game trailblazer

Chapter 218 The Precarious Sega and Bandai
While Zhang Lexing was still rejoicing at the launch of the EC6500 series chipset, and many future computer users were still looking forward to the launch of motherboards and computers using the EC6500 series chipset, the Internet and game environment in mainland China were also quietly developing. changing.

Founded in May 1995, Yinghaiwei Company is the first Internet service provider in mainland China that started with a 5DX486 computer. It claims to be China's AOL, trying to integrate Internet market cultivation, network access, content production and service. Monopoly. In September 90, Ying Haiwei received an investment of 1996 million yuan from Zhongxingfa and other companies, and suddenly changed from a small company with no ideals to a large company with huge funds and full of development prospects. The ambitious general manager Zhang Shuxin decided to use This opportunity accelerated the development of Yinghaiwei, so it decided to start the construction of Yinghaiwei's national network. By the end of 9, the construction of nodes in 8000 cities including BJ, Shanghai, and Guangzhou had been completed, and Yinghaiwei's large network had begun to take shape. In February 1996, the Yinghaiwei website was officially opened. At this time, Yinghaiwei was in the limelight. With a large number of advertisements, it successfully established the cognition of "Yinghaiwei=Internet=Internet" in the hearts of Chinese people, and established itself in the BJ Zhongguancun's huge Chinese how far away from the information superhighway - 8 meters to the north" billboard has attracted people's attention.

Ying Haiwei is very prominent, but this is not the only domestic provider of Internet access services (ISPs). On the contrary, China Telecom, one of the largest Internet access service providers in China in the future (it was still called the Post and Telecommunications Bureau), is concentrating on receiving these ISPs. Tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of traffic fees per month, I didn't realize that the Internet has anything to do with the post office.

Although the development of ISPs is lively and lively, Zhang Lexing doesn't care at all. He knows that in the end, everyone will eventually fall into the network of China Telecom and China Netcom.At this time, Zhang Lexing was more concerned about those important portal websites in the future, such as Netease, **, Sohu, etc. Unfortunately, he hadn't found any of them yet, so he could only continue to wait for the right time.

The improvement of the Internet environment is actually not great, at least the Internet fee is still very high at this time, and only a very small number of people can afford it. However, domestic Internet cafes have begun to sprout during this difficult period. After the opening of Shihuakai Internet Coffee House, BJ opened a new Internet Star Computer Coffee House, which has 12 Pentium computers and provides online games including "Arrogant Eagle", "Duke Nuke", "FIFA97" and so on. Games, although they can't keep up with the scale of Fengyun Game Club's computer and the number of games, and the fees are slightly higher, but after all, players who like online games still have one more choice.Not long after that, a Ruide Online Internet coffee shop was opened near the embassy area in BJ. This is the real Internet cafe. It provides the service of browsing the Internet at a "low price" of 20 yuan per hour. Fortunately, the high income nearby There are a lot of people, so that no one cares about it.

Zhang Lexing knows that this period is not a good period for the development of Internet cafes. At least until the post office reduces the access fee and increases the access rate, browsing the Internet can only be a pastime that a few people can afford, so many so-called Internet cafes are actually just computer game rooms with a different appearance.This is also the reason why Zhang Lexing has not allowed Fengyun Game Club and Oriental Electronic Game City to expand rapidly. It is not that there is no funds, but that the environment is not suitable. However, the layout and purchase of some commercial stores in advance are still quietly going on, even if the selected location is not suitable. If it is used by Fengyun Game Club and Dongfang Electronic Game City, at least it will not lose money if it is resold after a few years.

Since the implementation of the new regulations of the Ministry of Publication last year since September 1996, 9, many publishing houses have begun to participate in the work of game distribution, and even directly represent the game. For example, the Electronic Industry Press has represented "Thor" Hammer and Ultimate Doom.There are also more overseas game publishers starting to set their sights on the growing game market in China. For example, companies such as Ubisoft and Virgin have entered the mainland by setting up branches or acting as agents.

At this time, Taiwanese game companies also began to focus more on the mainland market, either by setting up branches to reduce the cost of game development, or directly developing the game market in the mainland. The reason why they are so optimistic about the game market in the mainland , but more because Taiwan's local market has been almost occupied by the flood of PC-98 color games.

Since Huayi International introduced PC-98 games with great success, many savvy company bosses found that agent games can earn more money than their own hard work developing games, and there is no risk. , Even a well-established company like Zhiguan couldn't stand the temptation to join the PC-98 agent army.As a result, one game after another with more color and less color was pushed into the market, in exchange for a lot of income and public misunderstanding of the game, and even the spread of pirated versions brought a lot of negative news to the newly emerging game industry in mainland China. influences.As a result, Taiwan's local game development power, which was only valued by RB people, has gradually declined, and many game development studios have closed down because of this. It is cheaper for Asia Interactive's branch in Taiwan to take the opportunity to search for many senior game developers. .

Because there are a lot of agent and Sinicized games this year, Fengyun Interactive did not concentrate the games in the winter vacation and summer vacation as in the previous two years. Instead, starting from March, several games have been launched almost every month, such as Xishanju The "Swordsman Love", which claims to be "Legend of Sword and Fairy with a happy ending, many crushes, and a tragic plot", such as the imported "Dungeon Guardian" and "Heroes of Might and Magic II".Other game companies and agency companies in mainland China are not to be outdone, and have launched their own games to rush to the beach, such as "Flame Dragon Knights II", "F3", "22 Racers", "Jin Yong Heroes", "Chibi ", "Fire Shaolin", "Between Life and Death", etc. Of course, there are many companies that have been holding back for a long time but can't come up with finished games, including some companies that have received funding from the Dream Fund.

