Tiankun's first-generation game console was launched in 1983. According to the hardware upgrade cycle every 5 to 7 years, the second-generation product was launched in the summer of 1988, which was really hasty.

After all, strictly counting, the launch date of the two generations of products was only five years and two months apart. The old machine was not used and was reluctant to replace it, so the new machine came up.

Historically, Nintendo's first-generation machine, such as Kun's machine, was half a year late, and was released in the fourth quarter of 1983. Nintendo's second-generation machine, SFC, was launched in 1990, so the pace is better, and the two were separated by seven years.

However, Sega, the original time and space, the first-generation SG-1000 was released slightly earlier than Nintendo's FC, while the second-generation machine, the 16-bit md, started selling in 1988, which was similar to Tiankun's pace. However, Sega sold this way because they failed in the 8-bit era, so they were eager to upgrade to the 16-bit era to make the situation.

In fact, Sega's 16-bit md historically used the 10mhz main frequency Motorola 68000cpu, so it was launched at this time. For example, today's Kun's second-generation machine will have a performance that will be very close to Sega's md game console in the future.

However, Gu Ao clearly had an absolute advantage in the 8-bit computer era, but he still launched the second-generation machine in five years and a few months, which also had his own difficulties.

First of all, he also knew that if this wave of market in 1988 was not occupied, it would be bad if the international market trade was in trouble and missed the trend. Therefore, it would be better to make less money and be prepared for danger in times of peace.

Secondly, since Sega in history was in a weak state, he would choose to let the first-generation machine be pushed for two years less and quickly enter the second generation. Then Nintendo may not have done this now.

From a strong point of view, Gu Ao now occupies Nintendo's position in history, even more awesome than Nintendo's same period. However, Nintendo now occupies Sega's weak position in history and is eager to change.

With the semi-upgraded version of Tiankun last year, as soon as the learning machine with archive function was launched, Nintendo was forced to rush and directly gamble on the development of 16-bit machines. Even Gu Ao's news channels in Japan showed that Nintendo had taken action.

(Not considered a commercial spy, Gu Ao never does despicable espionage, just finds legal insiders, such as Nintendo's resignation personnel to spy on)

Since this is the case, there is nothing wrong with Gu Ao's rhythm, which belongs to "we were forced to take up weapons", rather than to create waste by himself.

It is said that when the outbreak of World War a hundred years ago, the mobilization speeches of the six major belligerent countries were surprisingly consistent, all of which were "we were forced to take up weapons". As for who was forced to and who was not forced in the end, there was no need to go into it.

...

Because it extended the previous generation of CPU architecture, Gu Ao was not worried about whether the hardware department could produce smoothly.

Those should be basic operations, there is nothing good to sit down.

However, after a deep understanding with Schulkhof, Gu Ao also noticed that the main difficulty of the R&D department at present is a lot of early tests of the game

Because these games will be sold together when the game console is released in the summer of 1988. This means that they will not be able to get the internal engineering prototype for actual testing at least in March and April next year.

In general, in the microelectronics industry, game consoles are used to be completely finalized in the motherboard three or four months before the official mass production. Then, some optimization time is left for the structure, and a few months for the stress test, plus a small batch of test flow, the rhythm is almost done.

If the debugging phase of the game is compressed to the first three months before the launch, it is definitely not enough. According to Tiankun's quality control, it must be left for half a year. (Debugging is not a test, it is a step earlier than the test)

Therefore, from now on, until March and April next year, the software department and external competitors will face the problem of lacking a real-time debugging environment and can only write a few things out of thin air.

"How do you solve this problem at the moment?" Gu Ao asked.

Schulchoff: "We used the arcade machine of our friend Sega, slightly adjusted the logic circuit, and simulated it into a future real machine according to our instruction set and interface, so that the friend will adjust it first. After the real machine comes out, it will be fine-tuned and transplanted, and the time difference can be recovered.

Sega has already launched a batch of new arcade games this year, using two 1985 versions of the 6mhz main frequency Motorola 68000 CPUs. From the bottom, it allocates processing computing power for each game, which roughly achieves the performance of next year's single-chip 10mhz main frequency CPU version.

What we think is that after Sega tried the waters this year, we bought the adaptation rights and then transplanted the games that became popular in the arcade market according to the previous strategic cooperation agreement. In this way, we will have the initial basic plan."

Gu Ao nodded, feeling that Schulkhov's idea was very correct and a cliché idea.

Every time a home game console is replaced, the first game source that should be watched is the popular arcades in the past few years. Because the arcade size, energy consumption, and hardware selection have advantages, it must be more effective than the home machines of the same period. The home machine was transplanted two or three years later than the arcade machine, and it is still very competitive.

