digitally and experience it through the Internet......

So why go for cassettes and CDs? ”

"yes, it's scary to think about."

……

Wait a minute......

The first to react were the game developers.

Now it's the game sellers' turn to react.

What the hell is Qing Zhiyuan talking about?

At the beginning, everyone may have been infected by the atmosphere of the scene, and Qing Zhiyuan was pushing a very new thing that could be said to open a new era, so everyone applauded.

Including these game sellers, but applauding and applauding, it turns out that something is not quite right.

Good guys, according to you, players will be able to download and experience the game directly through the Internet in the future, so what do we do?

No CD, no cassette, what do we sell?

How else do middlemen make the difference?

Where is this in the life of Genesn and Ren Heaven, this is clearly our life!

……

……

——————————————————————————

There is no update tonight

Thank you

See you tomorrow (end of chapter)