Chapter 406: The Gaming Industry is Promising
As the first commercial product of TFT and STN, TV Wactch only sold for 50,000 to 60,000 yuan in Japan, but it sold more in North America.
Because of the added bonus of 007, the color model sold more than 600,000 yuan by the end of the year, and the low-end black and white model also sold more than 400,000 yuan.
According to previous profit calculations, a TFT block has a profit of 15,000 yen, and an STN block has a net income of approximately 8,000 yen.
Combined with sales in Japan and North America, the LCD factory earned 14.6 billion yen this year from this business alone.
If you look at it individually, it doesn't seem like much, and even in the entire Baichuan Holdings Group, it is not very noticeable.
But as mentioned before, this is the first time that the LCD factory has made a profit.
In the future, as various screen technologies gradually become popular, this profit will only be the beginning.
Whether it is a battery factory or an LCD factory, they both have great potential in the future and are worth Shirakawa Feng's increased investment.
"We will continue our cooperation with Northeastern University. In addition to industry-university-research cooperation, we should also not forget to cultivate our own talents.
In addition, the development of nickel-cadmium batteries will stop here for the time being, and the focus of subsequent research will be on nickel-metal hydride batteries and lithium batteries. "
Nickel-cadmium gum batteries are just a transition, and Baichuan Feng's real target is the latter two.
If they can be dealt with, Shirakawa Energy can at least guarantee its market share for decades to come.
"Please rest assured that we have already started these works. This year, Shirakawa Energy has recruited many students from several universities in Northeast China. They are all our talent reserves."
Shirakawa Energy is currently headed by Shota Miyari, a graduate of Tokyo Institute of Technology, majoring in materials science.
As for why he chose to go to the battery factory in Akita instead of staying in bustling Tokyo, it was because he was also from Akita.
With such a relationship in place, Baichuan Feng naturally handed this important task to him.
As long as the abilities are similar, he will still prefer his fellow villagers.
The so-called village party is a collective of interests that has been united step by step.
“By the way, we can also start the front-end research on clean energy. Wind energy, tidal energy, solar energy, plant energy, etc…
Whether it is Tohoku University or Akita University, we provide activity funds and the schools are responsible for research projects.
Although we can only obtain theoretical results now, they will be useful one day in the future.”
These investments will not pay off in the short term, but Baichuan Feng still wants to do it.
Because of them, Shirakawa Energy will be able to participate in the development of new energy in Akita and even the entire Tohoku in the future.
When it comes to energy infrastructure, not to mention the large government investment subsidies.
It is the influence it has that makes it worth Baichuan Feng's huge investment now.
Miyairi Shota wrote down his instructions one by one.
This is roughly the future development plan of Shirakawa Energy, of course it is mainly a plan in the general direction.
"As for the LCD factory..." Shirakawa Feng paused, " After all, TV Watch is not a consumer-grade product for the general public, and its future potential is limited.
In order to truly maintain the stable development of LCD factories, it is necessary to open up other supply channels.
TFT is not mature enough for now, so just maintain the current pace.
However, STN already has the potential for large-scale commercial use, and various commercial electronic screens are our potential customers.
In this regard, I would like to trouble Mr. Nakajima and Mr. Ishikawa to take more care of it."
"Understood." Nakajima Heitaro and Ishikawa Kanto nodded in acceptance of the order.
One of them is the head of SIC and the other is the head of the LCD factory.
The current LCD is under SIC. If they want to open up new sources and find more customers, they need to develop channels on their own.
In summary, although Shirakawa Energy and the LCD factory have just made a profit, they are finally on the right track, and Shirakawa Feng no longer needs to pay extra attention to them.
However, unlike the two new companies engaged in manufacturing within the group, the performance of several subsidiaries under Shirakawa Interactive Entertainment is relatively average.
For example, Mainichi Shimbun, Daiei, and Tokuma Shoten, among these three media and publishing companies, the first two are losing money, and only Tokuma Shoten is making a profit.
The reason why Baichuan Feng was able to acquire them easily was not unrelated to their miserable business conditions.
Fortunately, due to its limited size, the losses were not too great. The profits from Tokuma Shoten were enough to make up for the losses of the two companies.
In addition, the restructuring of Mainichi Shimbun and Daiei has been ongoing, and the situation should improve significantly next year.
Baichuan Interactive Entertainment also has two subsidiaries: SAOND Records and AutoNavi Toys.
Unexpectedly, SAOND Records, which was just established this year, has started to make a profit. The main reason is because of the cash cow Seiko Matsuda.
Since she was bought back from Sony with a gum battery in the first half of the year, she has released two singles and an album in the past six months.
The total sales of the three CDs were close to two million copies, and the profit from this was about 3 billion yen.
It has to be said that the record industry makes money very quickly, and popular artists are indeed cash cows for record companies.
Tsk, Baichuan Feng is still very satisfied with his woman's ability to make money.
In order to reward her, not only did he do big business, but he also gave her a little more share of the record revenue, just as pocket money.
In addition to Seiko Matsuda, SAOND also signed several new members.
Narumi Yasuda, Yukiko Okada, etc., their debut songs are expected to be released next year.
We are also actively negotiating record contracts with other artists. Even if a long-term contract cannot be reached, releasing a few albums will be fine.
