Chapter 317: Old Friends' Reactions
Shinagawa District, Sony Building.
Norio Ohga put down the newspaper in his hand and frowned slightly.
"Ozone-san, what do you think about the unknown product in the Shirakawa Electric ad?"
The entire headline of the financial newspaper in front of Norio Ohga was about the news that Shirakawa Electric was about to go public.
Last night's advertisement dropped a depth bomb on the already prosperous financial sector.
Shirakawa Electric, hailed as a dark horse, is finally ready to go public. This news instantly caused a sensation in Japan.
As a manufacturer of consumer electronics, Shirakawa Electric's name is almost familiar to the general public.
The appearance design of their products has always been excellent, and their product lines cover low, medium and high grades, with clear positioning for different groups of people.
In addition, each generation of products has unique innovations, and Shirakawa Electric has a large audience and fans in the entire social group.
Because of this reason, everyone's impression of it is that of a young, fashionable, innovative and technological company.
Now this emerging company is about to go public, and it has generously bought advertisements on all private television stations in Japan.
Naturally, people are discussing this issue on the streets today. In 1982, Japan's stock market began to prosper.
With the rapid development of the economy, people have more and more spare money, and in order to change the public's saving habits.
Under the stimulus of various government policies, banks cut interest rates and consumption ideas prevailed.
At the same time, the financial market and stock market began to enter a prosperous stage, and more and more people in life participated in stock speculation.
Against this background, the news that Shirakawa Electric was about to go public certainly attracted the attention of most people in Japan.
In addition to the news of the listing, the silhouette of an unknown product displayed by Shirakawa Electric at the back of the advertisement also aroused heated discussion among everyone.
There are countless topics on TV and in newspapers speculating about why these products are.
Even the financial newspaper that Yamato Norio had just put down had the picture of the black silhouette on the front page, with several big question marks.
That's why he asked Ozone Yukizo, who was sitting next to him, what he thought about the new generation of products announced by Shirakawa Electric.
For Norio Ohga, the listing of Shirakawa Electric will indeed make him pay more attention to it.
But in comparison, the silhouettes of the product pictures aroused his interest more.
Ozone Kozo, who was sitting opposite him, thought for two seconds before slowly speaking.
"Judging from the outline, there are already existing products such as the Walkman.
There should also be audio equipment. The other party’s Akita factory has officially started production, and I believe related products will be released soon.
The rest should include handheld game consoles, and new products such as the long-developed CD player. However, judging from the outline…"
Ozone Kozo paused, he was not sure whether it was a CD player.
Yes, but it seems a little different from my own CD player.
To say no is a bit unrealistic.
After all, that is the other party’s flagship product this year. How could it be absent from such an important promotion?
After thinking about it, Ozone Kozo was still a little confused.
"Is everything going well with our CD player?"
Norio Ohga himself was a little confused, but he just had to make his product well no matter what.
He is still very confident in Sony's CD player. As long as the other party makes the same product as his, Norio Ohga will not worry about the performance of Sony's CD player.
As the inventor of CD technology, Sony has such confidence.
In response to Norio Yamato's question, Kozo Ozone also nodded.
"Currently, progress is going smoothly and we expect to release the world's first ."
Speaking of this, Kozo Ozone was also a little proud. Even though they were both pioneers of CD technology, Philips was a step slower than them.
In order to compete for the title of the world's first manufacturer and inventor of the CD player, it is no exaggeration to say that Sony has put all its efforts into promoting this matter.
Because Norio Ohga believed that CD was a revolutionary product in the audio field, just like the Walkman.
Sony either doesn’t do it, or if it does it must be the best, and the best in the world.
After getting the assurance from Ozone Yukizo, Ohga Norio finally felt a little relieved.
To be honest, Shirakawa Electric's mysterious product pre-promotional advertisements still put some pressure on him.
Because according to his understanding of Mr. Shirakawa, he usually does not follow the beaten path and always does something unexpected.
Now that Shirakawa Electric is preparing to go public, it means that it has officially grown into a mature enterprise.
Then Ohga Norio's perspective on the other party unconsciously raised a little higher.
A company preparing to be listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange is already qualified enough to become a rival of Sony.
"Is everything ready for the CD factory in Shizuoka?"
Having a machine is not enough, you also need to have music content that can play it.
Only by walking on both legs can we quickly promote the innovative technology of CD to the world.
Knowing that Norio Ohga was extremely concerned about all the arrangements of the CD, Kozo Ozone nodded hurriedly.
“In April, we conducted a test run and everything went smoothly.”
After hearing this, Ohga Norio finally felt relieved. Now everything was ready, all that was missing was the east wind.
"Sony's first music CD will consist of 50 selected classical music pieces.
