On September 26, 1985, Zhao Ye and his group returned to China.
Upon returning to China, Zhao Ye immediately went to the game console development department.
Wang Jizhi led Zhao Ye to the laboratory, took out a motherboard, and said to Zhao Ye, "Boss, this is a sample of a gaming motherboard. The developers are still testing it. If there are no problems, we'll finalize this model and then start designing the casing for the gaming motherboard."
Developing a gaming motherboard is actually much simpler than developing a PC motherboard.
It is said that the IBM PC was inspired by the Atari game console.
Wang Jizhi's team already had experience developing Chinese character cards, typewriters, and computer motherboards, so developing a game console was a piece of cake for them.
Zhao Ye had previously pointed out the development direction and technical difficulties, so developing this game console is really not difficult.
What kind of technology did the company that created the Subor game console have in its past life?
"Let's test it now. I want to see how the game performs!"
"OK."
A staff member immediately connected the game motherboard to the TV and then inserted a self-made game cartridge. This game was also developed by Wang Jizhi and others for testing purposes. It was a small game that imitated the gameplay of the FC game "Donkey Kong" but was simpler. It was mainly used to test the game's graphics, sound effects, etc. In terms of playability, it was not very good.
Zhao Ye quickly frowned; the game's graphics were even worse than Donkey Kong.
Seeing Zhao Ye's dissatisfaction, Wang Jizhi quickly explained, "Boss, due to time constraints, the small game we developed based on Nintendo's 'Donkey Kong' is relatively simple. It's mainly used to test whether the game motherboard can run normally. To test the performance limits of the game motherboard, we need to develop a more complex game. After all, no matter how powerful the game motherboard is, if the game software's graphics are rudimentary, it won't be able to test any effects."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Ye nodded.
At that moment, he suddenly remembered that Nintendo had added a self-developed chip, MMC, to the game cartridges to enhance the game graphics.
This MMC chip not only enhanced the graphics but also added the ability to save games and support for multi-directional scrolling, making split-screen scrolling easier to implement. Split-screen scrolling was a pseudo-multi-scrolling effect widely used in FC games, which was quite impressive at the time.
"I remember Nintendo only developed the first MMC1 in 1987, but I already know what several generations of MMC chips looked like..."
Thinking of this, Zhao Ye couldn't help but smile.
"It seems that in order to enhance the game graphics, we first need to design an MMC chip. Although doing so will increase the cost of the game cartridge, the game graphics will be better, the game experience will be better, and it will also support game saves."
Furthermore, memory can be expanded on the MMC chip, exceeding the storage capacity of game cartridges and allowing game developers to create larger games.
Nowadays, to test the performance of a game console motherboard, the first step is to develop powerful game cartridges.
Fortunately, this MMC chip is not very complex. It is quite different from a microprocessor and its functions are much simpler.
Later, Zhao Ye called the game developers over.
123 people arrived from Japan. Meanwhile, a team of 122 was assembled on the mainland side. These were highly educated graduates recruited by Wujiang Company from universities across the country, including programmers, graphic designers, game music composers, and more…
Zhao Ye plans to develop Dragon Quest, Contra, Red Fortress, Salamander, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Pokémon all at once.
There are 245 developers working on seven game projects, averaging 35 people per project, with experienced developers mentoring new ones.
Wang Jizhi and the others were not idle either. Zhao Ye gave them a new task: to purchase CD patent technology from Sony and Philips, because the next generation of game consoles would inevitably use CD discs.
CD is a technology jointly invented by Sony and Philips. In 1982, the Redbook standard for CD-DA laser discs was released.
If Wujiang wants to develop a CD game console, it has no choice but to pay patent fees to these two companies.
Unfortunately, Zhao Ye was reborn too late.
However, DVD can still be contested, but this does not mean that Wujiang Company wants to monopolize the DVD standard. Rather, it means that it will join forces with others to develop the standard together.
If they try to monopolize the technology, it's unlikely anyone will support the DVD standard set by Wujiang Company.
CDs and DVDs may both appear to be optical discs, but they are actually two different products.
A standard CD has a capacity of 700MB, while a standard DVD has a capacity of 4.7GB.
CDs are used for video and music CDs such as VCDs and SVCDs, as well as data recording. DVDs are used for video and data recording, such as DVDs and MP3s...
Purchasing CD patents would naturally enable further development of VCD technology, thereby establishing VCD and Super VCD standards. Before the advent of DVD, Super VCD might have been able to sell well worldwide.
After arranging everything, Zhao Ye flew to Shanghai and then went to Loongson Design Company.
It's not impossible for Zhao Ye to develop an MMC chip on his own, but it would take a long time. Therefore, Zhao Ye plans to have Loongson Design Company send a few people to assist him.
A small meeting room.
"The MMC chip is a chip used in game cartridges. Its main function is to enhance the game graphics, and it also needs to have storage capabilities to increase the storage capacity of the game cartridge..."
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