Chapter 62 Sunbird Company
Compared with software development, hardware development costs are huge. Therefore, in a short period of time, the game company founded by Li Zetian was purely about making game software.
Li Zetian worked for Atari for a period of time and has been paying attention to Atari's development since then.
In 1973, Atari Corporation developed the next generation of electronic game systems and acquired the smart tank program that was still being designed by Qinglan Engineering, and it had been run on "Stella". Stella is Atari's internal testing machine and is a second-generation home game console under development! It specifically integrates an original television interface (TIA) processing chip, random access memory (RAM) and input/output (I/O) chip. In order to save costs, standard CMOS and logic cache ICs are used, bringing the price down to a more reasonable level.
Of course, these are just things Li Zetian knows, and those who don’t know are even more powerful.
In August 1976, when Stella was not ready for public testing, Fairchild Semiconductor invented a proprietary CPU data system and TV entertainment system. Since then, the market has been flooded with similar products. Atari knew it needed to release it as soon as possible, but it didn't have enough money to speed up development. In 1976, Nolan Bushnell sold the company to Warner Bros. for $28 million in order to ensure that Stella could be released smoothly as soon as possible.
By the time of its official launch in 1977, Atari's second-generation home console had cost a total of $100 million to develop. After that, Atari quickly occupied the U.S. and even the global market with this game console, becoming the well-deserved overlord of the gaming industry! ! !
Now that Li Zetian has sold Apple, he doesn't have enough money to develop home game consoles.
What he can do now is to develop Apple-ll games first, and then transplant them to other personal computers to make some money and build up his strength.
Of course, Li Zetian has many ideas in mind. If he were to lead a team to develop a home game console, the development amount would definitely be far less than US$100 million.
A week later, Li Zetian registered a subsidiary overseas, Sunbird Company, in the name of Umbrella Company, referred to as Sunbird Company.
It was named "Sun Bird Company" because Li Zetian once saw a piece of gold foil from the SCCD Jinsha Site, which was the "Sun Bird" gold ornament. Li Zetian was deeply impressed by it and used it as the company's LOGO. It was very beautiful!
The entire gold jewelry is in the shape of a ring. There are complex hollow patterns on the gold jewelry. It is divided into two layers: the inner layer is surrounded by twelve rotating tooth-like rays of light equidistantly distributed around it; the outer layer pattern surrounds the inner layer pattern, consisting of Composed of four identical birds flying counterclockwise. The four birds' heads and feet are connected front to back and fly in the same direction, which is opposite to the rotation direction of the inner vortex. A composition analysis revealed that its gold content is as high as 94.2%. This gold ornament may be an artifact used by the ancient Shu people for sacrifice. It is now kept in the Jinsha Heritage Museum in CD City, SC.
The company's registered capital is US$250,000. Li Zetian originally planned to buy himself a house and a car with this money, but now it is all donated to Sunbird Company! We might even need to inject capital into it in the future!
At present, the company is small and has only one person, Li Zetian himself.
First game development project: "Tetris".
No, it should be called "Chinese Cube"! ! !
How can we continue to call "Tetris" a game developed by the Chinese?
Therefore, the name "Chinese Cube" was decided by Li Zetian happily!
"Chinese Cube" is very easy to develop. It is usually a hands-on work for programming novices. The code is only more than 100 lines. Li Zetian wrote the program in three strokes, five divisions and two divisions. After finishing it, he hurried to the patent office to apply for a patent!
After walking out of the patent office, Li Zetian went to a newspaper to place a recruitment advertisement.
"
Recruiting 3 artists!
Recruiting 10 game program development engineers!
"
Li Zetian is not good at art.
There is a lot of code for large-scale games, and Li Zetian doesn't have much time to write it by himself, so he assigns it to others.
Li Zetian is responsible for the overall design and management of the game project.
There is no doubt that Li Zetian wants to develop large-scale computer games! ! !
Li Zetian can handle small games such as "Chinese Cube", "Pac-Man", "Donkey Kong" and "Super Arkanoid" by himself!
It is no exaggeration to say that Li Zetian alone holds half the sky in the gaming industry! ! !
Since Sunbird is a new company, its salary is not high, and employees from other companies will not jump in.
So Li Zetian could only recruit freshly graduated college students!
However, although they have just stepped out of school and their skills and experience are not as good as those of veteran employees from other companies, there are no weak soldiers under a strong general. Under the leadership of Li Zetian, they will all grow up rapidly! In addition, what Li Zetian values most is that they are full of vitality and vitality. This is what game developers should have most!
Ten days later, Sunbird had a total of 14 employees, including Li Zetian. The company's office is located near Apple and Microsoft, making it convenient for Li Zetian to manage the three companies!
Before recruiting everyone into the company, Li Zetian stayed up late and worked overtime. He had already written the system framework and rules for "Chinese Cube", "Pac-Man", "Donkey Kong", and "Super Arkanoid" and applied for patent. Of course, the game is very simple, the graphics are rough, and there is only the first level.
Li Zetian plans to let the artists polish or improve it, and let the game program development engineers develop the subsequent levels of the game! After these four games are completed, everyone's level will be improved and cooperation will be more tacit. At this time, we will make a big move to develop a large-scale role-playing game!
If a large-scale game was developed from the beginning, Li Zetian was worried that they would not be able to handle it, so he gave them these four games to practice first.
Newcomers always need to be cultivated!
Of course, no company boss can provide these four super popular games for employees to practice. There is no one else in the world except Li Zetian! ! !
“Sunbird Company lacks everything except good projects!!!”
“Work at Sunbird and you will be successful!!!”
"Today you can only be an ordinary programmer at Sunbird Company, and tomorrow you will switch jobs and become a project director of another company!!!"
Li Zetian said this to every employee who came in.
Of course, he does not encourage job-hopping, and no one will want to change jobs after coming to Sunbird Company. It is a comfortable working environment, no pressure, but the salary is a little less, but the company has an equity incentive mechanism. Stay in the company and work hard. The better the company's performance, the more you will earn. Li Zetian's brain is filled with countless classic games, which will bring huge wealth to Sunbird Company. The person who wants to change jobs is S·B. Presumably they will also understand how much they have in the future. They are just ordinary programmers. The core figure of the company is Li Zetian.
Apple and Sunbird are both industries under Li Zetian's name. There is no problem at all in cooperating between the two companies.
Li Zetian can predict that when Apple-ll is released, it will be more shocking and popular than the previous one, with sales increasing dramatically. Maybe the CEO of IBM will be so surprised that he will have sleepless nights!
At the same time, I'm afraid even the CEO of Atari can't sit still...
Think about it, Apple-ll is more advanced than the previous generation, the Excel spreadsheet office software is even more powerful, and there are four classic games provided by Sunbird Company. There is no reason for Apple-ll not to be popular! ! !
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