Chapter 263 Portable CD Player
What should a portable CD player look like?
Baichuan Feng decided to tell them the answer himself. He used local materials and found a few small pieces of wood from the studio. He measured them and stacked them together.
"Well, that's about it." He pushed the small box made of wood chips forward.
"This...?" Yasuda wondered if he had seen it wrong.
Not only him, even Nakajima Heitaro found it unbelievable.
This small wooden box made of wood chips is about 13 cm long and wide, not much different from the CD boxes of later generations.
The thickness is roughly equivalent to the height of 4 CD cases stacked together, and can be held in one hand.
Too small and unrealistic!
Why? Just look at the CD prototype in front of them.
Shirakawa Electric's first CD prototype was about the same size as later VCD players, or even a little thicker.
Now, you can imagine how difficult it is to shrink such a desktop computer into a small box of 13 centimeters .
"I know this is difficult," Baichuan Feng picked up the small wooden box and showed it to everyone, "but please put yourself in their shoes when you are shopping.
Would you choose a CD player that you can hold in your hand, take out of the house and enjoy music with your friends anytime and anywhere?
Or like that?" Baichuan Feng pointed at the "big guy" on the table, "expensive and bulky desktop CD player?"
How to choose? The answer is self-evident.
But the idea is one thing, and how to realize it is another.
It was extremely difficult for everyone at Shirakawa Electric to produce the prototype that is now on the table.
Further narrowing by leaps and bounds...
"President, we will try our best to make it happen. But shrinking the CD player into such a small portable size will take a long time..." Yasuda looked embarrassed.
This is still too difficult for them. Even if they can do it, they cannot guarantee the time.
"I understand, but we still have to do it." Baichuan Feng is not an unreasonable person, but business competition is just difficult.
As far as he knows, in addition to Sony, Europe's Philips has also basically completed their prototypes.
Philips and Sony were working against the clock, each wanting to release the world's first CD player before the other.
In addition to them, in Japan, JVC, Panasonic and Denon are also catching up closely.
Shirakawa Electric was not much ahead in terms of progress and was surrounded by enemies on all sides.
Now suddenly you want to overturn the previous design and start over with a complete overhaul, is this a fantasy?
Maybe, but Baichuan Feng had to do it.
"You can see that next year, at least 5-6 brands will launch their own CD players.
We, Shirakawa Electric, may be one of them, so how to stand out among so many brands is the first thing we need to consider.
It’s not that the prototype in front of us is not good enough, but we need something more attractive.
Of course, this prototype is not going to be abandoned.
Let's change our strategic priorities, portable CD players first, then desktop CD players!
You can think of portable CD players as low-end models among CD players, and desktop CD players as mid-to-high-end models.
Shirakawa Electric is currently good at the bottom-up development model, and we must make full use of our advantages.
Only in this way can our CD player stand out from the fierce competition."
After Shirakawa Kaede explained it this way, Yasuda and the others understood a lot instantly.
It's not that Shirakawa Kaede is belittling himself. In the competition for desktop CD players, Shirakawa Electric is definitely not as good as Sony and Philips.
He may not even be able to beat Panasonic, a local company.
In fact, Nakajima Heitaro also agrees with this point.
As the inventors of CD technology, Sony and Philips naturally have first-mover and technological advantages, which everyone knows.
Since we can't compete with them on the same track, why not change it?
Baichuan Feng is by no means a stubborn person. He is good at making flexible use of any advantages he has.
And as I just said, portable CD players must have a wider audience and acceptance than desktop CD players.
This kind of novel gadget that can be held in your hand and taken to the street will definitely be the favorite of fashionable young people.
There is no doubt that portable CD players have the potential to become a popular commodity.
There is no one paying attention to this golden track and no one is competing for it yet, so Shirakawa Electric must be the first to reap the benefits.
Baichuan Feng understands the first time!
"Okay!" Yasuda gritted his teeth and decided to use all his time from now on to fight with the portable CD player.
"Don't be nervous, Mr. Yasuda. I have also found help for you." Shirakawa Feng almost laughed when he saw Yasuda's vicious look.
"Eh?" The latter looked at him somewhat confused.
Shirakawa Kaede raised his chin and gestured to Nakajima Heitaro and the young man beside him.
"I'm sure you've all heard of Nakajima Heitaro-san, the pioneer of CD technology.
Next, Mr. Nakajima will fully support the development of portable CD players."
"It's Mr. Nakajima!" Yasuda was overjoyed. He immediately stepped forward and enthusiastically shook Nakajima Heitaro's right hand, shaking it vigorously.
The latter was confused by his excessive enthusiasm, but felt happy in her heart.
Look, the people at Shirakawa Electric are very warm and welcoming, while those guys at Sony don’t know how to respect experts at all.
With so much attention paid to him, Nakajima Heitaro's little vanity was greatly satisfied.
As someone who works in audio research, most people here have heard of the name Heitaro Nakajima.
With his joining, everyone has a better grasp of portable CD players.
