The Industrial Giant Reborn

Chapter 155 The Charm of the Magic Cube

Henry Morgan shook his head and said, "That's different. Cars are sold in units of one million a year, and arcade machines may not even be a fraction of a car."

"However, transportation costs, storage costs, and arcade machines are far inferior to cars." Chen Zhiwen continued: "As for the dealers in the middle, they don't have much cost. They have a warehouse and contact information for various terminals. Just arrange for a delivery, which is much more convenient than a car."

The arcade machine is just a bigger TV. It is square and square. Except for the screen side, the other three sides are all iron shells. It is easy to hold hundreds of arcade machines, but it is unbelievable that a car, a long truck can transport 20, and the fixed cost is also very high, because there cannot be a little scratch.

"If this is the case, I need to arrange for someone to calculate the various consumptions here." Henry Morgan said after thinking about it.

Chen Zhiwen went on to say: "Actually, this thing is like a car, whether it is for you or me, the higher the sales volume, the higher our profit margin, and more of your channel investment can be allocated to each arcade machine. "

"But cars can be sold every year. The channel I built this year can still be used ten years later, but the arcade is not good. It is enough to buy one for a small bar. If it is bigger, you can buy a few. But as long as there is maximum demand, you will never buy it again," said Henry Morgan.

"It's just that I won't buy Snake again, not necessarily the rest." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: "Henry, there is one more thing you need to know, I have already developed the next step after Snake. This game is definitely more fun than Snake."

"Oh, what kind of game? Can you let me have a look?" This was beyond the expectations of the business veteran, and Henry Morgan showed interest in his eyes.

"This way please." Chen Zhiwen stood up with a smile, and led Henry Morgan to the other side of the office, where there was a light blue arcade machine.

Turn on the power switch, the arcade screen lights up, and after waiting for 20 seconds, two English words are displayed on the screen.

"Wonder square? [wonder square]" Henry Morgan read out subconsciously. In fact, he had seen this arcade machine before, but he didn't care because he thought it was just a snake-eating arcade machine.

After 1 minute, a pattern with a rectangular box on the left, points on the right, and different types of boxes on the bottom appeared on the screen.

"How does this work?" Henry Morgan asked curiously.

"I'll play it again, and I'll tell you about the game's settings by the way." Chen Zhiwen smiled, and then started to operate it himself. At the same time, he also talked about the differences of various types of cubes, how to eliminate each layer, how to get points, double layer And if the three and four floors are destroyed at the same time, you can get four times, eight times and 16 times the points rewards and so on.

Twenty minutes later, Chen Zhiwen sat on a chair beside him, smiling at Henry Morgan who was concentrating on playing the game.

It wasn't until the screen was once again filled with different squares that the game was over, Henry Morgan put down the joystick, looked at Chen Zhiwen and said, "I have to say, this game is so interesting that even I want to continue playing it."

"So, I have absolute confidence that this game will be more popular than Snake." Chen Zhiwen said confidently.

When negotiating with distributors, as a producer, he must be confident, and this is emboldened. Even in the Internet era of the entertainment explosion in later generations, "Tetris" has always been downloaded at a low level, and many people are bored. When the time comes, or when you get tired of all kinds of entertainment activities, it is possible to come to the next game.As for the greedy snake, after various modifications and various screen beautifications, it barely survived.

In this era of almost no entertainment, Hong Kong Cubes can live for 20 years without any problem, but for arcade machines, it may only live for two years. This is determined by the total market size of arcade machines. It is too small and will wait for future development Home game consoles or handhelds or directly made into computer games, that is the huge market.

"That's right, but I have another question? It seems that this magic cube takes a long time to play a round, right? In this way, will our customers encounter the problem of not being able to recover the cost for a long time?" Henry Morgan asked.

"I have also considered this point, so I will give our direct customers several options. They can choose to continue to let players cast 25-cent coins, or they can choose special game coins, so that game owners can set their own prices." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"Price yourself?" Henry Morgan thought for a while and said, "A good way, this will maximize their benefits."

"I like dealing with smart people the most. I have to say, Henry, you are one of the smartest people I have ever met." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

Henry Morgan found that the Magic Cube was too time-consuming after playing for less than half an hour, which would be very detrimental to people who bought arcade machines, and most people would never have thought of this. People who buy arcade machines get their money back the fastest.

