Chapter 183 New Gaming Force
To outsiders, Nintendo is a listed company.
There must be huge financial resources behind it, so there won't be any financial pressure even if things don't go well.
However, the opposite is true. Nintendo was in debt at that time.
The current situation is closely related to Yamauchi Bo's own troubles.
His father disappeared and he took over Nintendo at the age of 21. Although Yamauchi Bo made Nintendo's traditional products, flower cards and poker products the top of Japan.
But when he visited the world's largest poker company in the United States, he was greatly disappointed.
I originally thought that the headquarters of such a company must be located in a high-rise building and would be very grand.
However, upon arriving at the poker headquarters, what came into view was a small office and factory.
That's it? Yamauchi was very disappointed. The top poker company was just like this.
How much room is there for Nintendo to grow in this industry?
So, feeling a sense of crisis, Yamauchi Bo started to make trouble.
He first established a brick and stone transport taxi company, but sold it after operating it for a few years because it was not profitable.
Later, instant noodles, which had just appeared in the 1960s, became extremely popular, and he could not sit still and invented instant rice cooked by soaking in water.
He believes that rice is a basic need for people , and instant rice is a track full of gold.
So they excitedly built a factory and started production, but the result is self-evident, a complete mess.
Do you think this is the end? No, the young Yamauchi Bo has started a love hotel again.
You heard it right, that kind of hotel. As for the business situation?
Well, it seems that in the end the hotel only welcomed one guest, Yamauchi Bo.
However, Yamauchi Bo did not give up and started to develop Nintendo office supplies and household products in 1971.
The results are naturally nothing to write home about, but at least the toy industry, which it entered during the same period, has seen some improvement.
Even the ray gun they developed sold well. At that time, the bowling craze had just subsided and a large number of bowling alleys were transferred.
This gave the young genius Shan Nei Bo, who was reading the newspaper, an idea, and it was a big business idea.
That is to use a ray gun to transform the abandoned bowling alley into a shooting range.
They acted immediately and after the launch of the first shooting range, the results were amazing.
People lined up to experience this new type of entertainment, so Yamauchi struck while the iron was hot and bought up bowling alleys.
When he didn’t have enough money, he went to the bank to get a loan, and eventually he bought a large number of bowling alleys.
After all the venues were renovated and we were preparing to get started, the oil crisis hit.
The Neon economy fell into a brief recession, and entertainment facilities became the first items to be cut.
As a result, all of Nintendo's shooting range business vanished into thin air, and it owed billions of yen in debt.
If the arcade business had not seen some improvement in the past two years, Nintendo might have gone bankrupt long ago.
Even so, Yamauchi Bo often sighs, "I don't know how long I can hold on. Every day is like walking on a tightrope."
This is the situation Nintendo is in now, as it is saddled with a huge debt due to historical issues.
Now that he has finally seen the considerable profits brought by GW, how could Yamauchi Bo not take it seriously?
It is no exaggeration to say that he almost regards the GW handheld game console as his lifeblood.
At first, he did not take Shirakawa Electric's entry seriously, after all, the other party was an outsider from the industry.
However, when he learned from Gunpei Yokoi that the opponent's handheld game console was better than his own, he became much more cautious.
Another troublesome opponent, Yamauchi Bo sighed softly.
The other party can compete directly with giant companies like Sony and is doing well, so they must not be easy to deal with.
Especially the other party's huge investment, which made Yamauchi Bo envious.
Perhaps at this moment, Shirakawa Electric is stronger than Nintendo in terms of financial resources alone.
At least they have no foreign debt and they don’t look like they are short of money.
However, the more this happens, the more Nintendo cannot afford to make any mistakes in its handheld game console business.
He has decided that Nintendo will launch a new GW handheld game console every month.
If quality is not enough, then make up for it with quantity.
In short, when it comes to handheld game consoles, Nintendo not only wants to take a big bite, but also eat it quickly.
…
It is July now, and Shirakawa Electric's handheld game console GAME BOY has received considerable attention since its release.
First of all, Shirakawa Electric is no longer an unknown company, and its every move will be reported by the media.
Secondly, it is a cross-industry operation, and the electronic 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 courageous progress, while other media predicted that Shirakawa Electric would suffer its own Waterloo.
So soon after GAME BOY was released, professional media rushed to conduct various evaluations.
However, the results of the evaluation were unexpectedly good.
There are only two companies engaged in the handheld game console business at the moment, so the evaluation and comparison will naturally be conducted between the two.
However, as a pioneer, Nintendo is inferior to Shirakawa Electric in all aspects.
This...? For a moment, everyone even wondered if they had gotten the result wrong.
