In the conference room, the delegation from Wujiang Group and the negotiators from Philips sat on opposite sides of a rectangular conference table.
Lu Maoshi spoke first, saying, "Mr. Hank Wells, Wujiang Group is developing a second-generation home game console and plans to use CDs as the game storage medium. Therefore, we intend to invest in purchasing CD patent licenses."
He paused, then added, "Currently, the 'Qiongqi Game Console' has sold over 25 million units, with a total of 600 million game cartridges sold. Such astonishing achievements were accomplished by our Wujiang Group in just eight short months! Wujiang Group's second-generation home game console is a 16-bit console, more competitive than 8-bit consoles, and therefore its sales will inevitably be even higher! It is clear that Wujiang Group's choice of CDs will undoubtedly drive the development of CDs, and for Philips, it is entirely beneficial!"
Upon hearing this, the Philips negotiators all looked shocked.
Wujiang Group is amazing! Their game console and game cartridge sales are so high!
If Philips were selling game CDs, wouldn't they be able to make a fortune just from patent licensing fees?
Philips President Hank Wells' expression shifted slightly. He nodded and said, "CCD patent licensing is no problem, and the price is negotiable. Generally, for each recordable CD produced, the patent fee to Philips is only 3.5 cents. However, considering the strength of Wujiang Group, the patent licensing price can be lowered! For each recordable CD produced, the patent fee will only be 2 cents!"
With Wujiang Group's strength, selling 1 billion game CDs shouldn't be a problem, right? That's $20 million! In fact, game CD sales should be far more than that. Furthermore, Wujiang Group pioneered the use of CDs as the game storage medium, and other game console manufacturers, such as Nintendo and Sega, will certainly follow suit. In this way, the entire global home console game market will use game CDs, and Philips will make a fortune just from collecting patent fees.
However, Lu Maoshi frowned upon hearing this, as 2 cents was still too expensive and did not align with the interests of the Wujiang Group.
“Mr. Hank Wells, we are only willing to pay a one-time patent fee of $20 million. If your company does not agree to this cooperation method, then I regret to inform you that our company will reconsider and continue to choose game cartridges as the storage medium. In fact, at present, CD technology is not yet mature, and the cost of privately burning pirated copies using CDs is extremely low. Wujiang Group is already taking a great risk by choosing CDs as the game storage medium,” Lu Maoshi said in a deep voice.
Upon hearing this, Philips and the others exchanged bewildered glances. It seemed that Wujiang Group was quite resolute in its stance, not caring whether or not to use the CD.
As the other party said, game cartridge technology is relatively mature and has high manufacturing costs, requiring the use of chips, circuit boards and the like. Even if it is pirated, the profit will not be too high. At least in Western countries, no company would take such a risk.
However, CD is different.
The manufacturing cost of CDs is much lower than that of game cartridges, making them very easy to pirate and highly profitable.
Marx said, "Capitalists fear the absence of profit or too little profit as nature fears a vacuum. Capital becomes bold once there is a suitable profit. With a 10 percent profit, it will be used everywhere; with a 20 percent profit, it becomes active; with a 50 percent profit, it takes risks; for a 100 percent profit, it will trample on all human laws; with a 300 percent profit, it will commit any crime, even risking being hanged."
CD piracy is rampant!
Hank Wells beckoned to the people around him, called them over, and they discussed it in hushed tones.
“Wujiang Group pays the patent fee in one lump sum. Although we can collect a large sum in a short period of time, we can no longer continue to exploit them. The commission-based payment method, on the other hand, can generate a steady stream of revenue. I think we should try to get the commission-based payment method, as this would result in higher profits!”
"That being said, Wujiang Group seems quite adamant in its stance. If we don't agree to their payment method, then this negotiation and cooperation will likely fail again."
"It is understood that Nintendo and Sega in Japan both have plans to develop 16-bit game consoles, but they have chosen to continue using game cartridges as the storage medium without hesitation and have not contacted us!"
"..."
Just then, Lü Maoshi continued, "Oh, right, precisely because CD technology isn't mature enough, developing a CD-based home game console is quite difficult. We also need to develop an additional disc reading device, which affects the development progress of 16-bit consoles. Furthermore, disc reading speeds are much slower than cartridges, and they're easily damaged. RPG games often require navigating between levels; if you spend an hour playing, 20 minutes are spent reading discs. Who can stand that? Right now, perhaps only our Wujiang Group is willing to take such a huge risk. Nintendo and Sega wouldn't choose CDs as the game storage medium!"
Actually, there were some things that Lü Maoshi didn't say. That is, the production of game cartridges was not transparent. Companies like Wujiang Group, Nintendo, and Sega could all profit from this process, but converting cartridges to CDs became a limitation.
In conclusion, CDs as a game storage medium are indeed not very mature in terms of technology.
However, after Wujiang Group acquires the CD patent license, Zhao Ye will lead them to develop a high-speed optical drive. The first-generation optical drive only has a data transfer rate of 150kb/s, but after the speed increase, it will be able to meet the requirements of games. There will also be no problem with CD encryption.
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