Game Development Giant

Late at night, on the plane flying to Chicago, Jester couldn't sleep.

He was thinking about how to deal with Namco's legendary arcade game "Tetsuban" and Capcom's classic flight shooting game "1942", which are the arcade games that dominated this era in history. .

In fact, the four games he released are all casual elimination games, and the audiences for these two games are not completely overlapping.

The next thing he will launch is "Snow Brothers", which wants to squeeze the market share of "Donkey Kong", and another one is the fighting beat-'em-up game that Mark Saini is producing.

In essence, these two games will not compete head-on with Namco and Capcom's two pioneering vertical-scrolling flight shooting games. After all, they are not the same type of game.

But the key point is that Jester, who understands the history of later generations, knows that the arcade market cannot be divided simply by saying that there will be no competition based on different types.

Because arcade gamers have diverse tastes, they don't play just one type of game.

But sometimes their tastes are very specific. When they crazily love one type of game, they will be dismissive of other types of games.

For example, action beat 'em ups and fighting games are not the same type. Why did fighting games completely defeat the action beat 'em up games and dominate the arcade market in the mid-to-late 1990s?

Jester was a little hesitant about whether to release a vertical-scrolling flight shooting game to compete with "Iron Formation" and "1942".

He knows the importance of word-of-mouth for a game company, especially Capcom. It was through "1942" that he established his own reputation and gained their first batch of die-hard players. As Jester before his rebirth, One of the most hated game companies, this company treats players like pigs and dogs. He personally cannot tolerate the laggy bitch to achieve the success of the previous life.

These two games are the benchmark for this type of games in later generations. Almost every vertical scrolling flight shooting game in later generations pays tribute to these two games in different forms.

Of course, Jester also knows that these two games are not perfect. After all, they are just the pioneers of this type of game. They are not perfect and have their shortcomings.

For example, the graphics and levels of "Iron Formation" are single, for example, "1942" has not yet added the most famous "bomb" system of this type of game, and so on.

But even so, it is not easy to create a vertical scrolling flight shooting game that can crush "1942" and "Iron Plate".

At least Jester can't think of any game that can have a crushing advantage over these two games. Not "Strider 1945", not "Thor", not even "Sandman".

It’s not that these games aren’t good enough, it’s that surpassing and overpowering are two different concepts.

If you want to make a work that completely overwhelms these two games, you must not just limit yourself to those games that have existed in history. You must make targeted arrangements based on the shortcomings of these two games... Jess Especially thinking about this.

But now was obviously not the time to think about this matter on the plane. Jester shook his head and suppressed the idea for the time being. He did have some thoughts about it, but now was really not the time to think deeply about this issue.

But as soon as this thought was suppressed, another problem immediately emerged in Jester's mind - there was something wrong with Mark Cerny's "Avengers", which was the news he had just received before setting off.

At the beginning of the production, Mark Saini far underestimated the difficulty of such a groundbreaking production, especially the smoothness of the movements. It was very difficult to achieve the smoothness of the movements, which was very memory intensive. Coupled with his own pursuit of perfection in the picture, the progress is not very fast - at least it is unlikely that it will be completed by the end of the year as he initially said.

And Mark Saini has once again made it clear that their hardware R\u0026D team has basically completed the fact that this arcade baseboard completely fails to meet his requirements in terms of color processing.

But it is impossible to re-develop it. The R\u0026D team of the arcade base version has already started the project of 16-bit base board. It is simply impossible to spare elite personnel to re-develop an eight-bit base board with more powerful performance. Moreover, this will also The previous R\u0026D investment is equivalent to wasted effort.

Just after Jester's father rejected Mark Saini's extreme request, Jester came up with an idea. He suddenly thought of how a later game console would deal with insufficient color. In fact, This game console is PC-FX, an upgraded version of PC-E, which is known as the most powerful eight-bit machine. However, nec Nippon Electric originally used two 16-bit PPUs for image processing, and the effect was very good.

"Can we make a high-end version? Yours was previously equivalent to a low-end basic version. Can we add two PPUs instead of one to this low-end substrate without changing the circuit architecture?" Install more memory chips to achieve stronger image processing capabilities and make a high-end version?"

Jester's proposal not only made these hardware developers shine. After discussing it, they found that this solution was indeed feasible. Even Matthew Marcus, the head of the home machine R\u0026D team code-named 'Zero', was also carefully After his research, he immediately overturned part of the previously completed design. In the new plan, he also believed that the idea of ​​adding two PPUs was very good and could indeed greatly improve the quality of the picture.

