Game Market 1983

EP. 13: Upcoming 16-bit Era (6)

Christmas Eve ends today at the Gamboy-launch event.

Gunpei and other employees have just withdrawn the venue and returned to Kyoto for gold, but I was still in Tokyo.

Why? Because I still have work to do.

In a hurry, I got on the train and headed straight to the Litex factory on the outskirts of Tokyo.

On the night that all couples are most romantic of the year, I am on my way to meet the Indian Gondola.

“Chendra!! ”

“Oh!! It's Kang Jun-hyuk.”

Chendra and her friends, who were at dinner, waved their hands as soon as they saw me.

“Everyone knows about the Demibeast. ”

“This is all thanks to Kang Jun-hyuk. It's a lot of money to send home to Pumala. So Pumala can now get married. ”

The thick fumara smiles with a spoon in her mouth. Then other Indian friends muttered in their native language and made fun of Pumala.

It seems that Pumala is quite a type of resourcefulness based on its roughly commute.

“By the way, Kang Jun-hyuk. What brings you here? Isn't it a secret? The rest of the staff went home anyway. ”

“Well, it's no secret. We just have to surround it with a special chip to get into the psychic battle anyway. Did you get what I asked you to do before that? ”

“Of course!”

“Well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but can I see you for a moment? ”

“I'm done anyway. No problem. Come with me.”

A moment later, I was guided by Chendra to find the lab inside the Ritex factory. His lab was equipped with the latest equipment and comfortable space that could not be compared to Akiba's narrow workplace.

And there I first encountered a CPU for the next generation of super families.

“Is this the rico5A22 16-bit CPU chip that will be used in the superfamily later..”

“We have customized the Apple II GS WDC65816 CPU, which is now rated as a pretty high specification PC in the United States, to fit the super family. It's a model about two years after the launch of the United States, but I don't think it's as good as it looks. ”

“Of course, I agree with that, but isn't graphics processing too slow? ”

“I can't help it. Since he wasn't born to do fast computation, the overall quality will increase as a 16-bit CPU, but there is a limit to speed. ”

Perhaps if you were a gamer with similar childhood experiences to mine in the 1990s, you would have wondered if you were comparing the Super Family and the NEGA drives back then.

Why didn't the super family have a game to keep up with the crazy speeds like the NEGA signage game, Sonic?

It was definitely a later device than the NEGA drive, and it was a more expensive model, but sometimes I felt frustrated.

Meanwhile, Sonic, who was in an alley friend's house, sometimes exchanged the entire game set for each other because his heartbreaking speed gave him another kind of fun than Super Maridge.

‘Now I see why the superfamily was slower than the NEGA drive. ’

Mintendo never does business underneath.

Originally a console business, we try to fit the high performance model a little too hard so that we can look forward to the next five to six years from the initial issue date.

Because if you don't, you're going to have to deliver a new console every year or two for the changing game market.

Judging by the device penetration rate and the length of development of the game, one console must last at least five years.

Then, in order to naturally increase the performance of the device, a huge amount of capital is added. Of course, the unit price will decrease over time and there will be profit later, but initially, every time you sell one device, you have to sell the deficit.

Pure cost of making one device is 17,000 yen, but it is sold for around 14,800 yen, depending on the consumer's availability.

The 2,200 yen loss per sale was a fundamental selling initiative in the console industry.

But mintendo was different.

They used medium-performance inexpensive parts to make a profit when selling equipment in any way. The rest battle for the quality of the game.

So the conclusion was that the CPU was right in front of me.

‘The next generation of chips to be used in the family. I asked Chendra to get them because of the frequent contacts offerings these days, but they are also rubbish chips. At the time, the NEGA drives were much better based on performance.’

Then Chendra told me.

“But everything can be covered to some extent, depending on the skills of the programmer. ”

“Yes, but you can't cross the limits of the device. ”

“The limits of the device... Kick, that's good. Actually, Chendra, there was something I wanted to show you when Junhyuk came. ”

“What do you want to show me? What's that?”

“I don't know. Follow me. ”

Chend, who was walking ahead with a meaningful smile, this time led me to the staff lounge. Naturally, there was also a family of mintendos in the Leitex staff lounge.

“Our associates also enjoy the Psychic Battle created by Kang Jun-hyuk. The picture is a bit sexy, but the content itself is very interesting. ”

“Glad you're having fun. But what do you want to show me? ”

“It's a bit of a bummer, so Chendra looks at his hands. ”

“What...? Do you know how to program? ”

Then Pumala, who was following us, smiled and replied.

“There's nothing our Chendra can't handle. He's a genius. ”

Chendra smiles at Pumala's compliment and puts a white cartridge with no stickers in it for the family. After a while, the title logo of the familiar Psychic Battle popped up and the character selection screen popped up.

‘Well, it's the same so far, but is it gamey? ’

Before choosing a character named Chendra, I looked up and raised my jaw, and I picked the protagonist Azsa Ren. And then the first stage.

“What is this? ”

As soon as I saw the screen, I muttered.

‘The game was much faster. ’

The psychic battles Chendra plays looked about 1.5 times faster in game speed than I created.

Also, the projectile aiming for the protagonist was moving faster and smoother than before.

“What the hell? How did you do that? ”

Chendra shrugs, stealing his nose lightly.

“The coding arrangement was already clean, but Chendra fixed it again because it was too complicated. That's why the overload on the CPU is significantly reduced. I used to be good at psychic battles, but I felt less airborne freshness, so how about changing the background scroll to 1.5x the speed? Do you like it?"

The arrangement is complicated? Hayashi, a brilliant programmer in Mintendo, and I both came up with the original psychic battle, and I can't believe we're upgrading him further. He's bigger than I thought!?

I felt completely resolved by playing the Psychic Battle and feeling sorry for something about 2%. I folded my arms for a moment and opened my mouth as I watched Chendra play.

“Chendra.”

“Yes? Why? ”

“I think I underestimated you. ”

“Right? I did good, right? It's a Christmas present for Joon-Hyuk. Do you like it?"

“Yes, I love it. So, um...”

“Yes..? ”

“You need to run for it. ”

“Two busts? What is it?”

“There is such a thing. First of all, can you replicate the rico5A22 CPU you showed me earlier? ”

“Of course you can. ”

“Improve your performance at least as much as you can. The next generation's CPU should be taken from our Litex, not Rico's. ”

“Okay. Do you understand what Junhyuk said? ”

“Pumala. I understand 100%. ”

Good. This has increased the utility of the Indian puppets.

&

“What the...? Hey, boss! How did you...?”

Hayashi was reviewing the coding data from the Psychic Battle I handed him, and he was admiring the recession of the equation. Understand the response in 10 minutes. I was freaked out when I first handed over the data.

“I can't believe I'm even looking at it. I can't believe I came up with this formula.”

Coding that talks to computers is a very strange language.

Let me give you a simple example.

Let's say someone asks me for directions along the way.

I knew the place, so I explained it to him like this.

You see that supermarket up ahead? There's a pedestrian crossing through there, and if you go a little further, there's a laundromat.

Step right into the laundry and you'll see what you're talking about.

But let's just say Chend explained it like this.

Go straight for two more blocks and turn right.

The description is the same, but the content is much shorter. And computers like short, accurate explanations.

That way we can handle other orders easily. Chendra poured that extra capacity into the background scroll, and as a result, the Psychic Battle was able to turn into a complete game.

‘At this rate, it would really be worth a shot with Super Maridge 3. ’

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