The research and development cycle of "Tank War" lasted for nearly 5 months, mainly because the program is too large and the memory in this era is too small. At present, the larger rom chip on the market is only 2.88mb in size.

In order to compress the program to 2.88mb, it cannot affect the game experience, which is a very test of the technician's skills.

Of course, in order to have a better display effect, the "Tank War" game uses expensive color imaging tubes, and the cost of a 23-inch color imaging tube alone is as high as HK$3,000.

In addition to using a colored graphics card screen, it also requires a graphics card. However, it is specially designed to produce a dedicated graphics card, which is very expensive.

The members of the "Tank War" project creatively used four 6502 chips to form a multi-core processor and used a central processor to replace the graphics card.

"Four processors, you are great!" Lin Qi couldn't help but praise him.

"The boss is too good, there is no way to do it. In order to save money, I had to use 4 pieces of 6502." Zhao Ruofei said embarrassedly.

"This kind of creativity is ahead of the times. Now, the computer industry still regards Moore's Law as the truth, but sooner or later, the progress of processing technology gradually slows down, single CPUs can no longer stack up performance. Sooner or later computers will take the dual-core, quad-core, and octa-core routes," Lin Qi said in a concise tone.

The reason why the display chip is not needed is that it is not cost-effective to design and produce a dedicated graphics card specifically for arcade machines.

Because, the most popular arcade machines are estimated to be sold at only 100,000 units. In order to design and produce a dedicated graphics card for a machine with only 100,000 units, the price of each graphics card is at least $1,000. If you really use such expensive parts, then don’t want to sell the "Tank War" arcade.

Even though this game is very careful to save costs, the production cost of the entire machine is estimated to be HK$6,000 because it uses color imaging tubes. In addition, each machine takes out HK$1,000 to pay dividends to game developers, which means that the actual production cost will reach HK$7,000 per machine.

This price is more expensive than the current market retail price of "China Square" arcade!

The current arcade hardware cost of "China Square" is not only that the 6502 chip cannot be domestically produced, but other components basically use domestic cheap parts. The hardware cost is reduced to less than 2,000 yuan, and the OEM cost is only 3,000 yuan. As for the ex-factory price, it has also been reduced to 6,800 yuan per unit. Of course, due to the impact of handheld machines and computer platforms, the monthly orders of arcade "China Square" have now shrunk to five or six hundred units.

If it weren't for the timely filling of the orders for handheld machines in "China Square", the two major OEM companies, Aika Electronics and Xinai Electronics, might have lost money due to the continuous decline in arcade orders.

Now, the orders for "Tank War" arcades can make up for the idle arcade production capacity of the two major foundries.

"The ex-factory price of the "Tank War" arcade is set at HK$12,800 per unit!" Lin Qi said, "Pre-production is in advance, with 50 units per day. After a large number of orders, the production will start to be accelerated."

HK$12,800, this price is not expensive. After all, the market retail price of arcade machines is generally between 1,000 and 3,000 US dollars.

No matter how expensive it is, even in the arcade hall, it will most likely hesitate to purchase goods.

...

February 15, 1981.

Yaliao Street, Hong Kong.

The news that the new game "Tank War", a game hall owned by Xinxing Electronics, is about to be launched, has been spread in the self-operated arcade hall.

"Tank War? New startup electronics companies have a new game?"

"I thought they wouldn't develop new games by making a fortune by blocks."

"It's so exciting to hear the name. I don't know if it's just a name!"

As the first self-operated game hall under Xinzhan Electronics, it has changed a lot now. The originally empty halls have nearly 200 games on it. Because the only one game that Xinzhan Electronics has already listed is "China Square".

Moreover, the "China Cube" arcade was hit too hard by handheld machines. The average daily revenue of each arcade has dropped to around HK$50. Although it is no longer a huge profit, the profit is still pretty good.

At the same time, the number of machines in the game hall has increased to 200, and there are more than 50 types of game types. After players have more choices, the daily income of the game hall has stabilized at around HK$20,000.

Currently, there are not only one game halls that are self-operated by Xinxing Electronics, but as many as 13. The total business area exceeds 6,000 square meters, and the number of game consoles exceeds 3,000. However, 80% of these machines are purchased arcade machines produced by other game companies.

However, as new entrepreneurial electronic companies continue to develop independent arcades, self-operated arcade halls will gradually be replaced with their own games in the future.

"A new game is here!"

At around 9 a.m., players in the game hall were in a commotion.

Because, a total of more than 100 "Tank War" arcades have been moved to the self-operated game halls under Xinxing Electronics Company.

With the completion of the new game handling and testing, players can't wait to get on the machine.

"ah!"

"Dead?"

"Is there shit in your mind? "Tank War" is a war. Of course, in addition to killing the enemy, war also protects one's own nest!"

"Oh, my home's nest can actually build walls and use the wall to block shells?"

"Very good!"

"Fuck, look at your stinking level!"

"It's so satisfying, it's still interesting to fight."

The employees of the new entrepreneurial electronics company, as bystanders and participants, were excited to see the players in the game hall immersed in the fun of the new game!

Perhaps, "Tank War" is not the best game, at least, from the creativity and gameplay of the game, it may not necessarily be beyond "Space Invaders".

But it is a game developed by a Hong Kong company, which makes the local market feel a sense of intimacy.

With the continuous rise of Hong Kong's economy in this era, citizens' sense of identity with the city has reached an unprecedented level. Hong Kong movies, Cantonese records and Hong Kong comics are becoming increasingly popular in Hong Kong, which is largely due to the recognition of Hong Kong citizens' sense of identity with local culture.

Now, as the new entrepreneurial electronics company's influence in Hong Kong continues to increase, it has also established a strong self-operated territory in the local area.

Perhaps, even if the entire Hong Kong market is monopolized by new entrepreneurial electronics, it is still a trivial small market. However, this small market has become a private place for new entrepreneurial electronics, and at least it can guarantee the performance of its new products...

Of course, hegemony does not depend on defense, but on offense.

Lin Qi regards Hong Kong's market as the "internal test market", allowing a small market of millions of people to test game bugs and player evaluations. After collecting a large amount of feedback, further improvements will be made and products that will be promoted to the global market will become more mature.

It is not to look down on Hong Kong players who regard Hong Kong as the "internal test market". On the contrary, since testing is to be conducted in Hong Kong, you need to accept more feedback from Hong Kong players. In this way, players will have more sense of participation and interaction.

Compared with players in overseas markets, they can play more mature games from the beginning. These two experiences may have their own characteristics.
Chapter completed!