And he also put forward a very creative proposal. They can refer to the architecture of arcade baseboards-this will make it more convenient when waiting for arcade games to be transplanted.

As a result, the home machine that was already certain to be completed before the end of the year had to be delayed. Matthew Marcus told Jester that he could only guarantee that the prototype would be available before the end of the year. As for the official version, it would depend on the situation. Yes, maybe it’s possible, maybe not.

Originally this was bad news, but it made Jester feel a little relieved. The only good news in terms of hardware research and development was that the miniaturized GW handheld console he requested was progressing very quickly, because it was four years ago. Technology, according to Moore's Law, there is no problem in shrinking it by at least half.

Moreover, when Jester reviewed the plans he had carried out, was about to carry out, and had not carried out, he found that some of his previous ideas were a bit whimsical.

His original plan to launch his own console during Christmas at the end of the year was indeed a bit ill-advised. His plan was to build his own factory in China, but the problem was that even if he could go to China, it would definitely be after the Los Angeles Olympics. This will take ten months. Even if the country continues to support foreign investment, it will take at least a month from approval to land leveling. Even if the factory uses an all-steel frame structure, it will take at least half a month, plus debugging equipment and trial production. Something like that, half a month.

This set will be available until January next year, and the pass rate at the beginning of production will definitely not be high. If you want to increase production and train new employees, it will take at least two months to adapt. In other words, you can start to explode. The production volume will not be available until at least March next year.

He originally thought he had enough time, but after thinking carefully for a long time, Jester realized that his time was still too tight.

But it’s not bad to get a prototype before the end of the year, as long as you can’t miss the ES held in Las Vegas in January next year. It will be at this exhibition that the first appearance of es in front of Americans will be supported by several high-quality games on Nintendo. Next, nes still caused a certain sensation at that exhibition.

The first battle of sniping the Nintendo Hell by yourself should start from the CES exhibition.

As he was thinking about it, Jester didn't notice the passage of time. When the radio in the cabin rang, he realized that he had arrived in Chicago.

This international metropolis, nicknamed the Windy City, is the third largest metropolitan area in the United States after New York and Los Angeles. As for its status in the world economy and finance, its honor and prosperity need no elaboration.

People from the Chicago AM TV station were also ready to pick up the plane at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

This is not the West Coast. In Chicago, a city in the middle of the United States, Jester is still very conspicuous as a muscular Asian.

As soon as Jester came out of the departure hall, he saw two staff members from the Chicago AM TV station who were holding pick-up signs with their names on them and waving them.

Although it was still early in the morning, both of them were in good spirits.

Everyone was a little excited to see Jester. One of them was a loyal player of "American Cube". According to his own words, he would go to the arcade every day after get off work for a few hours in the evening to enjoy himself.

"I have good skills! I'm just a little short of adding my own name." This employee of the Chicago AM TV station is named Hughes Ian. He talks non-stop. Since Jester just appeared on The Ford commercial vehicle they drove started talking about "American Cube" constantly.

The other driver, who was a little older, was not interested in it. Jester was a little tired after he got off the plane after not sleeping all day, but it was not good to see his fans talking about his game. The only way to show impatience is to patiently talk to the other person every sentence - basically the other person is talking and Jester is listening.

The distance from O'Hare International Airport, the world's only dual-hub airport, to downtown Chicago is almost thirty kilometers. Along the way, Jester also carefully inquired about the information about the program he was going to participate in.

One thing that surprised Jester was that the host of the talk show "Chicago Morning" he was going to participate in turned out to be the future queen of talk shows, Oprah Winfrey. Of course, she has not yet been established. That famous Harper Entertainment, not to mention the Oprah show that made her famous.

Now she is just a host who was hired from Baltimore, the easternmost city in the continental United States, by Dennis Schwarzen, the owner of Chicago AM TV station, with an annual salary of 230,000 US dollars. She will host a program on Chicago AM TV station called " Chicago Morning" talk show.

The purpose is to compete with the same type of programs produced by talk show celebrity Phil Donner.

Jester's program was scheduled to be recorded in the morning. After the two TV station employees sent Jester to the hotel, they agreed on a time to pick him up and left.

Jester came to the hotel room and lay on the soft bed. Jester, who could no longer resist the sleepiness caused by fatigue, fell into a deep sleep.

Perhaps because he was too exhausted, Jester actually fell asleep while still thinking about the game he had become interested in, against "Iron Platoon" and "1942".

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