A wide variety of games come in, making the players happy and a little at a loss. They are a little dazzled, so they can only flip through the game introductions in magazines, and at the same time draw the games they may like on the shelves of specialty stores. Due to the practice of numerous members and the trial version first, Fengyun Interactive once again took the lead in this market competition, but it is a pity that it did not reach the glory of last year.

The mainland players are dazzled with happiness, but in RB, there are two people who are very depressed. They are the president of the famous toy manufacturer Bandai, Makoto Yamako, and the president of the well-known game company Sega, Hayao Nakayama.

In Taito District, Tokyo, in the headquarters building of Bandai Corporation, Makoto Yamashina sat on his large armchair, looking sadly at the stack of petitions on the table in front of him. Made it.In fact, Makoto Yamashina would not be worried if it was just these small employees. With the prestige he has accumulated over the years, he can easily settle the situation. In fact, the main pressure still comes from Bandai's management. They are worried about their positions after the merger with Sega. There is no guarantee, so all measures of passive resistance have been taken against this merger plan, which has brought great resistance to Shan Kecheng's promotion of the merger, but the real trouble is still to come. I don't know why, Shan Kecheng Naoji Yamashina, the father of Bandai and the founder of Bandai, also jumped out to oppose the merger, so Makoto Yamashina had to treat it with caution.

Makoto Yamashina raised his head and looked at his father standing by the window. Naoji Yamashina's figure was already a little hunched, but at this moment, it was like a mountain pressing down on Makoto Yamashina's heart.When Cheng He, Shan Kecheng began to try to eliminate the influence left by his father after taking over Bandai. He has always felt that he was very successful. He replaced his father and became Bandai's one-sided person. The childishness of his father's flirtatious words can easily change the balance of power in this battle.Shan Kecheng knew that it would be futile for him to continue to resist. He sighed, picked up a pen and signed his name on a document next to the petition.

Putting down his pen, Shan Kecheng glanced at his father again, and shouted silently in his heart: "Father, I just want to save Bandai. Now Bandai is in crisis and is facing huge financial pressure. I don't want to do anything. I'm afraid it won't last long." Although Shan Kecheng wanted to say this to his father, he couldn't open his mouth after years of accumulating prestige.

That afternoon, at the headquarters of Sega Corporation, President Hayao Nakayama was holding the phone handle in his hand, with an expression of disbelief on his face. Just now he heard a shocking news from the phone. Makoto Yamashita actually told him that Bandai To cancel plans to merge with Sega.

Nakayama Hayao roared angrily: "Damn Yamako Makoto, didn't this guy announce that he would officially sign the contract the day after tomorrow? It's only been less than seven hours, and he changed his mind, this bastard..."

Since following the trend of Nintendo's Game&Watch to launch the handheld game console, Sega has been struggling in the home game console market. In the era of 16-bit game consoles, it finally turned around with the MD American version of the console.At the time of the next-generation console war, Sega launched the Saturn game console with high hopes early, but it happened that Nintendo fell by itself at this time. Before Sega could have fun, a Sony game console appeared For the PS game console, Hayao Nakayama felt that he was very unlucky.Later, Nintendo's N64 finally came out, and it was still a messy start, but it happened to create a miracle in the North American market, and gradually formed a front and rear attack on the Saturn game console. At this time, European and North American companies suffered huge losses. All of this It made Nakayama Hayao very worried.

In order to restore the crisis, Sega decided to look for a strategic partner.By chance, Hayao Nakayama had dinner with Makoto Yamashita, the president of Bandai, in the hotel of RB Tokyo Roppongi. Considering the many resources in the hands of Bandai, Hayao Nakayama was tempted, and proposed to Makoto Yamashita to merge Sega and Bandai to form a new Unexpectedly, Shan Kecheng immediately agreed with the company's idea.In the following days, the relationship between Sega and Bandai became closer and closer. In January 1997, Sega and Bandai jointly announced the news that the two companies were about to merge, and then released the name of the new company after the merger. Sega Bandai Co., Ltd."For a while, the media exclaimed: "An 'Oriental Disney' covering video games, toy manufacturing, film and television animation, theme parks, karaoke, music production, cable TV and other business fields is about to be born."

However, what Nakayama Hayao never expected was that the merger plan, which seemed to be a sure thing, was suddenly cancelled. He was at a loss in his heart, not knowing where the future of Sega should go, and even whether he had a future. He had no idea.

The next day, Bandai and Sega each held a press conference to announce the collapse of the merger plan.For a while, the media was in an uproar again, but Sega's competitors were all rejoicing and celebrating. After all, the threat of the possible "Oriental Disney" was too great.

"You mean, the merger plan between Sega and Bandai has been cancelled?" Zhang Lexing asked Wang Mengyao again.

"Yes, they have held a press conference to officially announce the news, and our own intelligence has also confirmed this." Wang Mengyao said with certainty.

"Great, this is really good news." Zhang Lexing was overjoyed. If Sega really merged with Bandai, what would be born would be a very terrifying Big Mac, which might even be bigger than Nintendo and Sony. Difficult to deal with, fortunately, such a thing did not happen.

"Yes, boss. According to the investigation, the failure of this merger was mainly due to resistance from within Bandai. Even the father of the president, Yamako Makoto, opposed it, so..." Wang Mengyao explained the reason for the incident.

"Well," Zhang Lexing waved his hand and said, "It doesn't matter what the reason is, as long as the merger doesn't work out. But next, you'd better arrange people to pay more attention to Bandai and Sega. The merger failed, and their business crisis has not been resolved. , I believe they will think of other ways, maybe this is a good opportunity for us."

"Yes, boss, I'll arrange it right away." After Wang Mengyao finished speaking, she turned and left Zhang Lexing's office.

(End of this chapter)