Video Game Empire

A large audience for movie and video rentals is teens. And this is also the game's largest audience. So Cook was keenly aware that selling game cartridges as well would be a good business for video rental shops!

When Oriental Games was competing with Atari in the home game console market, Atari once implemented a strategy of blocking Dongyou, prohibiting game distributors in the United States from representing Dongyou's fc home game consoles.

Therefore, in addition to the original arcade business, Dongyou Company's subsidiaries include fc series home game consoles, gameboy series handheld game consoles, and emerging computer stand-alone games. network, connecting directly with retailers large and small across the United States.

When Cook, in the name of the general manager of Blockbuster Company, came to negotiate the game sales business with Dongfang Commercial Company, Blockbuster only had three branches. But Oriental Commercial did not shut Cook out because of the small size of the other party.

On the contrary, the cooperation with Blockbuster has made the management of Dongfang Commercial realize another new channel to promote game products besides the game store. You must know that the number of video rental stores in the United States far exceeds that of game stores, and Blockbuster has also entered the field of vision of Oriental Commercial Company.

Regarding the layout of the home imaging market, Li Xuan's plan is different from that of Sony's Akio Morita. Sony hopes to dominate the entire North American home video market by controlling the format of intermediate copyright content. But Li Xuan is very aware of the development of the American entertainment industry, and it is difficult for one company to monopolize all copyrighted content.

So Li Xuan has long been aiming quietly. The last link in the entire video distribution industry chain - video rental store. The current video rental market in the United States is still a mess, and there is no national chain store. This is undoubtedly an opportunity for Li Xuan, who only needs to spend a small amount of capital. You can easily crush those wandering skirmishers fighting each other.

Immediately after the film is drawn from the theater, it will be made into a videotape for secondary sales. Most of the people who were willing to buy a new video were big fans of the movie. In order to promote the secondary sales of video tapes, production companies often take some small measures to attract these die-hard fans. For example, adding some scenes that were not broadcast in theatrical release, or adding some behind-the-scenes scenes, etc.

But the price of video tapes is not cheap, especially those hardcover versions are more expensive, often hundreds of dollars. Only a small number of people are really willing to spend money to buy video tapes for home collection. Most people prefer to spend a few dollars. It's enough to rent a movie home and watch it once.

The main force supporting the huge consumer market of video tapes in North America is the video rental shops all over the streets. If a movie is popular, it's just the number of tapes these rental shops buy for rental. Just enough for distributors and studios to make a fortune.

In addition to the video rental store channel, the sales channels of the new version of the videotape include national supermarket chains such as Wal-Mart and Kroger, and national chain bookstores such as Bode and Barnes & Noble. All have opened up a video tape sales area.

But supermarkets and bookstores do not operate the fragmented and cumbersome video rental business. Therefore, the video rental stores all over the United States are still the largest terminal retail channel of video tapes. If you can control the video rental market in the United States, it will be a breeze to spread vcd discs across the US market.

Supermarkets, bookstores, cafes, and fried chicken shops in the United States all have chain brands throughout the United States, but video rental stores have not yet started chain operations. This is due to the fact that the videotape market has been formed for a short period of time. After all, it has only been fifteen years since the world's first VCR came out, and the videotape rental market has not matured for less than ten years.

On the other hand, traditional video rental stores operate alone. Extensive operation and low efficiency. Just like the predicament Cook encountered when he went to rent a movie. Finding a favorite movie can even take an hour, which is unthinkable in artificially expensive America.

The Blockbuster company founded by Cook has actually laid the foundation for the large-scale operation of the video rental industry. The reason why Dongfang Group chose to acquire Blockbuster as an entry point to enter the US video rental market is precisely because of its computerized management characteristics.

Dongfang Group is an it enterprise whose core competitiveness is semiconductor and computer technology. Dongfang Group is not a retail company. Even if it needs to acquire some retail companies due to business development, it should use its own advantages to transform the retail industry, and Blockbuster is exactly in line with Li Xuan's philosophy.

"Mr. Cook, I don't know if you know Mr. John Martin of cg company. When I bought the computer garden company, Martin was also one of the partners of the company, but he only had 10% of the shares.

