Video Game Empire

The protagonists of the Western Electronics Show will always be those big companies, IBM, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Japan's Toshiba, Calendar, NEC. The first day of the exhibition was not open to the general public, and the most eye-catching star exhibit was undoubtedly the MC68000 processor brought by Motorola.

Intel developed the 16-bit processor 8086 as early as 1977, while Motorola developed the MC68000 two years later than its competitors. However, what Motorola released last year was only a laboratory engineering sample, and the MC68000 brought this time is the product type that will be put into production on a large scale.

Although Motorola's MC68000 was long overdue, it skipped the 16-bit system and instead was a 16/32-bit hybrid CPU, leading Motorola's leading position in the processor market with excellent technology. Intel didn't transition to the 32-bit era until the 80386, released in 1985.

For arcade fans, the MC68000 should be a very familiar CPU. A large number of arcade machines from the mid-to-late 1980s to the 1990s used this processor as the main CPU of the arcade board. If you disassemble the familiar arcade machines such as The King of Fighters and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you can find this MC68000 or its later improved 68HC000 inlaid on the arcade board inside the frame.

Li Xuan also stayed at Motorola's booth for a long time. In addition to processors, there were many other electronic exhibits, such as BP machines. This was the beginning of the Chinese people's understanding of Motorola's name.

The electronic game exhibition area only occupies a small part of the entire electronic exhibition area. Li Xuan was surprised to find that the Apple Computer booth was also arranged in the game area. He then thought about it, in the eyes of mainstream electronics industry practitioners, the current personal computer is just a bigger game console.

In order to cope with the competition from Apple II, Atari also specially developed an 8-bit computer, the Atari 800. In fact, the main function is to play games. There is also the Commodore 64, which became famous a few years later. This computer was launched in 1982 and sold 17 million units throughout the 1980s. In fact, it is a game console under the name of personal computer.

It was not until the emergence of IBM's PC that personal computers really began to show their power in the field of business offices, gradually throwing off the reputation of game consoles. It may be because Apple did not release any heavyweight new products, and only brought the latest upgraded version of Apple II + Apple II + on the booth, so the two founders, Jobs and Wozniak, did not come to the exhibition site.

This makes Li Xuan a little regretful. Jobs is one of the business heroes he admires. Many Apple criticized him for not knowing technology and only some business tricks, but it was the creativity in his mind that deeply influenced the world twice.

The success of many people may be that the times create heroes, but after a success like Steve Jobs fell to the ground, after getting up, he can still create a new peak beyond himself. This is precisely what Li Xuan admires the most.

The same example is Shi Yuzhu in China. You can spray Melatonin and "Journey", but looking at the business history since China's reform and opening up, there are several business heroes who can rise again after failure, making Chu Cheng famous Chu Shijian, who raised the whole country, counted half of it.

Next door to the booth of Dongfang Electronics Co., Ltd. was Sega, which dominated the American video game market alongside Atari in the 1970s. This time, Sega has brought two new arcade machines that have just been developed, "Servant" and "Hunting Africa" ​​(there are screenshots in the related section). But at the moment, Sega's two new bosses are not at all happy.

American Jew David Rosen established Sega in Japan in 1954. At that time, Sega's main business was to sell pachinko machines to the US military stationed in Japan for the entertainment of American soldiers.

But later, David Rosen sold a majority stake in the Sega company he founded to Gulf & Western Industries, an American company. Last year, Sega's major shareholders were interested in selling their shares, and David Rosen completed an MBO (management buyout) for Sega with the backing of Japanese entrepreneur Hayao Nakayama and several other investors.

David Rosen has returned to the chairmanship of Sega Corporation and is in charge of the business of Sega America. And Hayao Nakayama became the president of Sega Corporation and the head of Sega Japan. In Japanese companies, the chairman is equivalent to the chairman and is the top leader, and the president is equivalent to the CEO.

Both David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama attached great importance to Sega's first battle of the new year. In the past two years, Sega's development was not smooth. In 1978, Taidong Company rose rapidly by relying on a "Space Invaders". Although Sega took advantage of Taidong's lack of complete North American sales channels, it obtained the North American sales rights of Space Invaders from Taidong, and made a fortune by hitching a ride.

However, the follow-up works it launched next did not sell well, and it was far inferior to Namco's imitation "Little Bee". Sega's original arcade dominance was also shaken by the sudden rise of Taidong. It is precisely because of this that David Rosen has the opportunity to buy back the equity he sold in 1966 from the major shareholders who are not optimistic about the future development of Sega.

As the head of Sega again, David Rosen soon launched two new games "HeadOn" and "Monaco Racing". The two new arcade machines received a good response last year and saved a lot of momentum for Sega.

But this is not enough for David Rosen. He wants to re-establish Sega's monopoly in the arcade industry. So ~www.readwn.com~ this time at the Western Electronics Show, he once again brought two new games. He had high hopes for "Servant" and "African Hunting", like the previous "HeadOn", both adopted the latest arcade motherboard Dual developed by Sega.

"Servant" is a **** period drama-flavored action game. The player acts as a swordsman in red, dodging the ninja's whip and darts on the eaves, beheading all the miscellaneous fish on the screen, and finally fighting the leader. .

In "Hunting Africa", the player drives a car that transports animals and drives along the edge of the jungle. People can get off the car and enter the jungle at any time. When a beast is seen in and out of the jungle, first use a narcotic bomb to temporarily make it sleepy. , then drag them to the car to score points.

David Rosen and Hayao Nakayama, who came from Japan, were looking forward to the two new games developed by their company. Because before, whether it was the evaluation of Sega's developers or the results of inviting players to try it out, the results were very good. Prepare to rely on them to re-prove the strength of Sega to all arcade players.

But as the saying goes, people are more popular than dead people, and they have to be thrown away when they compare goods. Shortly from the beginning of the exhibition, the crowd gathered at the booth next door to Sega has been increasing, while the exhibition hall of Sega has been deserted. It was not until David Rosen found out that several American street machine dealers he knew well were present at the booth next to him, and he didn't feel that the situation was wrong.

So he and Nakayama Hayao went to the booth next door to check the situation. However, the moment David Rosen saw the tank battle game screen, his heart was half-shattered.

PS: Yu Chujiu, A Tubo 409, RA2, and Fate 12345 have given great rewards. In the new week, everyone will blow up the recommended tickets violently~!