"The other one." Shirakawa Kaede walked up to the young man next to Nakajima Heitaro and patted him on the shoulder .
“Hiroshi Ogawa-san studied in Europe and specialized in digital technology.
As one of the developers and standard setters of the CD-DA format, we will fully support the development of portable CDs in the coming period.”
"Please take care of me," Hiroshi Ogawa bowed shyly.
He felt flattered to be specially introduced by Baichuan Feng and to be stared at by everyone.
"I have also heard of Mr. Ogawa's name.
Now I can finally assure the president that Shirakawa Electric's portable CD player will be released next year."
With the assistance of two powerful technical masters, Yasuda finally felt that Shirakawa Kaede's plan to change the track was no longer a luxury.
The names of these two people are well-known in the circle. I didn't expect that the president could get them to Shirakawa Electric. It's really amazing.
"The next thing we need to do is to slim down this big guy in front of us. How to miniaturize it is up to you.
As for the desktop CD player, after the portable CD player is completed, we will consider how to make it more perfect.”
First, occupy the market with portable CD players, and then gradually develop high-end models. The road must be taken step by step.
In fact, what Heitaro Nakajima and Hiroshi Ogawa are really good at is the development of CD technology, that is, the development of the format.
SIC, the CD Storage Format Research Center, is where they should be.
However, in order to commercialize the CD player as soon as possible, Shirakawa Feng had to temporarily transfer the two people to support Shirakawa Electric.
"By the way, Mr. Nakajima, according to your estimation, when will Sony and Philips launch their own CD players?"
These two companies will undoubtedly be strong competitors of Shirakawa Electric, and understanding the timing of their product launches is also important business intelligence for Shirakawa Electric.
"It is expected to be in the second half of next year, not too early. After all, it is a brand new product, and verification and debugging will take a lot of time."
In the second half of next year? After hearing Nakajima Heitaro's answer, Shirakawa Kaede breathed a sigh of relief.
With this calculation, Shirakawa Electric should be able to catch up, and even if it can't, it won't be too late.
"Mr. Nakajima just said that Sony's desktop CD player is likely to cost more than 150,000 yen?"
"That's right," Nakajima Heitaro nodded. He could roughly calculate this information by himself.
"It's too expensive." Shirakawa Kaede still insisted on his idea, "The price of our portable CD player must be controlled within 50,000 yen."
"Ah?" The difficulty of reducing from 150,000 to 50,000 shocked Yasuda and others.
"If the price is higher than this, portable CD players will never become popular." Shirakawa Kaede's thinking is very clear, "I position it as being comparable to high-end Walkman models."
Shirakawa Electric's high-end Walkman model currently sells for around 40,000 yen, so the price of a portable CD player should be in the same range.
Although the price may be much lower than that of a desktop computer, the sound quality is still far better than that of a portable player, even a high-end model.
However, although the sound quality of the portable CD player is better, the workmanship is definitely not as refined as the latter.
Balancing the two sides, the price of 50,000 yen is reasonable, and such pricing is more easily accepted by the public.
Think about it, Sony and Panasonic's prices are as high as over 150,000, while the same product from Shirakawa Electric is only 50,000!
Just ask if you are tempted, not only that, Shirakawa Electric's products can also be taken out to show off~
That’s right, Baichuan Feng is ready to be a price butcher again.
“In terms of cost, portable CD players should be replaced with SIC 8-bit chips, and 16-bit chips should be used in desktop computers.
As for the laser head, we also developed it ourselves after these two core components were determined.
You can decide on the remaining materials by yourselves, but the price must be kept within 50,000 yen.
Even if the first generation of portable CD players reduces profits, we must promote it.
The cost of production process will definitely continue to decrease as the shipment volume increases.
So don’t worry about the gains and losses of the moment, and take a long-term view.”
Shirakawa Electric can meet the two core requirements of CD players.
This gives us an absolute advantage in cost control.
SIC's 8-bit chip is under development and will certainly catch up next year. At the current production cost, it is at most 1,000 or 2,000 yen.
Even if you replace it with the 8-bit enhanced version SIC8089, the cost is only five or six thousand yen. Taking into account the two or three thousand yen for the laser head, the total cost can basically be ensured to be within ten thousand yen.
If the price of other components and metal casings can be controlled within 20,000 to 30,000 yen, then a price of 50,000 yen is not a luxury.
Originally, Shirakawa Feng was planning to go directly to a 16-bit chip. After all, the stronger the decoding capability, the better the sound quality.
However, portable CD players are already positioned at the low end, so it is only natural to replace the chip with a cheaper one.
After roughly determining the direction, Yasuda and his colleagues said they could work towards this goal.
"By the way, President, what should we name our CD player?" Hasegawa from the marketing department was more concerned about the promotion of the product after it was launched on the market.
Giving a suitable name to a new product will undoubtedly add points to it.
What is the name of Shirakawa Electric's CD player? A gleam of light flashed in Shirakawa Feng's eyes.