At that time, Millard, another major shareholder of Computer Garden Company, had sold all the other 90% shares to me, so Martin was also forced to sell his shares. He was also about to resign at that time, but I managed to keep him! I told him that even if he didn't have any shares in his hand, if he wanted to stay, he could still be the real master of cg company!

So Martin chose to stay, and now his right choice has paid off handsomely. He is now one of the most famous managers in the retail industry in the United States and is highly sought after by Wall Street capital. The total value of salary, dividends and equity paid to him by cg company last year exceeded 100,000 US dollars, which can be said to be both fame and fortune!

And I also hope that you can stay today, because I think Blockbuster can develop into the next CG company within the Oriental Group! Your choice to sell your entire stake is very sensible because Blockbuster is so small right now.

Even if you retain a part of the equity, after the large capital injection of the Oriental Group, these equity will be quickly diluted to a negligible level! But you should stay, because Blockbuster after receiving a large number of blood transfusions from the Oriental Group, the next time is the time to show its grand plans!

You don't need to worry about whether your future work will be constrained by me. I can say something unpleasant. As a super large group with total assets of tens of billions of dollars, Blockbuster's current scale can only be regarded as a marginal business, and I don't have so much time to pay attention to it!

Of course, the headquarters of the group will definitely supervise the development of its various subsidiaries, and the development plan of the subsidiaries needs to follow the overall interests of the group! "Li Xuan said unhurriedly after taking a sip of coffee.

After the company is acquired by capital forces, the founders get out, which is a normal thing in the United States. Because many times the development concept of the founder is often completely different from that of the investor. Rather than staying in the company and waiting to be swept out, the founder might as well take the initiative to leave.

But starting a company is like giving birth to a child, a piece of heart that fell out of the laborious October pregnancy, and there are very few people who can really leave without nostalgia. Otherwise, the Qiao Gang master in another time and space would not choose to enter the second palace and re-enter the Apple company to start a great road of revival.

"Mr. Cook may wish to listen, I am making the final decision on Blockbuster's next development plan! Oriental Group will inject 200 million US dollars into Blockbuster to support its rapid expansion in the US market! In the next two years, Blockbuster's stores in the United States will increase to 1,000!

Of course, if we want to achieve this scale in the short term, we will not only open new stores by ourselves, but also adopt the mode of cooperation and franchising! In my opinion, the core asset of Blockbuster is not the storefront, but the computer database!

Of course, this database doesn't just refer to the movie inventory management system you wrote for Blockbuster. You have done a very good job in video inventory management. Although there is still room for improvement, the overall structure does not need to be changed!

A more important new content in the database is to increase the collection of customer data. User data is the best asset of Blockbuster! For example, according to the recorded data of users renting movies, the background analysis engine of our database can actively recommend other movies of the same type for them, which will greatly increase the company's business scale!

'Internet' should be a very hot word in the United States recently. Blockbuster will open an online rental website while expanding the number of physical stores. In the future, Google will be able to choose movies online by logging on to our website through a computer without leaving home.

Then, according to the delivery address ~www.readwn.com~ filled in by the user, our online server will automatically assign the order to the store closest to the user's residence. Users can choose to pick up the film by themselves, or they can choose to be mailed by us!

In this way, customers can avoid the waiting time at the rental store when there is a large crowd on weekends, and also avoid the frustration of not being able to rent their favorite movies! And we can also massively improve efficiency! "Li Xuan spoke eloquently about Blockbuster's next development direction.

Internet, mail service, this is another time and space, lifx company beat Blockbuster company's core model. The lifx company moved its rental business online, thereby saving the high rent of brick-and-mortar stores, as well as the salaries of a large number of sales staff.

Since the Oriental Group is preparing to enter the video rental market in the United States, Li Xuan will naturally design the follow-up transformation space from the beginning. Therefore, Blockbuster will not plan to open a large number of self-operated stores next, but is more willing to incorporate existing video rental stores in the form of cooperative franchise.

In this way, in the future, when the Internet industry has a sufficient impact on the entire physical retail industry, Blockbuster can simply stop the franchise authorization without any pressure of layoffs, and immediately realize the light-packed battle! (To be continued.)

(=)