As for the concept of "dual core", Gu Ao was also a little surprised when he first heard it. Later, after listening to the explanation from the technician, he realized that this thing was completely different from the "dual core" of Intel CPUs in later generations.

First of all, this is not a CPU with two cores, but a CPU with two directly installed.

At the same time, this treatment is often used on arcades. Because arcades are all a game or even a batch of similar games with one motherboard, rather than a home computer, a motherboard should be suitable for all games.

Therefore, it is easier to use two CPUs on the arcade and write the dead computing power allocation algorithm and interface instruction set in advance to specify what content is centrally processed by a certain CPU.

However, when two CPUs are used together, the efficiency is definitely not as good as simply adding the main frequency computing power directly. Basically, two 6mhz pieces are equivalent to one 10mhz pieces.

...

Therefore, according to Shurhof's cooperation ideas, the first thing Gu Ao saw in the R&D department was the debugging of a large number of Sega transplant arcade games.

Shulhoff pointed to a fighting game tester with a tough interface and commented: "This is called Street Fighter. The latest arcade game launched this year is Sega's sales champion this year. We promised to give Sega 8% of the sales revenue of the cartridge in the future, in exchange for the right to transplant and adapt the home machine.

This price is still far lower than the market, but who told us to sign a long-term strategic cooperation between each other's arcade business and home machine business a few years ago? David Rosen dared not repent."

If you just give authorization, 8% sales revenue is relatively low, but not very low, because it is 8% of the total price, not 8% of the net profit. However, if you change a company, you will definitely not be able to get the price.

The reason why Sega dared not resist was that when signing the exchange strategic cooperation a few years ago, Gu Ao promised Tiankun to give up the arcade market from then on.

Now if Sega feels that it is cheap and wants to raise prices, and angers Gu Ao to return to the arcade market as a revenge, it will be more than worth the loss. So even if Sega feels that he is exploited by Gu Ao, she can only endure it.

At the same time, Schulhoff was afraid that Gu Ao would not blame him for not doing things, so he hurriedly followed and explained and emphasized that only annual sales champions like Street Fighter can receive this treatment. Other transplanted versions that are not champions will only be given up to 6%, and there will be 5%.

Gu Ao nodded and repeatedly praised Schulhof for controlling costs.

"Street Fighter, it's really good. I've played it this year." Gu Ao stroked the thick test machine and sat down and rubbed a plate himself.

"Boss, you are really aware of it. You play new games so well. I have never rubbed these tricks before. They are all made by the test engineers." Schulhoff flattered just right.

"Then you should be able to appreciate and criticize these models here. This one is called "Kung Fu 2", which is the sequel to the simple fighting game on the first home machine three years ago.

There are also many of them, such as "Double Dragon", "Famous General", "Dinosaur Kombat", and "Mecha Kombat", which are the same set of kernel codes, which are used to replace the art and move rules, and upgrade the item map. Anyway, the screen and sound effects are as exquisite as possible, fully bringing the performance of the next generation of CPU and other chips to the extreme.

In addition to these things that do not require the help of original IP, we also asked Sega to get the kernel source code, bought several adaptation rights IPs, adapted two or three horizontal fighting level-pass games with exquisite graphics, and added some collection elements and upgraded archive elements to match the archive function of the home machine.

This is called "Tomahawk", and the IP is not very valuable. It is set in the action movie "Conan the Barbarian" eight years ago. However, although the movie itself was not popular at the time, because the protagonist of the film, the Barbarian King, was played by Schwarzenegger, so since you and Mr. Cameron trained Schwarzenegger to become popular, these early character IPs have become popular. After all, this is Schwarzenegger's only classical and arrogant warrior image. Combined with our Western magical style, I believe it will have a good performance.

There is also this one called "Teen Tortoise Ninja Turtles". The practical core is similar to "Double Dragon", but with a lot of things added, the artist focuses on redoing them all. You may not watch cartoons, but we have investigated that this cartoon is one of the most popular animations in the United States in the past two years, and you can definitely catch young users."

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is an American comic produced in 1984, and the animation has been delayed for several years, so it is just now very popular. Schulhoff's description is fine.

"You can do even the Tintographs of Ninjas, so why don't you have Transformers?" Gu Ao couldn't help but complain, and then felt that he seemed a little too much.

Transformers IP, there seems to be no big-name game works in history...

Later, the 21st century entered the 3D era. After Paramount Pictures made the live-action movie version of Transformers, some game companies were a little popular when watching live-action movies, and they followed the trend to make a robot fighting game to gain popularity, but I didn’t hear that the sales were so awesome.

Maybe Transformers are not suitable for playing games.
Chapter completed!