game trailblazer

Chapter 277 E3 Storm

Ye Tiantian is a PC party. His many years of experience in China made him think that the game console platform has almost reached the end of its rope. This can be seen from the development of domestic media. There are many magazines and newspapers about computer games. There are only a few magazines for game consoles, and even a two-footed magazine like "Home Computer and Game Consoles" has gradually shifted its focus to computer games.The same is true of Ubisoft where he works. Although I heard from colleagues that Ubisoft actually develops games on multiple platforms such as PC, DC, and N64 at the same time, it still only develops games on computers in China. He thought that the situation abroad should be similar.

However, Ye Tiantian found out after this trip to E3 that the actual situation was not the case. The game console platform in foreign countries not only did not disappear gradually but became more prosperous. The situation here is just the opposite of that in China. The scale of the game is larger, which can be seen from the size of the booths of companies such as Nintendo, Sega, and Sony.

The Nintendo booth was one of the largest ones Ye Tiantian saw at the E3 exhibition. When he came to the booth, the first thing he saw was a POD racing car model hanging on the big red "Nintendo" characters on the Nintendo booth. And it looks like the size is made according to the ratio of 1:1.Of course, this so-called POD car actually refers to the single-chamber flying car used for racing in "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace", which has nothing to do with the "POD death car" produced by Ye Tiantian's owner. Because "Fast Speed ​​Shuttle" also launched a version for the N64 game console.According to his companion, the hanging POD seems to be the prop car used by Anakin in the movie, and the two extremely real and super cool jet engines made Ye Tiantian stop in front of the model for a long time, The film of the camera in hand is also "wasted" a lot.

Originally thought that this POD racing car was cool enough, but Ye Tiantian discovered something even more exciting when he continued to walk inside. Maybe he wanted to take advantage of the wind from "Star Wars Prequels", so Nintendo spared no expense to carve out a piece of it in the booth. As the special area for the display of "Fast Shuttle", many character models from "Star Wars Prequel" are placed at the entrance of this area. Not only are the shapes realistic, but they can also talk.Although he is not an avid "Star Wars fan", Ye Tiantian watched each character model one by one with great interest, although he could not understand what each character said, but when he stopped in front of Master Yoda At that time, the familiar phrase "the principle is with you" made him feel like a movie.Most of the special area is the movie posters that can be seen everywhere, as well as the large circle of N64 game consoles used to display "Fast Speed ​​Shuttle".

After watching the Nintendo exhibition area, Ye Tiantian couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. He thought he could see the legendary "Dolphin" game console, but he didn't expect that the entire exhibition area was full of N64 games, like "Perfect Darkness" corresponding to the memory expansion pack. ", the mysterious "Donkey Kong 64" and "Pokemon Arena", the most topical "Resident Evil 2" N64 version, "Command and Conquer" derived from computer games, etc., even the old GameBoy also exhibited A series of games including "Super Mario Bros. Deluxe Edition", "Pokemon Yellow", "Pokemon Pinball" and so on have been released, but the legendary "Dolphin" has not even seen a hair.

When Ye Tiantian was standing outside the Nintendo booth and sighing, Zhong Chuanli happened to pass behind him. He also came to visit the Nintendo booth. Of course, his main purpose was to inquire about the situation.Sega Corporation attaches great importance to this E3 exhibition, because they hope that through this preview, they can lay a good foundation for the Dreamcast mainframe to land in the North American market on September 9th, so Nakagawa flew from RB Tokyo not far away. Los Angeles, USA.

Since giving up the gradually declining SS game console, Sega has transferred all its resources to the Dreamcast console, which has high hopes. Bad results, the next key is the North American market.According to Sega's plan, the Dreamcast console should be officially sold in North America on September 9th in the second half of the year. In order to reproduce the glory created by the original Genesis (MD US version) in North America, under the guidance of the headquarters, Sega North America has done Quite a lot of preparation.

The first is to take out the American version of the Dreamcast console with the addition of a Modem (56Kbps dial-up Internet access device), the price is scheduled to be 199.99 US dollars, and a supporting network service plan is also launched, which can be regarded as a fulfillment of a dream that the SS game console failed to realize at the beginning. .The second is to strengthen the promotional campaign. Although it cannot replicate the overwhelming advertising campaign of the Genesis era, Sega also plans to invest more than 600 million US dollars in advertising on the most popular MTV channel, hoping to make the Dreamcast console the first choice for fashion and popularity.

Of course, it is still in terms of game software. After all, the Dreamcast host is still a game console in the final analysis.In order not to let last year's embarrassment in the RB market repeat itself, Sega has arranged a huge list of game pre-releases. In addition to the original masterpiece "Sonic Adventure", there are also "Sega Rally 2", "VR Warrior 3", "Death Fighter" Perfectly transplanted arcade masterpieces such as "House of 2", "NBA2000" under development by Sega Sports and "NFL2000" with detailed content, as well as high-quality games such as "Dolphin Adventure" and "Soul Force" from third parties, and the game The developer list also includes Midway, Acclaim, Namco, Accolade, Crave Entertainment, Ubisoft and many other large and small game development companies.

The most shocking of the games on display is "Shenmue", which appeared at the Spring Tokyo Game Show. In the trailer, the American flavor contained in it is very attractive to the audience.And Namco's special "Soul Force" for the Dreamcast host is also very popular. Its near-perfect picture and system are well received by visitors and professionals. Game Awards".

In order not to waste the network service plan for the Dreamcast host, or to keep up with the rising online game boom in North America, Sega also announced several online games corresponding to the Dreamcast host, including Turbine, a well-known online game company in North America. A game codenamed "Pathfinder".

