Chapter 396: Gloating over Misfortune
July of every year is the time for Shirakawa Electric to launch new products.
This year is no exception. The new upgraded version of the portable CD player D-02 has finally gotten rid of the shockproof and portability issues that were previously criticized by consumers.
The shockproof performance has been greatly improved, the body has become thinner, and no additional battery box is needed for power supply.
The most important price remains unchanged at 49,800 yen, which can be said to be a real increase in configuration without increasing the price.
Such a sincere new generation of products has naturally received praise from many consumers.
After nearly a year of development, the CD record market is no longer as stretched as it was last year.
Now the Japanese market is flooded with a large number of CD records, and almost all record companies have released a few of these new types of records.
Because of the rich content, more and more people are starting to try this new music player.
In the first half of the year, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba and others also launched their own CD players.
However, like Sony, the CD players they initially developed were all desktop machines.
After seeing that Shirakawa Electric's portable CD player was popular, the company immediately launched a related project internally.
However, it may take until the end of the year before it can actually be listed.
Therefore, most of the CD players on the market now are desktop machines.
As for portable CD players, besides Shirakawa Electric, there are other manufacturers that have such products.
Well, Sony also launched its own portable CD player in the spring.
However, it is embarrassing because I saw the portable model at the Shirakawa Electric briefing last July.
Sony was in a hurry and launched its own portable project that month. At that time, the chewing gum battery for white goods had not yet produced any results.
So now the portable model Sony is launching in the spring has an external battery box, just like Shirakawa Electric's first-generation product.
Don’t you think this is a coincidence?
It was indeed a coincidence. Shirakawa Electric shook the integrated model in his hand, which had been replaced with a chewing gum battery, and looked at Sony with a smile without saying a word.
One is a portable device with a lot of cumbersome features, and the other is a lightweight integrated portable device. Everyone knows which one to choose.
In terms of product innovation, Sony is once again one step behind.
As for other manufacturers' CD players, there is still a blank in the portable category.
Even in the desktop computer field, Shirakawa Electric did not fall behind and started to compete directly with them.
After several years of development, Shirakawa Electric is no longer as cautious as before.
With sufficient technical accumulation, it is not afraid of the fierce siege from several well-known large manufacturers.
In addition to the launch of portable CD players, Shirakawa Electric's Walkman and other products have not stopped the pace of upgrading.
Its biggest highlight is that it solves the battery life problem, and the application of chewing gum batteries has also made the public curious about this new type of battery.
It is not only found in Shirakawa Electric's Walkman, CD players and other products, but also in a new model launched by Sony.
According to the official statements released by the two companies, one chewing gum battery is enough to power a Walkman to play continuously for two hours.
The portable CD player equipped with four chewing gum batteries can last for more than two and a half hours.
After some people conducted relevant tests themselves, this high-capacity battery began to gain people's favor.
The battery can be charged and discharged over 500 times, and it only costs around 450 yen, which is a great bargain if you do the math.
A Walkman can only play for an hour at most with two dry-cell batteries, and replacing the batteries 500 times would cost at least tens of thousands of yen.
But now with chewing gum batteries, not only will the battery life be increased, but the cost of use will also be greatly reduced.
This battery, which can be purchased from street vending machines, has been warmly welcomed by Shirakawa Electric and Sony users.
Unfortunately, it is currently only used in the products of these two companies, and its popularity is far from enough.
Of course, due to good market feedback, Sony has decided to use the gum battery design on other models as well.
Several battery manufacturers, including Panasonic and Sanyo, are also negotiating with Shirakawa Electric about the authorized production of chewing gum batteries.
Shirakawa Electric did not reject their proactive request.
Only when more brands join in, will chewing gum batteries become more popular and accepted by more and more people.
According to internal estimates, chewing gum batteries should be widely used in portable devices in three to five years at most, or one to two years at least.
With the rapid development in recent years, Shirakawa Energy should have achieved initial success in the battery field.
Moreover, with profits, there will be funds to invest in research in a series of new energy fields such as nickel-hydrogen batteries and lithium batteries.
Baichuan Feng’s goal is not high. As long as Baichuan Energy no longer needs to pay for itself and it can achieve internal circulation, it will be considered a success.
But looking at the current situation, it is very likely that Shirakawa Energy will be profitable this year.
Well, with the R&D expenses spent in the past few years, the subsidiaries of Shirakawa Holdings are gradually entering the harvest period.
It can be predicted that starting from this year, Shirakawa Holdings' annual profit will grow faster and faster.
…
In August, Shirakawa Feng was in his office checking the profit statements of Shirakawa Electric's various products over the past six months .
As a listed company, financial statements are actually disclosed every quarter.
Of course, different companies have different regulations. Some disclose information once every six months, while others disclose information once a year.
However, most companies choose to publish once a year because this is the minimum number required by law.
The same is true for Shirakawa Electric. After all, who has nothing better to do than release financial reports every day?
Of course, monthly, quarterly and semi-annual profit statements are also indispensable within the company.
They are the basis for the company to make various business strategies and are also the most intuitive way for decision-makers to view the company's operating conditions.
According to the financial statements in hand, the profit of the game console division in the past six months is roughly over 20 billion yen.
