Author: quiet thoughts

Since the launch of the FES blue and white game console in 1983, Shirakawa Electric has also carried out a series of upgrades to this 8-bit console in recent years, as well as the development of peripheral products.

The supporting hardware such as controllers, keyboards, and light guns are already very complete, and some auxiliary software support has not been left behind.

But to say that the generation that has truly upgraded the most is the 16-bit blue and white machine SES launched last year.

Compared with the previous generation of 8-bit computers, both the processor and memory of the 16-bit computers have been greatly improved.

Now that performance has improved, game development must also keep up.

The "Legend of Zelda" series of games that HAL has been developing for two years has also begun to be launched on the 16-bit machine SES.

This brand-new Japanese RPG game has a huge story background, characters with growth potential, and supports game progress to be saved when the power is turned off.

So once it was launched, it quickly became popular in the neon game world.

Even the ultra-high game price of 9,580 yen cannot stop people’s enthusiasm.

After several years of development, CD-ROM technology has become very mature.

If this trend continues, HAL's future profits may not be comparable to those of Shirakawa Electric.

However, whether in Neon domestic or overseas markets, Shirakawa Electric is a well-deserved giant.

The goal is to launch our fifth-generation game console before 1991!"

The game had rich content and excellent quality. So it easily sold millions of copies, and the game publisher HAL made a lot of money.

When Bai Chuanfeng said this, everyone's faces became a little serious.

However, Shirakawa Kaede now set her sights on the fifth-generation game console, which is the 3D game generation console.

This cost is too high. The price of game consoles in the current era generally does not exceed 20,000 yen.

As the other two giants in the field of game consoles, Nintendo barely maintains a market share of less than four tiers, while Sega has almost disappeared from Neon.

The U.S. Department of Commerce pays close attention to imported goods such as automobiles, home appliances, and semiconductors. As for entertainment electronic products, game consoles, it does not pay much attention.

Although no news has leaked out from Nintendo, Shirakawa Kaede does not believe that it will remain indifferent.

"Haha, please do something like this happen more often."

Now on the market, Shirakawa Electric has taken the lead in releasing its own 16-bit computer, and the Sega MD is about to be released.

They all make electronic products, so it's normal for everyone to be jealous.

Even in the handheld field, this advantage continues to be extended.

Technologies such as Walkmans and CD players have reached their bottleneck for the time being, and there will be no major changes in the short term.

However, the price of 9,580 yen is still a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of about 1,000 yen.

With the use of more platforms, the potential market prospects of SIC will be broader in the future.

"Okay, let's get down to business." Bai Chuanfeng waved his hand to stop their plan to miss the building.

Mentioning this, Satoru Iwata couldn't help but want to laugh. As for Yamashita Daiji and Akagi, they simply bared their big white teeth in gloating.

"Although our 16-bit game consoles are very successful, it does not mean that we will dominate the market in the future like we do today.

That's right, Sega MD purchased SIC's 16-bit chip as the core processor of the game console.

Regardless of whether it is Shirakawa Electric or Nintendo, the overseas market export share of the game console business has not dropped much.

"Although North America's local game console manufacturers are vulnerable, Neon's opponents should not be underestimated.

In last year's financial report, it alone contributed nearly US$1.2 billion in profits to Baichuan Holdings.

Also in terms of exports, neither Lao Mi nor other Western countries seem to care about game consoles.

Sega purchased SIC chips because they were cheap, and this chip has been proven by the SES platform, so it can be said to be a great success.

Neon has sold more than 300,000 units in the past few years, but it has been dumped by Shirakawa Electric and Nintendo.

We are already in the bubble era, who cares about pocket money that is less than 10,000 yen.

However, later on, more than two million units were unexpectedly sold in the North American market. This may be related to the fact that Sega's arcade machines have a huge user base in North America.

Together, the two companies have taken up almost half of the market. This can be regarded as the East is not bright and the West is bright.

This may be related to the fact that game consoles only satisfy spiritual enjoyment, but will not have an impact on the local industry.

"Atari is almost no longer a concern in the home console market. Two and a half of the three game console manufacturers currently competing are companies from Neon."

"The shock caused by Atari's impact is greater than imagined. Now consumers there would rather trust our Neon company than trust Atari anymore."

The next fifth-generation game console is the key to our victory, and the fifth-generation game console is internally codenamed Game Station.

