Reborn Tycoon Rise

Central: Prince's Building.

After joining Landmark at the beginning of the year, Xu Zhi found that although many of Landmark's properties were in prime locations, they could not withstand the Great Depression of the entire market. Among them, a major customer of Prince's Building moved the entire company to Australia, leaving behind There are 6 floors of office buildings, all with complete office facilities.

In a short period of time, it was difficult to rent out this high-quality office building in the current economic environment. Considering that the Midea corporate headquarters in Hung Hom would not be completed soon, all Midea's senior managers moved here. , resources are optimally utilized.

The disadvantage of not having the headquarters of several major companies together is that Xu Zhi often needs to travel in both directions. This problem can only be solved after the completion of the Hung Hom headquarters complex.

"The environment here is good." After arriving at the new headquarters of Midea Company, Xu Zhi walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The entire Victoria Harbor came into view. The surrounding buildings were symbols of modernity. Pedestrians passed by in a hurry downstairs. Showing the prosperity of the entire city.

"Of course the location in Central is very good, but the reaction below is that it is too crowded, and the parking problem is also a headache." He Guoyuan said helplessly.

Xu Zhidao: "After all, this is Central. How can everyone park? When our Hung Hom headquarters is completed, these will no longer be a problem."

Most of the buildings in Central were built in the 1960s, some even earlier. Prices at that time were the same as in the mainland in the 1980s and 1990s. Houses were not worth much, but cars were very expensive, such as a Santana in the late 1980s. You can exchange for 5 houses in Puxi. In Xiangjiang in the 1960s, the proportion may not be that large, but the situation is similar.

Although the office building was designed at the time with parking issues in mind, it also took into account the car ownership at that time. The design of the underground parking lot no longer meets the requirements, although the Hong Kong government and major property companies are trying to expand parking spaces. However, it still cannot meet the requirements.

As for the headquarters in Hung Hom, parking issues have been taken into consideration from the initial design. There are 3-4 floors of parking lots under each building, ensuring that staff above can park easily.

In addition, Hutchison Whampoa Group's Whampoa Plaza project has also specifically taken this issue into consideration. Not only has a three-story parking lot been built below the square, but a piece of land has also been reserved behind the square. If there are not enough parking spaces in the future, there will be more parking spaces here. A parking building will be built specifically for parking, which can easily accommodate thousands of parking spaces.

Although parking spaces can be charged, the actual return rate may not be as good as that of ordinary office buildings. However, the convenience of parking can stimulate surrounding businesses. Convenient parking is a very important factor in future competition in commercial districts. As long as parking is convenient, , even if Hung Hom cannot compete with Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, it can still become a new commercial center, and ultimately the entire group will receive higher returns.

After returning to the office from the window, Xu Zhi sat down on the sofa and asked, "How is the company's game business going recently?"

He Guoyuan cut the tea and handed it to Xu Zhi before sitting down and replied: "Chairman, your prediction is absolutely correct. Now the sales of arcade machines in the entire market have begun to shrink. Even classic games are difficult to attract." A fascinated player."

Xu Zhi nodded and said: "Normally, now is the era of the explosion of electronic technology. In the past, arcade games were popular because of the limitations of semiconductor technology. But in recent years, the development of semiconductors has developed at a high speed according to Moore's Law of doubling in 18 months. Home consoles, handheld game consoles, and personal computers all run much faster.

In the future, Midea's games will focus on home games and computer games. As for arcade games, we need to study in a different direction and develop games that are impossible to play on computers and home game consoles. "

In the past, every game developed by Midea's game department would start with an arcade machine. In about half a year, after making enough market profits from the arcade machine and building a certain reputation, the game would then be released based on the actual situation. Cassettes and computer game software.

However, in the past year or two, the arcade market has been far less profitable than in previous years, and competition is fierce, so Midea's game department began to change its strategy. Some games are directly released on cartridges, with the intention of earning all profits in the shortest possible time.

"What does the chairman mean by fighting games like King of Fighters?" Wang Liming asked.