The ultimate goal of the arcade is to make money for those who buy it. From a business point of view, these people are direct customers, and they are more important than those millions of players. Therefore, as long as they don’t offend the latter too much, It is necessary to ensure the interests of the former as much as possible.

Different regions, different bars, and different consumer groups will cause an arcade machine to face customers of different orders of magnitude. In general business situations, the price will naturally increase when the number of people increases, and the poorer people will be eliminated through price increases. , If the number of people is less, the price will be lowered to attract more people.

But if you use the coins that everyone in the society has, it will create an embarrassing situation. The bar owners can't control the income by raising the price. It is true that the arcade has a button that can control the speed, but this is not a very good way. Because it will only seriously reduce the user's gaming experience. Besides, Midea also has a limit on the speed, not as fast as you want.

In the future, there will be other non-square games, and it is naturally impossible to rely on speed regulation. Only self-built coins are the kingly way.

"I never thought of this trick. If the bar owner can set his own price, the income will definitely be higher." Henry Morgan said with a smile, which really surprised him.

"So the replacement of arcade machines has never been a problem. In my estimation, an arcade machine is given to a normal bar. Generally, the owner can pay back the cost in 3-6 months, and the remaining half year is purely for the bar owner. Profit, after that, people are probably tired of this game, even if there are still people who are willing to play, the possibility of spending money is not great, at this time, it is time for us to launch a new game." Chen Zhiwen said lightly: "Magic Cube The lifespan of the game may exceed that of Snake, but there is no need to worry, because there will be other games later.”

The Magic Cube has actually been developed, including hardware debugging and testing of the main board, but it has not been released because of imperfect channels in the United States. Now that there are suitable distributors, they naturally need to let the other party know about their status. Bian will have many trump cards in the future.

Woz's team has recently been developing the first arcade game of later generations: "Space Invaders". East Company made a net profit of 1978 million US dollars. Although there are Snakes and Magic Cubes in advance, it should not have much impact on different types of games. ah?

Besides, you can't let the small Japanese company make hundreds of millions of blood, right?No matter how little you earn, you have to grab this game!

"Excellent, this is really beyond my expectation." Henry Morgan immediately became very interested, and he couldn't wait to win the position of the general dealer, because if the game is known to the outside world, it may attract attention. Here are other competitors. Although their family is very powerful, he is only one of them, and he is not really capable of reaching the sky.

"When will this magic cube go on the market?" Henry Morgan asked, holding back the joy in his heart.

"Of course we have to wait for half a year after the greedy snakes have filled the market on a large scale, and then we will slowly launch the magic cube." Chen Zhiwen explained: "Ordinary arcade buyers need to pay a lot of money, and they have to wait until they We can launch new products only after the cost returns, otherwise, it is easy to cause them to lose money, because their customer base is also fixed.”

Can two different games be put on the market together?The answer is no, at least not now. Chen Zhiwen has considered this issue a long time ago. If it is possible to release two or even several games together, he will definitely make a lot of money.

But the problem is that terminal customers can’t bear it. Taking the most common bar owner as an example, it costs several thousand dollars to buy an arcade machine. If the capital is earned back, if other more interesting arcade machines appear at this time, the previous investment will be lost, and it will not even be possible to put a small amount of magic cubes in large bars, because a small amount of arcade machines will only grab customers and will destroy them. Bar business.

Once this happens, it will inevitably lead to the collapse of the sales of Snake, because it is very likely that it will not be able to beat the Magic Cube, or Chen Zhiwen’s judgment is wrong, that is, the sales of Hong Kong Cubes will collapse. One of the two must be, because the price of the two is too high , The terminal market can basically only bear the popularity of one game, and when this game is almost popular, it will be the time for the next one to go on the market.

Only in the future, when the price of arcade machines will drop rapidly due to the drop in chip prices, and bar owners can easily buy a few arcade machines, will they be able to accommodate several different arcade machines, but by then, it may be the last period of arcade machines. Because home consoles are coming.

"You are right, then we need to put the Snake arcade machine in every city in the United States as soon as possible." Henry Morgan said with a smile: "Then why not, let's try it at the US entry price of 2500 US dollars. , When the channel is perfected, if there is a problem, shall we discuss it again?"

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(End of this chapter)