Chapter 254 The First Customer of the Chip
"This is..." Nakajima Heitaro looked at the vermilion building in front of him, a little dazed.
"Namco?" Yamazaki Hui muttered strangely.
Baichuan Feng smiled and said, "Let's go."
He did not explain much about the company in front of them, but took them directly into the reception hall.
Half an hour later, in Nakamura Masaya's office, Shirakawa Kaede and others took their seats one after another.
"Shirakawa -san, your company's handheld game console has been performing very well in the market recently."
As soon as he sat down, Masaya Nakamura sighed with envy.
Ever since Shirakawa Electric improved the display screen of its handheld game console, sales have been steadily increasing.
Although Nintendo followed up with this idea only two months later, Shirakawa Electric's handheld game consoles still occupied the majority of the market.
This kind of winner-takes-all situation naturally made Masaya Nakamura envious.
Although the profit of handheld game consoles is not very high, they have a large quantity.
It has also cultivated its own user base and will develop related industries in the future, which can be said to bring its own traffic.
At least Masaya Nakamura knew that this person was ambitiously trying to enter the home game console market.
"It's all thanks to Mr. Nakamura. Namco's games are also one of the reasons why Shirakawa Electric's handheld game consoles are so popular."
Since the two companies signed mutual authorization agreements, their cooperation in the field of electronic games has become increasingly close.
Many of the games on Shirakawa Electric's handheld game consoles come from Namco.
However, the more handheld game consoles Shirakawa Electric sells, the more share Namco gets.
Therefore, Masaya Nakamura was quite welcome to Shirakawa Kaede's arrival.
"I wonder why Mr. Shirakawa came here this time. Could it be that there is a new cooperation project in the field of electronic games?"
"You can say that," Baichuan Feng replied with a smile.
"Oh~" Nakamura Masaya became interested, "Shirakawa-san, please tell me in detail."
Naturally, he was quite happy to cooperate with Shirakawa Electric, after all, small amounts of money were real.
The profits obtained from Shirakawa Electric over the past year have also become a major source of income for Namco.
"Mr. Nakamura, excuse me for asking. Which company does the chip used in Namco's arcade machines come from?"
"Huh?" Masaya Nakamura felt very strange that Shirakawa Kaede suddenly changed the topic to arcade production.
Could it be that Shirakawa Electric is also interested in entering the arcade market?
That shouldn’t be the case. If the other party really had this plan, there would be no need to go to Namco to discuss it with me.
So even though he was curious, Masaya Nakamura still answered truthfully.
"The Z80 chip from Zilog, an American company."
As expected, this 8-bit chip is widely used in neon.
Z80 was later hailed as the longest-lived CPU, and it can be found in arcade machines, communication equipment, and automation products.
It is still used in some fields today.
Now it's not just Namco. Shirakawa Kaede estimates that the chips used in the arcade machines of Taito, Sega, and Nintendo are most likely Z80.
Shirakawa Feng saw that Nakamura Masaya had a confused look in his eyes, but still did not explain, but continued to ask.
"What is the approximate price of the Z80 chips your company purchased?"
“About $25 to $30”
As a well-known chip, its selling price is generally transparent, so Masaya Nakamura did not deliberately conceal anything.
Baichuan Feng nodded. It was similar to the information he had learned.
"So does Nakamura-san know about Intel's 8088?"
"Of course" this one is also a well-known chip, and Masaya Nakamura has naturally heard of it.
"How does the performance of 8088 compare to Z80, and what is its approximate purchase price?" Baichuan Feng continued to persuade.
"The performance is self-explanatory, the 8088 is much better than the Z80.
But the price is also very high, close to $100 for an arcade machine is really unaffordable. "
Obviously, as a person with a science and engineering background, Masaya Nakamura is also familiar with some of the designs of his own arcade machines.
"But Mr. Shirakawa, you are asking these questions because..."
Until now, Masaya Nakamura still has no idea what Shirakawa Kaede is up to.
Shirakawa Kaede did not answer directly, but took a small blue bag from Yamazaki Teru with a smile and handed it to Nakamura Masaya.
“What is this…?” After seeing clearly what was in the bag in his hand, Masaya Nakamura’s eyes widened slightly.
"Just as Nakamura-san saw, this is a chip." Shirakawa Kaede finally solved the mystery.
"Chip?" Masaya Nakamura looked him up and down as if he was getting to know Shirakawa Kaede all over again.
"This is SIC's first-generation commercial chip, comparable to Intel's 8088."
Masaya Nakamura finally understood the reason why Shirakawa Kaede came to visit him.
"So, Mr. Shirakawa wants to cooperate with Namco in the field of video games, and the new project is chips?"
Baichuan Feng nodded, confirming his guess.
After understanding Shirakawa Kaede's purpose, Nakamura Masaya lost a lot of interest.
"Mr. Shirakawa, I'm sure you know that the cost of arcade machines is very high.
The Z80's price of $30 is still within Namco's acceptable range.
But 8088's $100 is really too much for Namco."
Nowadays, the production cost of an arcade machine is at least hundreds of thousands of yen, and the more expensive ones even cost several hundred thousand yen.