The bulk of the revenue came from the FES and game cartridges newly launched in April, which directly contributed nearly 16 billion yen in profits to Shirakawa Electric.
The sales of handheld game consoles were basically the same as last year, with only over 4 billion yen in half a year.
According to the year-on-year growth analysis, this market share is actually declining.
Of course, this does not mean that Shirakawa Electric's market share has not increased, but Nintendo's has increased a little.
The fact is that the two companies are similar, and neither of their handheld game console businesses has seen significant growth.
This has something to do with the first generation of handheld game consoles entering a period of weakness and the impact of home game consoles.
After all, a disposable handheld game console costs nearly 5,000 yen. If you have that much money, you can just grit your teeth and go straight for the Blue and White or Red and White consoles.
Moreover, after buying a home game console, you can play other games on this platform in the future.
The price of a game cartridge is also around 5,000 yen, which is basically the same as the handheld game console. But its gameplay, gameplay, and graphics are all better than the latter.
Children may not compare prices, but it is enough for them to know that home game consoles are fun and inexpensive.
Therefore, the decline of handheld game consoles is inevitable in the market. If no changes are made, their profits will not only not increase next year, but may even decline.
Shirakawa Kaede realized this a long time ago, which is why he urged HAL to speed up the development of the next generation of handheld game consoles.
The same is true for any product. Only by constantly innovating can it maintain its market position.
Otherwise, being eliminated is only a matter of time. From this point of view, the market has a certain degree of fairness, of course, the premise is that there is no interference from external factors.
However, when it comes to the development of the next generation of handheld game consoles, Baichuan Feng's expression turned a little ugly.
HAL's progress has been delayed again and again, and it is already several months behind the expected launch date.
If he hadn't been too busy recently, Baichuan Feng would have gone to the scene to see what the problem was.
No matter what, he would have to squeeze in a day next week at the latest to go and see what was going on.
Just as I was thinking about the handheld game console, there was a knock on the door.
"Please come in." Baichuan Feng put down the report in his hand and rubbed his eyebrows.
"President, do you know what just happened?" Akagi couldn't wait to start talking as soon as he entered the door.
The expression on his face was a little strange, and it was hard to tell whether he was happy or gloating.
"Is it something good?"
From the look on his face that seemed to be enjoying the fun, Baichuan Feng knew that this guy was secretly happy.
"Hehe," Akagi laughed before he spoke, "Nintendo has started recalling their FC."
"Huh?" Bai Chuanfeng raised his head in disbelief, "Recall?"
"That's right! Not only are all of them recalled, but the current models have also been stopped from sale across all channels."
This time Baichuan Feng saw it clearly, this guy was just gloating over other people's misfortune.
"What's going on?" Baichuan Feng also became interested.
The red-blue battle hasn't ended yet, so why did Nintendo call it a day?
It can't be a fraud, the price would be too high.
Recall, not to mention the damage it will cause to the corporate image.
The human and material costs of this operation alone are staggering.
If you consider the loss of the product itself, the amount of money you will end up spending will be a lot more.
Generally speaking, unless the product has major defects or safety issues, the company will not consider this step anyway.
Akagi's subsequent explanation also confirmed Shirakawa Kaede's guess that Nintendo recalled the FC because there were indeed major quality issues.
With its official release in April, Nintendo's FC has sold nearly one million copies in three months.
But as the number of products sold increased, Nintendo received more and more complaint calls.
At first, Nintendo thought it was a quality control issue. After all, among millions of products, it is inevitable that some have quality issues.
But gradually, after-sales staff discovered that almost all complaint calls were reporting one problem.
That is, Nintendo's FC game console will experience screen flickering and lag problems during use, and in serious cases it may even crash directly.
The after-sales staff sensed something unusual and immediately reported it to Masayuki Uemura, who was in charge of the development of the game console.
Upon receiving the news, Masayuki Uemura also attached great importance to this issue. He knew very well that if this matter was not handled properly, it would cause immeasurable damage to Nintendo's reputation.
The development team hurriedly dismantled the problematic game console overnight. After several days of investigation and verification, they finally found that there was a problem with the circuit on the motherboard.
To be precise, there is a problem with the PPU, a graphics chip that assists the CPU. Its function is to reduce the pressure on the CPU and provide computing power for physical modeling, collision simulation, etc.
The PPU of Nintendo FC is also supplied by Ricoh. If you want to solve the problem, you must change the circuit or replace the PPU.
After counting the previous complaint calls, Masayuki Uemura found that there were thousands of problematic game consoles.
He was so scared that he didn't dare to act on his own and could only report the matter to Yamauchi Hiroshi in a hurry.
As the "tyrant" of Nintendo, it goes without saying that Yamauchi Hiroshi was furious.
But since the problem has arisen, it must be solved. The longer this kind of thing is delayed, the greater the loss.
Yamauchi Hiroshi made a prompt decision to recall all FCs previously sold and immediately stop selling new products.
This kind of thing cannot be concealed at all. If left unchecked, Nintendo’s century-old brand will be destroyed.
So starting in early August, Nintendo issued an announcement and started the recall process.
This is also the reason why Akagi came to find Shirakawa Kaede as soon as he learned the news.
Our competitors are in trouble. Mr. President, do you think we should just continue to watch the fun or add insult to injury?