"Absolutely. Some games with atmosphere can still be played in arcades." Xu Zhi nodded. "The King of Fighters" is a fighting game released by Midea last year. It is very popular in the market. The words on the cassette The company's performance ranks among the top five within Midea, but arcade machines are even more popular. Even if many people have King of Fighters cassettes at home, they still invite friends to the arcade because they don't have that exciting feeling at home.

He Guoyuan nodded and said: "I will inform the game design department to develop hot-blooded games specifically to satisfy the arcade market."

"If you want to make quick money, you can expand on The King of Fighters and make a King of Fighters 2, reset the abilities of all characters, and then you can also make 3, 4, 5 and so on." Xu Zhi He smiled and said that the current direction of the game industry is very clear. TV games and computer games began to rise, and the arcade market began to decline. It was not until more than ten years later that the CPU running speed reached a certain level, and some arcade games with strong special effects could It has become active again, but compared to the scale of computer and TV games at the same time, it is not at the same level.

Of course, the arcade market will not disappear, such as students who do not have game consoles at home, and ordinary people who come here to play games occasionally, but in general, the focus of Midea's game department will shift to computers and TVs.

Taking a sip of tea, Xu Zhi continued: "You should know "Pokémon" from Changxing Comics, right?"

"Have you heard of it? It seems to be very famous in Japan." After all, He Guoyuan is not a young man, so naturally he cannot be interested in this kind of children's comics, but he has still heard of it.

Xu Zhi continued: ""Pokémon" is the name here in Xiangjiang. In Japan, the name of this comic is "Pocket Monsters". Because the sales in Japan are very good, Changxing's branch in Japan has started to produce this comic. It is the first cartoon of the comic, but neither the cartoon nor the comic itself is enough to develop this idea to the extreme, so I need to develop a game of this type at the same time."

"The "Pokémon" game." He Guoyuan was a little unable to answer the question because he had never read the comic.

Xu Zhi smiled and said: "This matter is not urgent. You and your team will study the entire comic first, and then discuss how to design this game in a month. I will ask Changxing to send a complete set of comic materials. "

"Okay, no problem." He Guoyuan agreed.

"Although this matter is not urgent, it is very important, so I need the most capable game designers in the entire Midea company to participate." Xu Zhi said seriously.

Before online games, there were many popular stand-alone games. From the perspective of game sales, Mario is definitely the leader. There are countless different versions on various platforms, with total sales exceeding 250 million copies.

But if we look at the total revenue created by the brand, Pokémon is the most valuable brand in the history of game entrepreneurship. From comics to cartoons to games, the three have joined forces to maximize the value of hundreds of different IP characters. At its peak, one Pikachu earned $1 billion a year from toys and image licensing.

Not to mention that in later generations, "Pokemon" cartoons have been shot continuously since the 1990s, and they are different every year, becoming one of the longest-running cartoons in the world, and a movie will be made every few years. Harvesting a wave of box office, relying on the huge reputation, as long as the filming is not too bad, the box office revenue will be very considerable.

Seeing that Xu Zhi was so cautious, He Guoyuan also took it seriously and promised: "Chairman, don't worry, I will immediately organize a new team to take charge of this matter."

"Okay, you can do the work, I'll rest assured." Xu Zhi smiled: "There's one more thing you need to keep track of. In my plan, the game Pokemon requires a very high-definition screen, so currently the game on Gameboy The TN-LCD used does not meet the requirements at all, and you need to pay attention to Zhang Zhongmou’s LCD research and development."

"Chairman, are you talking about STN-LCD technology?" He Guoyuan asked.

Xu Zhi nodded and said: "Yes, I know that there are several companies in Japan that are researching this technology like us. This technology is a revolutionary change for handheld game consoles. We cannot lag behind in this area. I know Zhang Zhongmou The laboratory has made samples, but I need them to solve the problem of mass production as soon as possible."

The LCD project is one of the most important research projects under Midea. With its huge profits from games, it has spent a lot of money on the LCD department and hired experts in this field around the world with high salaries. Even its Japanese colleagues have poached many people. come over.