With Baichuan Interactive Entertainment's current resources, releasing records is basically a sure win.
And because of the media channels such as TV stations, newspapers, and publishing houses, SAOND is also very attractive to some artist agencies.
This is another benefit brought by the interconnection of resources under Baichuan Interactive Entertainment. Some things have to be viewed together to reflect their value.
As for Gaode Toys, it has mainly been selling action figures in the past year.
These characters were designed based on the comics published by Tokugawa Shoten. Although some of them sold well, none of them became a huge hit.
However, thanks to the game content here at HAL , some peripherals developed by AutoNavi are selling very well.
Pac-Man pillows, Raiden models, Double Dragon figures, etc., took advantage of the popularity of the game and sold very well.
The profit for the whole year was more than ten billion yen. As the saying goes, turning losses into profits is a victory.
Although the money is not much, it is better than Baichuan Holdings losing money every year.
But if we want to talk about the real money-making company under Shirakawa Interactive Entertainment, we have to look at HAL Research Institute.
Businesses such as hardware peripherals, computer games, home game consoles, and cartridge games are flourishing in all aspects.
Hardware peripherals include traditional Chinese character reading and writing cards, trackballs, keyboards, handles, etc., which brought HAL a profit of 20 billion yen this year, nearly doubling that of last year.
What surprised Shirakawa Feng the most was computer games, which did not have a super strong sales platform like FES.
But with the release of nearly 20 software games throughout the year, the profit of this part of the business this year is 300 million US dollars!
That’s right, $300 million, 75 billion yen!
To be honest, when he saw this number, Baichuan Feng was also surprised.
"Is the computer game market so hot right now?" Baichuan Feng held the report and looked at the fat classmate curiously.
"The main reason is that the price of personal computers has dropped significantly compared to previous years, and computers are now becoming more popular and entering middle-class families."
Obviously, Satoru Iwata also put a lot of effort into investigating the changes in the market.
“Because of the computer fever, computer games also became popular.
This year we held the 'Golden Cross Game Creation Competition' and received more than 500 entries, of which 80% were computer games.
Among these 80%, there are more than 80 models that were actually shortlisted, and HAL decided to release about 60 of them.
The 20 games this year are just part of the plan, and this number will continue to expand next year."
It has to be said that Shirakawa Kaede's initial inspiration brought HAL unimaginable wealth.
Looking at it from today's perspective, the "Golden Cross Game Creation Competition" is undoubtedly a great idea.
Thanks to such events, HAL's game library is instantly filled. Although the quality varies, the number of games is huge.
And the ones HAL releases first are of course the ones with the best quality.
Using a bonus of 10 million yen in exchange for an operating profit of 300 million US dollars, this deal is really a good deal.
"It's not just us. Enix has released 13 games and is said to have made a profit of around $200 million."
Iwata told Shirakawa another piece of gossip in the industry, and the latter raised his eyebrows after hearing it.
“It seems that the computer craze has indeed reached a certain scale. In addition to games, we can also work hard in the software field.
In the next few years, the market in this area will also grow at an alarming rate as computers become more popular.”
"Hai!"
Shirakawa Kaede's positioning of HAL is far more than just games, he also wants software.
Another major source of income for HAL is this year's extremely popular FES and its related game cartridges.
Although FES is produced by Shirakawa Electric, HAL receives a commission for each unit sold.
As for game cartridges, most of the profits go to HAL. After all, it is the content producer, so it is reasonable for it to take the lion's share.
Moreover, HAL is wholly owned by Shirakawa Holdings, and all its profits belong to the company.
But if it is given to Shirakawa Electric, the profits will have to be divided among other shareholders.
So it was natural that whenever possible, all the game console business would be transferred to HAL, and Shirakawa Kaede was willing to do so.
Of course, there are benefits to being under Shirakawa Electric. Once the Red and Blue battle started, the stock price started to rise.
Considering the size of Shirakawa Electric, a slight increase in its stock price would result in an increase of hundreds of billions.
So each has its pros and cons. As for how to distribute it, it all depends on which side gets more.
Since FES was launched in April, more than two million units have been shipped by the end of the year.
As core game cartridges, HAL has released a total of 32 models, with a total shipment volume of 40 million discs.
Some games are officially produced by HAL itself, while the rest are provided by third-party game makers.
According to the profit-sharing system originally established, 40 million game cartridges brought HAL a profit of 112 billion yen.
112 billion yen is 450 million US dollars, which proves that the gaming industry is really promising.
Taking all businesses into account, HAL's total profit this year was $850 million.
Compared with last year's revenue, this figure is a huge leap forward.
This also indirectly proves one point, that is, as the timeline gradually approaches the 1990s.
All computer-related industries will be able to generate more and more profits.
Perhaps it cannot be compared with the manufacturing industry at this moment, but the future prospects are already visible.
This is all the profits that Baichuan Interactive Entertainment has brought to Baichuan this year, including HAL, SAOND, and AutoNavi Toys, totaling US$870 million.
Other media industries such as Tokuma Shoten, Daiei, and Mainichi Shimbun have basically achieved internal circulation after achieving balance.
We have finished reviewing Shirakawa Interactive Entertainment, and next are Shirakawa Electric and SIC, which are led by manufacturing.