With these preparations, Zhong Chuanli thinks that the problem should not be too big, at least after seeing Nintendo's booth that mainly focused on N64 games, he still thinks so, and he is even a little complacent about Nintendo's stick to the rules.But when he came to the booth of Sony Computer Entertainment, what he saw made him not happy at all.Compared with Nintendo's conservatism and slowness, Sony Computer Entertainment has a more pioneering spirit. Although there are still many PS games that support the appearance at this exhibition, their focus has gradually begun to focus on PS2.

Sony's booth is very distinctive. A TV screen embedded in a pyramid-shaped stand is constantly playing some three-dimensional animation clips to show the legendary magical performance of PS2, such as delicate facial expressions, There are realistic effects such as detailed light and shadow changes during racing, and on the other side are some PS game display areas and a large-scale so-called PS2 game trial area.Nakagawa didn't pay much attention to those few PS game demonstrations. He believed that it was only a matter of time before the Dreamcast console beat the PS game console, but the PS2 game demo area made him feel very uncomfortable.

According to Sega's judgment, the PS2 jointly developed by Sony and Toshiba should still be in its infancy, and there should be no real machine to show. However, the appearance of the PS2 game trial area shows that Sega guessed wrong. He and his colleagues were also wrong, even though there is only one game in the entire demo area.

The PS2 game demo area provides a racing game, which looks a bit like the tens of millions of masterpiece "GT Racing", but if Nakagawa distinguishes carefully, it seems that the two are quite different in many places , but for ordinary visitors, what they care about is whether the game is fun, whether the operation feels comfortable, whether the picture is dazzling, smooth enough, and exquisite enough. There are a lot more over there.What makes Nakagawa uncomfortable is the promotional slogan of Sony Computer Entertainment. I don’t know what they think. Anyway, they like to talk about the PS2’s legendary 2 million polygon processing capacity per second, and it is often followed by this sentence. That is, "PS7500's polygon processing capability is 2 times that of Dreamcast." If he wasn't afraid of revealing his identity, he even wanted to argue with the other party on the spot.

While Nakagawa was still struggling with the performance comparison between PS2 and Dreamcast, Akihiro Aoyama of Sony Computer Entertainment, accompanied by the official staff of the E3 exhibition, was walking out of the "Bleem!" booth as a winner.Although the district court rejected the request for an injunction against the PS emulator "Bleem!" twice, Aoyama Akihiro never gave up. This time, with the support of the official staff of the E3 exhibition, he finally succeeded in ordering the other party to terminate the ban. In the booth, the "Bleem!" simulated PS game and the comparison demonstration of the original PS game screen, even including the use of "Bleem!" to directly demonstrate the action of the PS game simulation.

In fact, the PS emulator "Bleem!" is not a direct threat to Sony Computer Entertainment, and it may even increase the utilization rate of PS game discs. Of course, will it drive genuine PS games as the "Bleem!" development team claims? Only God knows how many CDs will be sold.Akihiro Aoyama, or the reason why Sony Computer Entertainment is watching so closely, is still worried that "Bleem!" will have a negative impact on the PS2 under development, because one of the main functions of PS2 is backward compatibility with PS game discs.In order to demonstrate this miraculous function and attract players to hold coins for purchase as much as possible, Sony Computer Entertainment also took out two PS2 assembled machines to run the popular "Final Fantasy 8" at this exhibition, so that everyone can understand This backward compatibility function has an intuitive understanding.

The function of backward compatibility with PS game discs can be very magical, but if there is a PS emulator "Bleem!" inserted horizontally, even the computer can run PS games relatively perfectly, then this backward compatibility How dare the function be regarded as a major selling point, so if it is not controlled by the law, Aoyama Akihiro would even wish to have a few sticks to sweep the developers who developed this damn "Bleem!" to the garbage dump.

Akihiro Aoyama was in a good mood when he walked out of the "Bleem!" booth, although the boss of the "Bleem!" development team yelled something behind him, "...Many booths used PS games to promote their products. Just staring at us...", but he didn't care about it, because in his opinion, no one else could play PS game console emulation except this obtrusive "Bleem!"

Happily walking back to his booth, Aoyama Minghong hadn’t had time to take a sip of water and take a rest, a staff member named Ye Shan suddenly ran over in a panic, and before he could catch his breath, he hurriedly said: "Qing, Headquarters Qingshan, something is wrong, and another company is using PS games to demonstrate..."

"Why panic?" Aoyama Akihiro said dissatisfied: "Isn't it just a PS game demo to show the product, what's the fuss about!"

"It's different...they're different from others." I don't know if it's because of panic or some other reason, but Ye Shan couldn't explain what he said, so he simply tugged on Aoyama Akihiro's clothes in a hurry: "Director Aoyama, How about I take you to see it, and you will understand after a look."

Seeing Ye Shan's anxious expression, Aoyama Minghong had no choice but to follow him out, but he muttered secretly in his heart: "Ye Shan, it's better that you really found out the situation, or else..."

Turning east and west, after bypassing several booths, the front suddenly became clear, and a huge exhibition area appeared in front of Aoyama Minghong. Ye Shan exhaled, pointed to a place full of people on the right side and said: " Director Aoyama, look there, that's where PS games are being demonstrated."

Aoyama Minghong looked in that direction, but there were too many people and he couldn't see anything, so he had to squeeze in the crowd. After 5 minutes, he finally saw the "content" he was watching. A home game console, connected to a large-screen TV, is playing an automatic demonstration of a certain game, which looks very familiar.Aoyama Akihiro looked around, and when he saw clearly the words written on the sign standing beside him, he almost turned his nose out of anger on the spot.

(End of this chapter)