With huge investment and already knowing the research direction, STN-LCD liquid crystal display made a major breakthrough in the middle of this year and has been successfully built in the laboratory. However, there is still a certain distance between industrial mass production and the need to solve the data problem. This is a key question.

"Zhang Zhongmou has built a new LCD factory in Tin Shui Wai. His original words were that he would rather wait for the research and development results than build the factory after the results are available." He Guoyuan said.

"That's not bad." Xu Zhi also agreed with this method. Both LCD factories and chip factories are high-tech industries. They cannot be opened just by building a workshop. They require extremely complex environmental treatment and air particle filtration internally. The factory must be built first. Even though we have spent money early, we can start production earlier.

He Guoyuan then asked: "Chairman, is this "Pocket Monsters" going to be put on Gameboy?"

Xu Zhi nodded and said: "Yes, that's my initial thought, but if our game team can develop a classic TV version or computer version of the game, that would be even better!"

"But if it were put on Gameboy, wouldn't it be just a stand-alone game?" He Guoyuan asked with some confusion. The game market will undergo various changes every year, but one thing remains unchanged, and that is the player's Interaction has become an important issue that any new game must consider.

For example, the most traditional games such as Tank Battle, Mario, Contra, etc. can be played alone, but players mostly use two-player mode. The more people there are, the more fun it is. This is extremely important in the home game console market.

The characteristics of the handheld game console Gameboy determines that it can only play some stand-alone games. The Gameboy has sold well over the years, but no classic games have appeared.

"The carrier of "Pokemon" is indeed Gameboy, but this game is by no means a stand-alone game." Xu Zhidao: "If a short-range wireless signal transmission technology can be used, when two Gameboys are within a few meters of each other, they can communicate through What do you think of the idea of ​​a switch linking two consoles?"

He Guoyuan said: "The chairman is talking about infrared communication technology?"

"Infrared communication also has many inconveniences. If you want to use it, your team had better think of a solution, or you can try to develop new short-distance wireless propagation technology." Xu Zhi said after a pause.

Infrared communication technology, as the name suggests, uses infrared rays to transmit data. Since its invention in 1974, it has been widely used in small mobile devices to exchange data and control electrical equipment because it does not require the use of physical connections, is easy to use and has low cost. , such as remote controls for air conditioners and TVs.

However, due to the direct radiation characteristics of infrared rays, when using the device, the transmitter and receiver must be aligned. If there are too many obstacles, information dissemination will be affected.

Therefore, using infrared ray technology on Gameboy will be very troublesome and the user experience will be extremely poor. What really meets the requirements is the most classic Bluetooth technology of later generations.

"New communication technology!" He Guoyuan frowned and said, "Our company is not currently involved in this area of ​​business."

"It's not involved now, but it will be involved in the future." Xu Zhi turned around and took out a mobile phone from his briefcase and said: "In the future, electronic technology will dominate this world, and it is necessary to control a certain degree of communication patents."

"Mobile phones?" He Guoyuan nodded and said, "Chairman, are we preparing to enter the mobile phone field?"

"Yes, no matter how "Pokemon" makes money, it can only make money. If you want Midea to become a top company in the world, you can't get on the market by relying on games. Let's just say that the profits of personal computers and home appliances may not be as good as Games, but the influence is much stronger." Xu Zhi said with a smile: "The current market for communication tools is very small. Products like mobile phone cost three to four thousand US dollars in Europe and the United States, which is difficult to popularize, and the signal tower This kind of equipment can only cover big cities, but most companies are very optimistic about its prospects.”

"According to Moore's Law, CPUs double every 18 months, and the prices of electronic products are getting lower and lower. As long as a threshold is reached, it is only a matter of time before mobile phones become common in European, American and even Asian countries. The market in this area is indeed huge. It has prospects." He Guoyuan said: "However, in communication technology, many European and American companies have been researching and developing it for decades, and they already have a lot of patent barriers. Not only do we want to catch up with them, but we just want to enter this industry for research. The authorization of some basic patents also requires their consent."

"Don't worry, I have a secret weapon!" Xu Zhi laughed.