In addition to various production materials and props, the CTR display and various chips on the motherboard alone account for the majority of it.
CTR monitors are the big-butt TV screens that we used to see. The larger the size, the more expensive it is.
A 14-inch TV in Japan now costs about 100,000 yen, and the screens of arcade machines are even bigger, mostly around 21 inches.
So a screen alone costs tens of thousands of yen, and in addition to that, another major cost of an arcade machine is the game substrate, or circuit board.
The approximate cost of the entire circuit board is more than 50,000 yen, and the chip is undoubtedly the bulk of it.
There are more than one chip on the circuit board, and of course the most expensive one must be the CPU processor chip.
A Z80 chip costs about 7,000 yen, and if it is replaced with an 8088, the cost will instantly soar to 25,000 yen.
The production cost is over 100,000 yen, and for every additional 10,000 yen, the profit will be squeezed a little.
Namco's arcade machines are usually sold to arcade owners as a complete set for 300,000 to 500,000 yen.
This selling price is basically a fixed range in the market. In this case, production costs will increase and profits will naturally decrease.
Therefore, when it comes to the chip recommended by Shirakawa Kaede that is comparable to Intel's 8088, Masaya Nakamura subconsciously backs off.
"Mr. Nakamura, please calm down. Why don't you ask how much SIC's chips cost?"
Seeing that Nakamura Masaya looked embarrassed, Shirakawa Kaede asked back slowly.
"Hmm?" Could it be that... Nakamura Masaya looked at Shirakawa Kaede again, "Shirakawa-san means that your company's chips have a price advantage?"
"40 dollars!" Without further explanation, Baichuan Feng directly gave his price.
"What?!" Nakamura Masaya's first reaction was disbelief, "Mr. Shirakawa, are you sure your company's chip is comparable to Intel's 8088?"
"Of course," Baichuan Feng pointed to the bag in his hand, "SIC8089 has a 16-bit external bus and an 8-bit internal bus.
It integrates more than 30,000 transistors and has a main frequency of 5.6MHz.
The more Masaya Nakamura listened, the more incredible his expression became. This parameter was even better than Intel's 8088.
"At the same time," Baichuan Feng continued to introduce, "SIC8089 is developed based on embedded systems and is compatible with the software assembly of Intel8086 and 8088.
In addition, SIC8089 also comes with an assembler-based development system, which will greatly facilitate the development process of developers.
Of course, if necessary, SIC can also provide peripheral IC and auxiliary chip design, or even customized chips.”
Masaya Nakamura blinked and asked tentatively.
"Mr. Shirakawa, if I heard correctly, your company's chip is better than Intel's 8088 in terms of performance?"
Baichuan Feng nodded, "In theory, it is true, and of course the actual test results are also in line with the theoretical estimates."
"Intel 8088 costs 100 US dollars, and SIC 8089's performance is nearly 1.5 times that of Intel 8088, but its price is less than half of that at 40 US dollars?" Masaya Nakamura continued to confirm.
"Yes, this is SIC." Baichuan Feng spread his hands generously with a look of confidence.
"Mr. Nakamura, you must know the difference between arcade games developed based on the 8088 chip and the Z80.
With stronger computing power, it can handle more complex instructions.
Whether it is the complexity of the levels or the button delay, there will be a huge improvement.”
As an arcade game design company, Namco has the most say on this point. The importance of a high-performance chip to arcade machines is self-evident.
"But SIC is a new brand after all. None of us has used it and we don't know much about it."
This is a very realistic problem. Before gaining market recognition, Masaya Nakamura must be responsible for his products.
"Of course, I understand Mr. Nakamura's concerns. So..." Shirakawa Feng pointed to the chips in the bag, "Your company is welcome to try these SIC8089 chips."
"In addition," Shirakawa Feng gestured to Yamazaki Teru, "Mr. Yamazaki Teru is one of the developers of the chip.
As long as Mr. Nakamura needs him, he can stay and assist your company in developing the game board."
No need to talk about orders, there is a free trial, and technical staff from the development team will stay to provide technical support.
Such a sincere approach also greatly changed Masaya Nakamura's view of SIC.
“Okay, Shirakawa-san’s sincerity is hard to refuse.
Namco will make several prototypes here, and the final result will depend on the performance of the completed prototypes.”
A $40 chip could be better than a $100 8088 if the results prove satisfactory.
Then Masaya Nakamura would certainly consider purchasing SIC8089 because it is so cost-effective.
With more powerful chips, Namco can design more complex games.
At the same time, the original arcade experience will be greatly improved, so its market performance will naturally rise.
Although today's arcade games are on color screens, the experience is still quite different from that of later generations.
First of all, the delay and response speed of the picture are worrying, and a large part of the reason is due to the chip.
It’s not that there are no better chips at this time, but because the price of good chips is too high.
A 16-bit processor, priced at over $300, is prohibitive for most manufacturers.
But when Masaya Nakamura saw the enhanced version of the 8-bit processor priced at $40, he would naturally be tempted.
A $10 increase in cost, in exchange for an overall increase in arcade sales, is a good deal no matter how you look at it.
So SIC8089 is priced at US$40, which is more than half the price of Intel8088. Is SIC still profitable?
