Chapter 492 396 No Matter How You Look at It, It's All Pokeni!

In the blink of an eye, July is here again, and the annual E3 electronics show is about to be held.

For this reason, major electronics manufacturers around the world are gearing up to prepare, striving to take the top spot in this E3 electronics show and give the world a small shock.

Qing Zhiyuan is no exception.

After thinking for a long time, he decided to ask Sega to prepare a promotional PPT for the DC game console.

"President, but the changes to DC's game consoles have not been completed yet." Hideki Sato said doubtfully.

"Yes, I know." Qing Zhiyuan looked unusually calm, "Just give me the DC machine you made before."

"Oh, okay, President." Although Sato Hideki was a little confused, since he wanted it, he had to obey.

"Who said you can't show it until it's done well?" Qing Zhiyuan smiled slyly and gave him a wink.

"Huh?" Sato Hideki was stunned.

In fact, Qing Zhiyuan said that he does not even need a working game console, as long as he has an empty shell. However, in order to pursue the effect, it is better to bring two playable game consoles to E3.

After giving instructions to Sato Hideki, Qing Zhiyuan returned to the pokeni company.

He called art director Taiji Sakata into the office.

And handed him a storyboard.

Sakata Taiji turned around and felt his whole body was not well.

"President, is this...?"

"The company's current 3D rendering technology is relatively mature. You should communicate with Ken Akanishi and the others first to see if they can make this animation first."

What Taiji Sakata got was an animation storyboard about Miss 2B’s battle. To be honest, the president’s painting skills are very good. Even if it’s just a simple line drawing storyboard, you can still imagine how effective it can be. burst.

But the problem is-

"Aren't we going to develop it into a game? It's just a CG, without a game foundation, like this?"

"Yes, what I need is CG," Qing Zhiyuan laughed, "Just follow my storyboard, and the more explosive it is, the better."

With the current level of hardware, if you want Miss 2B to run, how is this possible?

However, when it comes to CG rendering, there is no need to consider running issues, because the final result is an animation, just like watching a movie.

It just so happens that the company now needs to use 3D rendering technology to develop The Matrix, so it just takes a little time to produce it together.

It may take more than ten hours to render a picture, or even more than a day. It takes about a week to render it on multiple machines at the same time in 20 seconds.

"Okay president."

Although he didn’t know what the president wanted to do, and Taiji Sakata also thought that it would be silly to create a pure game CG without a game, but since it was the president’s request, he still complied with it.

And it has to be done well.

The president should have this CG of great use.

…

After taking care of these things, Qing Zhiyuan took the publicity teams of Sega and pokeni and boarded a plane to the United States.

…

On July 24, 1998, the fourth E3 electronics show was held as scheduled at the World Convention Center in Atlanta, USA.

This E3 is still nominally sponsored by IDSA, but the actual business operations are handed over to IDG's World Exhibition Company. There are as many as 440 exhibiting companies and more than 1,600 products on display.

It can be said that the scale is huge.

Judging from the exhibition, computer games are already on par with television games in terms of product quantity and quality.

The three giants of console games, Sony, EA and Nintendo, have booths as large as half a football field.

Sony built a "PlayStation City" outside the venue, displaying several rows of PS consoles and many games, to attract teenagers who are interested in E3 but cannot enter the venue - E3 prohibits people under the age of 18 from entering. Excellent results.

EA did even better. In order to highlight their absolute position in sports games, they even built a real boxing ring at the booth and invited several lightweight boxers to perform live ammunition performances. The arrogance was really "arrogant". ".

However, EA is arrogant because it has the capital to be arrogant.

Last year, EA became No. 2 in the global electronic entertainment industry with video game revenue of US$848 million, surpassing Nintendo and Sony.

Second only to pokeni, which has sales of US$1.4 billion.

From this perspective, it is really a miracle that pokeni can achieve more than 1 billion US dollars in revenue by selling games.

However, as last year's game sales champion, pokeni's performance is very low-key.

This time, because P Company acquired Sega, the venues for Sega and Pokeni were planned together.

However, what is quite surprising is——

The venues of these two companies are not as big as everyone imagined.

