Game Development Giant

Bringing Apple back from the dead is actually not too difficult.

It's just a change in business philosophy.

It is unwise and impossible to compete with Microsoft and those compatible computer alliances for the market, because the power of these companies is too great. Basically, the future PC market will be controlled by these companies.

Apple's products are self-contained and have no way to be compatible with the products of these companies. Apple people are not willing to let Apple give up its own set of things, but the problem is here. If it continues If you don't insist on your own way, then the market share will only continue to decline, and final bankruptcy will be inevitable.

Autistic system...

For Apple, this is a double-edged sword. If you use it well, it will be invincible. If you use it badly, it will be like this.

It was precisely in order to maintain its own autistic survival system that Apple refused to participate in the Compatibility Alliance to fight against IBM. Now the Compatibility Alliance has become a trend and has completely dominated the PC market. For them, it doesn't matter what they say. late.

In fact, it seems to be a dead end for Apple now, but that's just what it seems.

One thing that people at Apple have not noticed now is that Apple's business philosophy when it reached its peak during the Steve Jobs era was specialization. He did not compete with Microsoft and those compatible computer alliances to fight for what seemed to be an extremely broad business. The competition in the market is too fierce, and one's own system is not compatible with theirs, the software cannot be shared, and the market share is lower than others, so no one is willing to develop software for themselves.

If this continues, the environment will become increasingly bad.

So, what should be done?

Still using Steve Jobs's idea, that is, to differentiate Apple. Compared with these compatible machine alliances, Apple has an advantage that no one has noticed yet.

That is, we are different from them, from the inside out.

As for Apple supporters, it is precisely because of this that they will buy Apple, not for other reasons - to be honest, if it is about practicality, why buy Apple? It's because Apple is different from other computers.

Steve Jobs always understood this.

His first strategy after returning to Apple made Apple's decline visible. Is there really anything technically commendable about his rainbow jelly computer? Of course not, it is just a simple change in appearance. At the same time, after reducing the hardware, the host is also integrated into the monitor, and a transparent colored shell is used as the outer cover.

At the time, this was extremely fresh and extremely fashionable.

It has to be said that whether it is Steve Jobs or Apple's process design staff, they are indeed a group of people who are very sensitive to industrial design. They are always able to keenly capture that point that users don't even notice, but Being able to use things they love.

Just like what Steve Jobs later said, a wise saying that has been quoted countless times by his followers: Users actually don't know what they want until you put the product in front of them.

and. Although the development of some things will not go as Jester expected in the future.

But reality is reality.

For example, Jester complained in his day. The growth of the mobile game market has affected traditional games, which was not noticeable at the beginning. Many people were saying, how can those played on mobile phones be called games? In fact, this is actually the same as when PS2 dominated the world. The situation is so similar, they all start from light players.

Moreover, these light players have very strong payment capabilities.

This will make more and more game development companies jealous of the profits of mobile games and participate in it. The technical content and manpower required to develop mobile games are really nothing compared to real traditional games.

And the rate of return is astonishingly large.

Jester shook his head and drove these messy thoughts out of his brain. To be honest, there is no way to avoid this situation. In the future, the performance of mobile phones will be enhanced, and the emergence of mobile games will also be inevitable, and . Mobile phones also have portability, convenience, and popularity that handheld computers cannot match.

Just like making handheld games, it was not ridiculed by a group of console gamers at that time.

Later, when mobile games began to explode, it was the same. There were still handheld players who ridiculed it, but ridicule could not change this fact. That is, the replacement of handheld devices by mobile phones is the general trend, and it is an unstoppable trend.

Jester doesn't like mobile games. He doesn't have that kind of sentiment. Gamers have very emotional sentiments, but as the founder of a gaming company, he still needs to find a suitable development path for his company after he retires.

VR equipment is a way, which represents the development direction of console games.

Mobile games are another way, which represents the development direction of portable games. The decline of handheld consoles in the future has basically become settled.

Although Mars Entertainment is still producing handheld consoles, it even contributes a large portion of profits from handheld consoles.

Sega had developed a handheld console with a color screen, but due to problems with weight, portability and battery life, it was ultimately abandoned. Although several very high-quality games were developed specifically for this handheld console, players would not be able to use it on their handheld device. What can you do if the phone doesn't buy it? You can't expect players to go out every day with something that weighs five or six kilograms, and the eight batteries they carry can only last less than two hours, right?

Sega has not released a new handheld console since then, but there are several handheld consoles in the United States that are copies of Nintendo's GW technology. They are cheap and sell well.

Because the price of my GAMEBOY is relatively high, the sales volume is not as high as that of this Tiger arcade.

Of course, Jester still mainly makes money by opening game cartridges.

Sony also wants to participate in the big market of handheld consoles. After all, it would be too jealous to only let Mars Entertainment make money in this market. This is just because the home console issue has not stabilized yet, and it may not be long. There is no time within time.

Several companies in Japan are also interested in the field of handheld consoles. After all, there is currently only one company, Mars Entertainment, in this field. For such a vast market, it is impossible for a company to casually compete in this market and not attract people's attention. It is said that Bandai, which started out as a toy maker, is not interested in this. very interested.