Let CBS/SONY hurry up and finish the mastering of the music. This time, we must let music lovers hear the most essential sound. "
"Yes!" Ozone Yukizo bowed his head and accepted the order.
As a lover of classical music, Norio Ohga chose this style of music without hesitation as the first release for Sony's CD player.
He firmly believes that the clear and clean sound of the CD will make music fans crazy.
After the work report was finished, Norio Ohga signaled Kozo Ohzone to go ahead. However, before the latter left, he suddenly stopped and remembered something.
"By the way, Yamato-san, Shirakawa Electric is also looking to build its own CD factory recently?"
"Hmm?" Yamato Norio paused, but soon nodded, "This is a good thing. There is no need for additional obstruction."
If more manufacturers join in the production of CDs, it will be more conducive to the spread of CDs.
This is a good thing in Yamato Norio's opinion, after all, the number one enemy of CDs now is vinyl.
You know, there are a lot of old stubborn people in the music industry, and they are loyal fans of vinyl.
If Sony were to stand up and tell them that vinyl is an outdated product and CDs are the future.
There is no doubt that even if Norio Ohga was present in person, he would be surrounded and scolded.
Moreover, people are now accustomed to the existence of vinyl records. With the sudden appearance of a challenger, Sony may not be able to succeed alone.
This is also the reason why Sony and Philips formed the CD Alliance and brought in a large number of younger brothers for this purpose.
Shirakawa Electric is one of the many younger brothers, and was also the first one to decide to go all the way with Sony in the CD industry.
Now this little brother not only stands firmly on the side of CDs, but also continues to expand the stock of CD discs. Ohga Norio will certainly not object.
As for why Shirakawa Electric wanted to build a CD disc factory and why it chose Sony, there were reasons why it had to do so.
Philips' LHH-0400 lithography system and Sony's PCM-1610 digital master production and debugging station are both indispensable equipment for pressing CD discs.
Aside from being the pioneers of CD technology, the equipment for making CDs also basically comes from these two companies.
If Shirakawa Electric wants to build a CD factory, it will have to go around them.
Philips had the same idea and had already happily delivered the equipment.
Now that Sony has also generously released it, it seems that everyone is eager for CDs to replace vinyl and become the mainstream as soon as possible.
Since Norio Ohga had already spoken, Kozo Ozone didn't think much about it. Sony was the ultimate beneficiary anyway, and that would not change.
After returning to his office, Ozone Kozo thought about it and decided to go and check out his own CD player.
Although I have just reported it, as the leader, I must ensure that it is foolproof.
When he arrived at the Technical Research Institute, Ozone Kozo asked his men to demonstrate the current prototype.
The black body has a metallic luster, with an LCD screen on the front to display song information, buttons below, and a door on the side.
Just looking at the appearance gives people a sense of technology and reliability, and Ozone Kozo nodded with satisfaction.
"How is the optimization going? Is there still any lag between the left and right channels?"
The staff members under him looked a little embarrassed, “We are still working hard, but we still can’t achieve 100% synchronization.
The left and right channels can now achieve a minimum delay of about 100ms, and professionals who are not particularly demanding can hardly hear the difference. "
Ozone Kozo shook his head in disappointment and said, "Let's just do as much as we can. The product will be announced to the public in August or September.
Until then, there must not be any other issues other than this one.”
"Hai!"
Kozo Ozone knew that his own CD player had a major flaw: the left and right channels could not be 100% synchronized.
If you listen carefully, you will feel a delay, and I guess many audiophiles may be able to tell the difference.
But this is most likely a problem with the DAC decoding chip, and currently the only thing we can do is optimize it.
If you want to make radical improvements, you can only wait until the next generation of products is designed.
I hope the CD players from other manufacturers won't be so smooth. Sony's have minor flaws, so it's normal for them to have some too.
…
Kyoto, Nintendo.
Yamauchi Hiroshi put down the newspaper in his hand and frowned as well.
He was not surprised by the news that Shirakawa Electric was going public, after all, he had heard the rumors a long time ago.
But what happened to these unreleased products? Yamauchi Hiroshi couldn’t even find any product appearance that he was familiar with.
The more this happened, the more worried he became.
It is impossible for the other party to give up its business in the gaming field, but it is obvious that they are no longer what they were familiar with before.
"Yokoi, is there any possibility of improving our handheld game console, or do you have any ideas for the design of the next generation of products?"
"Eh," Gunpei Yokoi looked at his president in surprise, "But Mr. Yamauchi, the current handheld game console has only been in development for less than two years.
And it’s selling well now, and no consumers have expressed dissatisfaction with it.”
Although Gunpei Yokoi said this, Yamauchi Hiroshi still felt uneasy.
"You can think about it. I always feel that Shirakawa Electric's products will be very different from the past."
Gunpei Yokoi was a little confused about where his president's inspiration came from, but he still nodded to show that he understood.