It stands to reason that as you are the top seller, the organizers will definitely not neglect you. No matter what, a big football stadium must be planned for you, otherwise it will not be able to show off the elegance of Pokeni.

This is what the organizers originally planned.

The two venues of P Club and Sega combined were as big as two Rentian Paradises, but in the end they were rejected by Qing Zhiyuan.

Qing Zhiyuan said that they didn't need to exhibit much at the E3 Electronics Show this time, and only 200 to 300 square meters would be enough.

In fact, just as Qing Zhiyuan said, Paradox didn't have much to display in the exhibition area this time, and the initial experience space was also limited.

It mainly relied on the small and exquisite venue layout, coupled with its own excellent products, and the eye-catching cosplayers invited by Kazuma Takahashi to attract players.

…

3D games are an absolute hot spot at this exhibition, and can be described as "overwhelming".

With the support of VOODOO II and NVIDIA GeForce, the personal computer platform performs much better than game consoles such as PS, all thanks to the open architecture of personal computers.

The second-generation GeForce products are divided into the mainstream GeForce 2 MX series, the mid-to-high-end GeForce 2 (GTS, PRO, Ti, Ultra) series, and the world's first independent mobile graphics processor GeForce 2 GO series.

At this time, the GeForce series has a basically complete product line prototype that can meet the needs of different consumer groups.

GeForce 2 GTS is the first product of the second generation of GeForce.

Compared with the previous generation GeForce 256, it has an additional second group of TMUs, and the core frequency has also been greatly increased to 200Mhz. With the support of the second generation hardware T&L engine, the game performance is better than its predecessor. The GeForce 2 PRO, Ti and Ultra versions mainly add core and memory frequencies.

GeForce 2 MX re-planned the rendering pipeline and frequency on the original architecture and became NVIDIA's most mainstream product at the time.

It seems incredible, but this is the fact. The reason why NVIDIA has been able to achieve such rapid development, especially GeForce256 has only been launched for more than a year, and the GeForce 2 MX series has been launched again in less than two years,

is mainly due to the fact that GeForce is indeed selling well, and with the strong support of Pokeni, NVIDIA has almost no financial pressure.

More importantly, it is the development concept of NVIDIA's boss Huang Renxun.

There is already a very famous law in the industry, that is "Moore's Law" created by Intel founder Moore:

The number of transistors that can be accommodated on a chip doubles every 18 months, and the performance doubles.

On this basis, Huang Renxun proposed [Huang's Law]: Nvidia's core strategy is to upgrade its products every 6 months and double its functions.

Compared with "Moore's Law", the technology update speed of "Huang's Law" is 3 times faster.

The key is that Huang's boasting has really come true: Nvidia launched a higher-performance GPU at the beginning of this year, gradually defeated many competitors, and became the No. 1 in the field of visual computing.

And Nvidia's valuation has also been rising all the way. According to third-party evaluations, Nvidia's current valuation is at least more than 1 billion US dollars.

In other words, Huang Renxun, who owns 70% of the shares, has become a very young billionaire in less than 3 years.

Of course, this is only a theoretical valuation. How it will be in the future depends on the development of Nvidia. Only after it goes public will Nvidia's valuation be fully realized.

…

Looking around, which manufacturer's game products do not indicate that they support GeForce, VOODOO or TNT 3D?

According to a rough estimate by the organizer, more than 70% of the games exhibited this time use 3D graphics technology.

All types of games are desperately leaning on 3D. Even if they cannot achieve full 3D real-time rendering, they must advertise that the game scene pictures are colored by 3D rendering.

GeForce is really showing its power this time, making games such as "Delta Force", "Tomb Raider III", and "Need for Speed ​​​​3" become dreamlike and real "virtual reality".

On the first day of the pre-exhibition press conference, the promotion of various 3D masterpieces was dazzling.

After a defeat last year, Toby Gard, the game producer of "Tomb Raider 3", deeply learned the lesson of the last defeat when he was completely crushed by Pokeni with "Border".

Hey?

Guess what?