Jester couldn't remember when Namco merged with Bandai, but it was Jed who hid it from him. Gunpei Yokoi went to Bandai Namco after he left Nintendo.

However, Jester doesn't care much about these. The only thing that can have an impact on his handheld business is probably Sony's PSP, but it's unclear whether the PSP will appear. Not to mention anything else.

In fact, even if Jester appeared, he wouldn't be too worried.

After all, he still has the killer feature of Nintendo's dual-screen setup. To be honest, Shigeru Miyamoto is really a genius. Needless to say, other things are just the creativity of NDS, which is the best.

It can be said that it has directly reset a standard for the development and gameplay of handheld games.

It is no exaggeration to call it the greatest configuration on a game console in two thousand years.

Now that Jester had made the decision to invest in Apple, he immediately told Sandy Weill about the matter, but Sandy Weill didn't say anything. Although he was optimistic about Apple's future, he couldn't say anything when he heard that Jester had made up his mind. Moreover, because the merger with Morgan Stanley did not go smoothly, he was also quite agitated during this period.

He promised to ask Jester which Apple shareholders were willing to sell their shares, and Jester also expressed his gratitude.

At the same time, Jester also gave Sandy Weill a suggestion. In fact, in the original history, Sandy Weill failed in its merger plan with Morgan Stanley. The second evolution was the merger of Travelers and Citibank.

This matter was warmly welcomed by Citi.

The final success was achieved through very sincere negotiations between both parties.

This can be said to be the world merger and acquisition that had the greatest impact on the entire world financial industry after the war.

After Jester mentioned that he might as well inquire about Citigroup's attitude, Sandy Weir also nodded. In fact, this was also an idea of ​​his own, since Morgan's path was unworkable. The same goes for taking the path of Citigroup. Moreover, in his eyes, although Travelers Group is not as well-established as these super investment banks, it is. Their current profitability on Wall Street is comparable to that of these established investment banks.

after. Jester took the initiative to contact Jobs.

After Jobs sold Pixar Animation to Jester, he felt that the pressure on himself was relieved. After all, he couldn't bear such a large investment in the past two years.

Fortunately, Disney has invested in development together, otherwise, he may not be able to persist until now.

But in the end he gave up.

After all, after investing so much, if it failed miserably at the box office, his investment over the years would have been in vain. Therefore, he released a message at the beginning of this year to see if anyone was willing to take over. Of course, he did not He wasn't too urgent, so he offered a relatively high price, but here's the problem. He himself was worried about a box office failure, and people who were interested were also worried about a box office failure.

After all, so far, there is no precedent for 3D animation to be a big success.

Therefore, at the beginning, no one who had feelings for it had any intention of taking over, and Jobs was a little disdainful of it.

If Toy Story, released at the end of the year, is a huge success, will he sell Pixar? Impossible. Now can be said to be the last chance to take over Pixar. If it succeeds, he will not sell it. If it fails, it will make no sense whether to sell it or not.

Therefore, Jester accepted the offer without much bargaining. For this reason, Jobs still admired Jester.

He didn't do anything else during this period. He went to India to do some ascetic practices before. He was a Buddhist. This was no secret. Jester also knew it. Even in later generations, Jobs's views on Buddhism His deep belief is hard for others to imagine. For example, after he was diagnosed with cancer, he refused to accept any modern treatment and instead believed in herbal therapy.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with Jobs doing this.

Because the American Cancer Society has also said that there is currently no cure for cancer. After cancer cells spread, if they can survive for five years, it is considered a successful anti-cancer. Generally speaking, even if the patient never receives any treatment, he may still survive. last ten years.

During a meeting with Jester, Jobs had just returned from India.

Hearing what Jester said to him, he was both excited and hesitant.

Returning to Apple to tell the people who kicked him out of Apple that you were wrong. I guess it was the only right thing. Of course it was what Jobs wanted most, but he didn't expect that this opportunity would come so quickly. Appearing in front of him - of course, it is only possible to appear in front of him. At least for now, the young man in front of him has not officially obtained Apple's shares.

Of course, knowing the young man in front of him, he certainly knew that as long as the young man was willing, it would not be too difficult to acquire shares from investors and shareholders who had lost confidence in Apple's future.

Money is just a number to this young man.

Jobs was right about this. Jester was willing to buy shares in Apple for this very reason. He had too much liquidity now and it was far better to invest it.

So, he went back and forth and chose Apple.

I have my own conditions.

Steve Jobs was a very proud man. It’s not that I’ll go wherever you want me to go. It’s not a matter of money, but that I have my own standards of conduct—and it’s foreseeable, Jobs’s standards. He alone has the final say, he is the protagonist of the company, and the entire company must revolve around him. This is a must, and it is an issue that cannot be discussed.

This is one of the reasons why Apple kicked him out in the first place.

Before Jobs could tell his conditions, Jester nodded: I know your request. You alone have the final say. I promise you, but it is impossible for me to get so many shares. , plus the part in your hand is not enough, so you need to convince other people, but what I can guarantee is that the shares in my hand must speak for you. Of course, the premise is that you To be able to make money on my shares.”

hehe.

Jobs was very satisfied with Jester's answer. As for making Apple money?

He never worried about this kind of thing. (To be continued ~^~)