Why were the bonuses so stingy?
"Use our DRAM?"
Lin Lixin was slightly taken aback. "Why not use Toshiba or Fujitsu?"
A Japan game developer traveled all the way to the US to buy memory chips, Micron, which is currently undergoing industrial upgrading.
"President Lin, I was referring to the American version of our next-generation console, which I named SEGA-Genesis."
Genesis, the American name for Sega's fifth-generation console.
Lin Lixin finally understood.
Due to the Semiconductor Agreement, DRAM prices, which had previously plummeted in response to US demand, have begun a dramatic rebound.
If Sega intends to rely on its assembly plants in the US, then it doesn't really matter whether they choose Japan or American DRAM.
"President Lin, I'm not familiar with Micron's capabilities, but I have faith in yours."
The fact that Lin Lixin is using products from a recently acquired manufacturer for his next-generation mainframe instead of other more mature solutions speaks volumes about his attitude.
Hayao Nakayama's expression was serious as he met Lin Lixin's gaze.
Unlike other company presidents, Hayao Nakayama did not only own Sega.
It is precisely because of this that he is able to break out of the established framework and consider issues in a more radical way.
DRAM----
Lin Lixin pondered for a few moments, then suddenly smiled.
Micron has just finished integrating and restarting several production lines, and it really needs a large company to absorb the production capacity.
After all, their NovaXeno won't use regular DRAM, but rather high-speed synchronous memory SDRAM, which is currently in trial production.
More importantly, this might be a good opportunity to ambush Nintendo.
By the time NEC released its PC-Engine, touted as the "FC killer," Nintendo began rushing to develop the Super Famicom (SFC), their memory technology had already fallen far behind.
According to historical data, the Super Nintendo's memory is only 128KB, which is roughly Micron to a single 1Mb Micron chip.
At that time, Nintendo will have Sega to contend with and PC Engine to chase closely behind, so who knows how busy they'll be.
"Of course, President Hayao Nakayama, how many are you planning to order?"
"5 million 1Mb memory chips."
"Hmm—that's quite a large order. By the way, I wonder if Mr. Hayao Nakayama is interested in PPU display chips?"
A huge order revitalized Micron's entire production line.
However, Sam seemed somewhat anxious about this matter.
Selling higher-performance hardware to competitors—isn't that just asking for trouble?
"Looking for trouble? Why?"
Lin Lixin responded casually to Sam's question.
"If Sega's Genesis console is really that powerful, wouldn't that affect us?"
"So—if I gave you a 32-bit Atari with 16GB of RAM and a resolution of 40,962,160, would you buy it?"
Seeing Sam fall silent, Lin Lixin continued, "The most important thing about a game console is never its specifications, but the games it offers. This isn't a PC; nobody buys an expensive game console just for the hardware."
"Higher and more complex configurations mean greater development difficulty. Neither Sega nor Nintendo possesses our advantages in N Language and OpenGL, nor do they have our market share."
Even third parties know very well which side they should stand on.
There's one more thing Lin Lixin didn't mention.
Even without Sega, Nintendo wouldn't let go of such a large market North America.
It's better to let them fight it out than to let one company dominate.
There is no other game company in the world that can occupy the same niche as GAMENOVA.
"Not to mention that those servers costing a couple hundred dollars are not in our market segment at all. Even if they were truly incompatible, it would still take them several months or even a year or two to get off the ground."
"Before that, we could use Sega's money to focus on making our own games."
The complete privatization of Micron had already drastically reduced Gamenova's cash reserves. Coupled with NovaXeno's high production costs, without this order, Gamenova would have had to continuously inject capital into Micron to pull it back to life.
They're using their competitors' money to make their own games, and they should thank us for it.
Sam followed Lin Lixin back to the conference room.
He had been too busy with a lot of other things to get involved before.
He'd be incredibly anxious if he wasn't allowed to participate in such an interesting task as content planning.
"Nonsense! Of course the Byzantium wanted to achieve a victory of domination! A religious victory is out of the question!"
"You're talking nonsense! The prosperity of Basil II's reign was inseparable from the support of the Church!"
As soon as they entered the house, the sounds of Will and Sid arguing filled the air.
Kojima, somewhat withdrawn due to her limited language skills and the incompatibility of her personality with the two men, huddled to the side listening to them each express their thoughts, nodding in agreement from time to time.
Seeing Lin Lixin walk in, Will slammed his hand on the table and stood up abruptly, looking at Lin Lixin.
"Lin, tell me, should Basil II pursue a path of conquest or religious victory?"
Lin Lixin shrugged helplessly.
"Why teach players how to play the game? Aren't there two paths to choose from? Instead of specializing in one, it's better to design them to complement each other."
"For example, there's the Conquest of the Sect, where a unit enhancement mechanism is designed around the sect-building gameplay, or the Berserker Sect, where sects are built through combat."
Realizing that the group seemed to be getting stuck in a pattern when it came to character design, Lin Lixin had to quickly bring them back on track.
"Ah, really, how silly of me, a bit too rigid."
The two men were stunned upon hearing this, and both slapped their thighs, crying out that they had made a mistake.
"I've got it! How about this: every holy city that converts to Byzantium increases the combat power of all Byzantium units?"
"Not bad. Let's get some armored cavalry to replace the heavy knights, so they can have a greater advantage against cities that follow the Byzantium religion?"
Once the thought process is clear, the rest will fall into place naturally.
After listening for a while and realizing he had no chance to speak, Sam could only silently pick up the form on the table that already recorded the existing Civilization and start flipping through it.
But the more he turned the pages, the more Sam doubts surged.
The contents recorded here are completely different from what I imagined.
There's no earth-shattering numerical explosion, only sporadic, meager bonuses of 1 or 2 points.
Seeing Lin Lixin finish the discussion and sit down in front of him, he pointed to the contents and asked, "Lin, is this design fun to play? The stats are too stingy, aren't they?"
"Like this, the effect of the Seowon: mines adjacent to the academy gain +1 technology, farms adjacent to the academy gain +1 food."
"What can you do with such low technology levels? It doesn't seem like it can differentiate us from other Civilization."
Since different Civilization have been distinguished, the characteristics of each Civilization should be highly differentiated, so that there is a sense of enjoyment in choosing.
The values listed here don't follow any rules at all; they're downright stingy.