No matter what, Nintendo is a veteran in the industry, from arcade games to home consoles, and now to handheld games.
How could such an industry giant lose to a new entrant?
However, the public does not care whose handheld game console is more professional.
Beautiful appearance, interesting games, and cheap price, that's enough.
Soon after its launch, GAME BOY, whose reputation gradually spread, became a fashion darling.
The intense excitement of "Raiden" and the simplicity and fun of "Snake" have deeply attracted young men and women.
This 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 effort.
So in less than two weeks, Shirakawa Electric's GAME BOY announced that it had sold 200,000 units.
This figure made the market even more excited.
Game Machine magazine exclaimed, "A new gaming force has emerged! Shirakawa Electric is the future giant!"
This result is quite impressive. Although the handheld game console is cheap, it cannot resist selling so many units.
Today, the name "Raiden" is very famous.
Of course, Shirakawa Electric's handheld game console is extremely popular, and Nintendo's handheld game console is naturally not bad as a pioneer.
This market is basically blank, and handheld game consoles are cheap.
The shipment volume far exceeded the two companies' expectations, and the current market is far from saturated.
Such a big piece of fat made many onlookers' eyes turn red.
Therefore, before the end of July, more than a dozen companies started to launch portable game console project businesses.
Not only them, even some big companies are starting to make moves.
…
"Your company's handheld game business seems to be doing quite well recently."
In an auditorium in Tokyo, Norio Ohga was listening to a speech on the podium.
While casually chatting with people around me about the recent handheld game console trend.
Baichuan Feng turned his eyes away in surprise, "What? Sony is also planning to enter the electronic game field?"
Ohga Norio smiled elegantly, "Sony's current strategic focus is on the stage. Sony doesn't know much about video games and doesn't plan to get involved."
I hope you will keep thinking this way in the future, Baichuan Feng teased secretly.
Seeing that Ohga Norio stopped talking, Shirakawa Kaede turned his gaze back to the podium, where a speech and debate was taking place.
Regarding the establishment of next-generation audio format standards.
Because most of the parties involved are Japanese companies, this year's International Audio Society 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 Ohga Norio to attend this audio conference as a representative.
Anyway, it's in Tokyo, and the meeting is about the formulation of industry standards, so Shirakawa Kaede will naturally not miss it.
The two parties debating on the stage at this moment are representatives from Sony and representatives from JVC.
They were engaged in a heated argument over the CD formats they had each developed.
The battle is more intense than expected, after all, it is a battle over formats.
If someone fails, it means that all the previous research and development efforts will be wasted. A lot of manpower and material resources will be wasted.
However, seeing He Dianxiong's confident look, you know what the final result will be.
Sure enough, during the actual CD trial, the CD jointly developed by Sony and Philips ran smoothly and the sound was clear and fidelity.
The AHD discs developed by JVC and Panasonic had decent sound quality, but they were not smooth enough and the disc got stuck after just two minutes of playback.
Looking at the other engineer sweating profusely as he worked on the machine to fix the problem, Baichuan Feng shook his head, the outcome was already decided.
As expected, in the final selection process, the association's rotating chairman announced without surprise that CD would become the next generation mainstream audio format.
Amid thunderous applause from the audience, Norio Ohga and a representative from Philips took the stage to give speeches.
Each of them envisioned a bright future for CDs and expressed their hope that fellow industry players would work together to contribute to the audio industry.
Finally, Norio Ohga ambitiously announced that Sony would fully promote the commercialization of CDs and their players in the Japanese market in 1982.
Tsk, big companies are different, they are very confident.
The format has just been finalized over there, and the release date of the matching player has been announced here.
The R&D time is actually very tight starting from today.
After all, it is a brand new technology and a brand new product, and there is no reference at all.
Fortunately, Shirakawa Kaede knew that CD would win, so he had already made arrangements in advance.
The early bird catches the worm . I hope we can catch up with giants like Sony.
"I heard that Shirakawa Electric has established a branch in the United States?" Ohga Norio asked casually after returning to his seat.
"After all, this is the country where the patent for Shirakawa Electric's Walkman is registered. Alas, it's too late to go back. I feel ashamed of my fellow Americans."
Ohga Norio paused. This guy's shamelessness once again refreshed his impression of him.
However, he no longer worried about Shirakawa Electric's overseas expansion.
Although Baichuan Feng was a bit shameless, he also pointed out that he owns overseas patents.
The Walkman that our company launched in the European and American markets is a local specialty.
Isn't this as it should be? There's nothing to be surprised about.
Whether at home or abroad, everyone competes fairly based on their own abilities.