This time, they directly used GeForce, and it was the GeForce 2 MX400, the latest developed by NVIDIA. After using this graphics card, the image quality of Tomb Raider 3 has been improved.

It has become a completely different work.

It is equivalent to that in the second generation, Laura in Tomb Raider was still a blocky person, but now she has become a beautiful woman with American comic style. The levels are also very realistic and detailed, giving players a strong visual impact.

Countless people applauded at the scene.

Toby Gard showed a happy and proud smile on his face, and finally got back a city.

What is this called?

This is called joining if you can't beat it.

Since other graphics cards are not as powerful as GeForce, why not just use the best one?

The same goes for "Delta Force". It directly [reproduces] the effects of last year's "Border" by pokeni. In terms of picture effects, only some details of light, shadow and texture are not as detailed as Border, but the feeling given to players is actually very good. Close.

These developers have used their strength to prove that as long as the hardware can keep up, software can actually catch up.

The Trailblazer 1.0 engine used by Frontier is not yet high enough to widen the generation gap by more than 2 years.

However, Qing Zhiyuan is not worried about this at all, because the game itself is chasing each other in a cycle. In the future, when Trail Blazers 2.0 is released, they will know the gap.

…

Interplay, the company that produced "Fallout" was in financial crisis due to being crushed by pokeni's "Border" last year.

After the "Fallout" game was released, almost no one paid attention to it, resulting in huge losses. Therefore, this game that should have shined in another time and space has become an out-and-out failure in the history of games.

Interplay did not continue to develop a sequel.

This time at the E3 electronics show, no radiation was seen again.

Qing Zhiyuan still felt a little regretful.

…

During the pre-show press conference on the first day, game manufacturers, media reporters and some players sat in the audience and watched the companies above display their games.

However, as I looked at it, I always felt that something was not quite right.

"Fake, why are these games all 3D?"

"And haven't you noticed? Looking at the introduction, these games seem to use NVIDIA graphics cards."

"The GeForce series, I remember, when pokeni showed "Border" last year, it used the graphics card developed by this company."

"The effect of that time can really be described as an explosion, which directly took the game to the sky. But today, it seems that it is not as exciting as originally imagined."

“The first time was really shocking. Starting this year, major game manufacturers have adopted GeForce. They develop games based on the latest graphics cards, and the picture quality naturally keeps up.

The subsequent ones will definitely not be as shocking as the first time. "

"Ah... we have really entered the 3D era, and the momentum is so rapid, how can others survive?"

"Not all games have to be 3D, right? 2D also has its own advantages and characteristics. The key lies in how you do it."

"But the 3D effect is getting better and better, and players are concentrating on these games. You can tell by looking at the works displayed by these game manufacturers."

"Hey, there's nothing we can do about it. Technology is advancing so fast. The 3D effects two years ago were a mess.

In addition to pokeni the year before last, how could other games be on the market? "

"Well, when it comes to this, I have to admire pokeni. He created the 3D era abruptly, and he can accurately step on the wave of the era every time.

It's so admirable. "

…

"Oh my god! I finally found it!" A middle-aged man in a suit exclaimed.

Everyone turned around and discovered that this person was Mr. Masashi Miyamoto, the president of Square.

"What are you doing? Are you surprised?"

However, the surprised expression on his face made everyone wonder if this guy had been electrocuted.

"Didn't you notice? Although the content shown now has nothing to do with pokeni, and pokeni has not appeared yet.

But when you look at it horizontally and vertically, why are the shadows of pokeni everywhere? "

Everyone looked puzzled for a while, but they finally came to their senses after two seconds.

is not that right? !

Nvidia, in which pokeni has a stake, is shining brightly. All its games are made with GeForce graphics cards. Isn't this because there is no pokeni, but pokeni is everywhere? !

Everyone couldn't help but cast angry and jealous glances at Qing Zhiyuan, who was calm and composed not far away.

Qing Zhiyuan just crossed his legs and lightly swept his trouser legs with his hand.

is not that right?

When Nvidia makes money, pokeni makes money.

He wishes that the GeForce series of graphics cards could spread all over the world.

…

…

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There is another chapter in the evening (end of this chapter)