Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 64
Those famous games developed by Shigeru Miyamoto in the early stage, whether they are called younger or suitable for all ages, all show to some extent that this person was relatively naive when he was young.

In fact, this is also the case. On the way back to Tokyo from Kyoto, Tang Huan and this left-handed man who often had a smile on his face and even showed a bit of a dumbfounded face still had a good chat. The other party was also careless and soon forgot. previous setbacks.

Different from Nintendo's current mode of making games, the Xiaobawang game console is a well-established host hardware platform, which can already provide some programming function call interfaces that cannot be called game engines for the time being.

Therefore, after getting some ideas from Tang Huan N and 1, Shigeru Miyamoto doesn't need to think too much about the underlying hardware factors, and can give full play to his creativity and practice through software programming.

Tang Huan didn't expect to be successful right away. After all, it takes a process for a genius to grow up, and some of Nintendo's poachers were attacked accordingly.

I believe that after a year and a half of improvement, Miyamoto Shigeru will have the ability to launch the famous works of his previous life, "Donkey Kong" and "Mario".

When Tang Huan arrived in Tokyo, as soon as Shigeru Miyamoto settled down for the time being, Hu Yinmeng approached him with an unconcealed smug expression on his face.

"The novel "Shanghai Beach" has been written, please go over it."

"So efficient." Tang Huan said lightly, took the manuscript and read it.

After all, this novel is a short story, and the outline of the story was planned by him. Just like a college entrance examination essay, he just needs to find the key points.

So Tang Huan turned quickly, basically ignoring Hu Yinmeng's literary talent.

"Very good. Immediately publish it in the three major newspapers in Hong Kong. No matter which one is "Ming Pao", "Dongfang Daily" and "Sing Tao Daily", the faster the better." Tang Huan handed back the manuscript and ordered with.

Only getting the "very good" comment made Hu Yinmeng feel a little depressed. She asked in dissatisfaction, "Why do you want to go to Xiangjiang to publish it? Isn't Baodao also very good, and the people in the industry you know are even better." many."

"Don't you know that period of history? Remember when Mr. Jiang and Du Daheng fought in Shanghai, and finally returned home. Do you think novels with this theme may be published smoothly?" Glancing at Hu Yinmeng's face, With dark circles under his eyes, Tang Huan made an expression of "Are you an idiot?"

"Stop talking nonsense, you go to Xiangjiang to do this in person, with two main points, the faster the better, the louder the better. Remember, this is your second test during the probationary period."

Hu Yinmeng gritted her teeth secretly, nodded and took the order to leave.

Looking at the other party's slender back, Tang Huan sighed silently. It's a good kid who went astray before.

Now that he has dug people to his side, he has to discipline him with a sullen face, so as not to cause trouble in the future.

The purpose of coming to RB this time has been achieved, Tang Huan no longer delays, and quickly set off to return to San Francisco, preparing to participate in the upcoming COMDEX.

……

In order to develop the Japanese character library, Zheru specially recruited several Japanese technicians from the United States.

Therefore, after bringing Shigeru Miyamoto to the company, Tang Huan first introduced these people to him so that he could quickly integrate into the working circle here.

Then, Tang Huancai led Shigeru Miyamoto into a secret office area that was always strictly guarded against the outside world - the Little Overlord game console project team.

At this time, an engineer was playing Tetris on a Xiaobawang game console. Miyamoto immediately stared at it for a long time.It was clear that he was fascinated by the game.

Although there is Tang Huan's guidance as a clear roadmap for the project, it still takes a lot of energy for technicians to quickly build the hardware platform of the Xiaobawang game console from scratch.

Therefore, in terms of programming games with software, there are not many achievements. At present, there are only Tetris and two other knock-off games.

In fact, Tetris alone is enough to play a leading role.

The employees in Zheru Company have long been obsessed with this kind of game, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as playing crazy.

Because waiting in line was too painful, several engineers, under the pressure of keeping secret military orders, compiled a Mac version of Tetris to satisfy their hunger, and compared their performance with each other.

This shows how powerful the charm of Tetris is.

The Xiaobawang game console is one of Zheru's important release products at COMDEX, and its direct competitor is the Atari 2600, which has begun to become popular.

Using the third-generation game console Xiaobawang, carrying the classic game Tetris, against the Atari 2600, which belongs to the second-generation game console, Tang Huan can be regarded as a bully.

Even with such an advantageous technical crush, Tang Huan still dare not take it lightly.In order to create momentum for Xiaobawang, he specially prepared additional publicity means on COMDEX.

The reason why Tang Huan was walking on thin ice was mainly because Atari, which Jobs had worked for, had a lot of background in the field of video games. Not only did it create a brilliant arcade industry, it was also the first successful manufacturer of home game consoles.

It is precisely because the Atari 2600 has been enthusiastically welcomed by people that it attracted Nintendo to officially enter the field of home game consoles, and developed the FC game console, the red and white machine.

It can be said that the founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell, who was born in 1943, was not the inventor of video games, but he was the one who really let the public play video games.

In 1962, Bushnell saw Steve Russell's pioneering game - "Space Wars" on a mainframe at a university, so he began to have a huge interest in video games.

Bushnell graduated from the University of Utah in 1968.

In 1972, Bushnell founded Atari.

First of all, Bushnell developed the world's first coin-operated game machine for business use—that is, what we commonly call arcades—"Computer Space", thus rewriting the blank of electronic games in the commercial market.