Its main function is to power the storage circuit on the cartridge, which is more expensive than game cartridges.

Stimulated by HAL's huge profits of tens of billions of yen, Square Enix has been cooperating with Shirakawa Electric and launched the "Final Fantasy" series of games.

A game console war in the future is most likely inevitable.

With this group of users, Sega is now focusing on game consoles and is preparing to launch the fourth-generation home game console MD this year.

Besides, HAL also has confidence in its own game console, and internally it is unanimous that it will not be easily surpassed by Sega MD.

In addition, Yuji Horii, who has established his own personal studio, also developed the first generation game of "Dragon Quest" at the same time.

In the end, Nakayama Hayabusa gritted his teeth and directly placed an order for 300,000 pieces of SIC. Shirakawa Kaede did not break his promise, and SIC finally supplied Sega at a price of 4,980 yen per piece.

They have heard all this. Who has allowed HAL and Shirakawa Electric to make too much money in the game console business in recent years?

Therefore, in order not to waste manpower, we can focus our research and development on entertainment games and communication technologies.

In this way, Sega's fourth-generation game console and Shirakawa Electric's fourth-generation game console both use the 16-bit SIC80281 chip.

Of course, due to the continued depreciation of the US dollar, this number may not be as valuable as before, but it is already extremely difficult.

That's good, Shirakawa Electric can put more effort into game consoles in the future.

Here at HAL, Shirakawa Kaede and the others are sitting together, analyzing the global game console market.

Especially Sega, its performance in North America is better than Neon Too Much."

Shirakawa Kaede's words instantly made everyone excited. 3D graphics. Today's players haven't really seen what 3D games are like, right?

"HAL will set up a dedicated 3D computing group, and SIC will also develop corresponding graphics chips.

In addition, the game console hardware is only a supporting role, and the real factor that affects the sales of game consoles is the game itself.

Therefore, Sega finally chose SIC chips.

“The 700MB space of a CD-ROM is definitely not comparable to the hundreds of KB or tens of MB of content on a cassette.

“So in order to maintain our leading position in the game console market, we must always be at the forefront so we don’t have to worry about being surpassed by others.

The Sega SG-1000, Shirakawa Electric's FES, and Nintendo's FC were released on the same day, but Sega's performance was the worst among the three.

At least in the foreseeable future of Shirakawa Kaede, both of them have great potential, and technology is also in the spurt stage of rapid progress.

After all, SIC has not been having a good time in the past two years, and it is in urgent need of more customers to make a comeback.

Without exception, they are all launched on the 8-bit machine FES or the 16-bit machine SES. With the support of these three major RPG games, Shirakawa Electric's game consoles lead the way.

"That's right." Bai Chuanfeng nodded affirmatively, "It's time for players to see what a real game is!"

On the other hand, in North America, Sega relies on its rich arcade IP to compete with Nintendo in the market.

So in order to find a suitable and low-priced 16-bit chip, Hayao Nakayama, CEO of Sega of Japan, directly visited Shirakawa Kaede.

Firstly, it may be related to the fact that they have no competitors in North America, and secondly, it may also be related to the attitude of the North American government.

"Use a CD?" Iwata thought thoughtfully.

NEC, Bandai, SNK, and even our old friend Namco are not willing to be alone and want a piece of the pie.

"Hai!"

Relying on its outstanding performance in the field of game console hardware and software, Shirakawa Electric's game console division's profits and audio-visual division have slowly narrowed the gap.

This time our game console no longer uses cartridges, but CD-ROM discs."

"The great charity Atari did a few years ago has benefited us a lot so far~"

So we have to give full play to this advantage, and the 3D images that only existed in the concept stage before can now be produced."

In addition, according to the information Shirakawa Kaede has learned, NEC, Casio, and even Bandai are preparing to enter the game console market.

It was precisely because of seeing this that Bai Chuanfeng had the idea of ​​slowly transforming.

One chip costs more than 20,000 yuan, and the price of the whole machine will be even more exaggerated.

The reason is that they are cheap. Similar chips from Motorola and Intel cost at least 21,000 yen each.

Of course, because it supports power-off saving, the game cartridge comes with a button battery.

It can be said that the game console market has begun to slowly involute.

However, transformation does not mean giving up the previous business, but it may focus more on the other side in terms of R&D investment in the future.

It is the same as Shirakawa Electric's SES, both are 16-bit machines, and even the chip uses SIC's 80281.
To be continued...