However, for those who have never seen a video game, "Computer Space" is too complicated, and the game fails.

Subsequently, Bushnell reorganized his thinking and launched the revolutionary video game Pong, or "Ping Pong".

Compared to "Cyberspace", "Ping Pong" is much simpler.

There is a long line in the middle of the game screen, as the so-called "ball net", and one person on each side controls a short line as a "racket", and then hits a dot with each other, which is the so-called "ping pong ball". high score.

The first "Ping Pong" host was placed in a bar, and it was a great success.

It was during this period that Bushnell, Atari, and Jobs came into contact.

In February 1974, Jobs, who had spent 2 months at Reed College, returned to his parents and began looking for a job.

A job advertisement for science and technology - "making money while having fun" attracted Jobs' attention.

In this way, Jobs, who was unkempt and wearing sandals, walked into the lobby of the game manufacturer Atari, and coaxed the personnel director who was taken aback by his hairstyle and dress: "If you don't get a work, I will not leave."

You know, Atari was already a very popular company at that time.

The supervisor rushed to report to chief engineer Al Alcorn, "There's a hippie kid in the lobby and he says he won't leave until we hire him. Should we call the police or let him in?"

Bushnell was a charismatic, articulate, icon of the age guy who enjoyed driving around in a Rolls-Royce, smoking contraband and holding staff meetings in bathtubs when he became famous.

In addition, Bushnell had an ability to turn charisma into persuasion, coaxing, coercing and twisting facts through the power of personality. Jobs later learned from him.

And Alcorn is an optimistic and rational person. He is like a parent. On the one hand, he wants to help Bushnell realize his dream, and on the other hand, he must control the boss's fanaticism.

So, after knowing that a strange guy was coming, Alcorn, who had long been used to it, said, "Bring him in!"

In this way, Jobs became one of the first batch of 50 employees of Atari, working as a technician with a salary of $5 an hour.

Back then, Jobs was known for his brashness.

In some situations where he happened to communicate with others, he would call others "idiots" unscrupulously.

"The only reason I shine is because everyone else sucks." That's what Jobs thought.

Or it was because of Jobs' arrogance that he won the favor of Atari boss Bushnell.

At first, Alcorn had Jobs work with an engineer named Don Long.

The next day, Long began complaining to Alcorn, "This guy is a goddamn body-stinky hippie, why did you arrange this? I can't get along with him at all."

At this time, Jobs firmly believed in a theory that the vegetarian habit based on ice fruit would not only eliminate mucus, but also remove body odor. Even if deodorant was not used, there was no need to take frequent baths.

Obviously, people who are not strong enough to endure can't bear this weird idea.

Lang and others wanted to drive Jobs away, but Bushnell, who liked Jobs, came up with a compromise solution, which was to ask Jobs to come to the night shift after Lang and others were off work.

It stands to reason that Bushnell admires Jobs so much. When Jobs ran around for the production funds of the second-generation Apple and asked him if he was willing to invest 5 US dollars to buy a third of Apple's shares, Bushnell should be able to use this It was intriguing that he had a chance to get a share of the pie, but he didn't agree.

In fact, the inventor of the world's first home video game console was Ralph Bell, not Atari.

In 1971, Magnavox purchased these patents and began developing the "Magnavox Odyssey" game console.

Nintendo obtained a production license from Magnavox and entered the field of video game consoles in 1977.

Seeing such a huge success of the "Ping Pong" game, Magnavox was the first to launch a corresponding version on its own video game console Odyssey.

In 1975, Atari established a company called Cyan Engineering and began to develop home consoles.

When Atari launched a home console version of its Ping Pong game, it found it was so similar to Magnavox's that the company had to pay Magnavox a fee.

At the same time, according to the agreement, Magnavox will own the copyright of all Atari products within one year.

This is really a big deal, and a big tragedy.

At the end of 1976, due to lack of funds, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $2600 million, on the condition that the game console code-named Stella be released earlier, and he received $1 million. Additional investment.

In October 1977, the Atari 10, the second generation of home game consoles, was finally launched. Its biggest advantage is that it provides a variety of games through cassettes, unlike previous products, where a game console only has one game. playable.

However, the Atari 2600 spent a total of $1 million on research and development.

It can be seen from this that Tang Huan, a reborn person, is technically against the sky.

Due to poor management, by the end of 1978, only 80 of the 55 mainframes produced by Atari had been sold.

Ray Casal took over Bushnell's duties in 1979, and Bushnell left Atari.

Casal brought modern management methods to Atari and implemented a series of marketing activities.

According to the original historical trajectory, the Atari 2600 would become the best-selling Christmas gift in 1979, with sales exceeding 100 million units that year.

It was for this reason that Tang Huan felt as if he was facing a formidable enemy.

Although Xiaobawang will face fierce competition from the Atari 2600 as soon as it is launched, Tang Huan still chooses to face the difficulties.

Because the next few years will be the golden age of the second-generation video game consoles, the Atari 2600 will attract countless gold.

This trend reached its peak in 1982, when Atari sold 800 million units and its assets grew from $7500 million to $22 billion, accounting for half of Warner's revenue.

Of course, a big crash followed, but this was out of Tang Huan's attention.

After Miyamoto Shigeru settled down, Tang Huan came to his office.

In order to make a big splash at COMDEX, he has a lot to ask himself.

(End of this chapter)