Forever short on storage

Thanksgiving is just one week away from Black Friday.

Convenience stores across the country have already begun gearing up for this most important consumer extravaganza of the year.

The Christmas season is of great importance to all industries.

The video game industry is no exception; every Christmas, a bunch of big titles from various manufacturers are released.

But this year's situation is much more chaotic.

The reason—of course—was the terrible Black Monday that happened in late October.

On October 19, 1987, the New York Stock Exchange experienced a sharp single-day drop, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 22.6%, marking its largest single-day decline since 1941.

This is historically known as the United States Stock Market Crash," also called "Black Monday."

Although the name sounds similar to "Black Friday," the nature of the event is completely different.

The global capital markets were hit by this ripple effect, resulting in a chain reaction of declines and the loss of over $500 billion.

Millionaires become poor overnight, stock market investors lose everything.

"Mom, it's raining on Wall Street. Such a terrible accident has directly disrupted the market this year."

On the contrary, companies like GAMENOVA, which are not publicly listed, were hardly affected and even got a chance to profit from a bargain.

Apart from the need for some emergency adjustments in the upstream and downstream supply chains, the overall situation is relatively stable and improving.

However, Lin Lixin doesn't have the energy to focus on these trivial matters right now.

There is now an even more pressing issue that needs to be addressed.

The hardware department held a short meeting, something they hadn't done in a while.

The attendees were Gerald, who was in charge of the NovaSwift assembly, Lin Lixin, and Vivian, the head of MicroNova.

"If the storage issue can't be resolved, Swift's product positioning can't be changed, and it will always be in a rather awkward position."

Gerald showed the two a testing platform.

This is just a feasibility verification circuit board; it's almost entirely hand-soldered and has pre-reserved solder pads.

"The processor, memory, graphics card, sound card, and power supply—our technology is currently mature enough that there shouldn't be any problems."

He used the test pen to point to each of the items on it, explaining the specifications of the device to the two of them.

It basically meets all the performance targets set for him by Lin Lixin.

These features have all been validated on the NX; it's simply a matter of optimizing power consumption.

Game consoles are like Pokémon; they actually have a clear generational division.

Strictly speaking, although the NovaSwift handheld console currently under development is GAMENOVA's second-generation handheld console, it is actually a product of the fourth generation in terms of generation.

Going back in time, the first generation goes back to the earliest Odyssey era, to the time of the super-shrewd lawyer Miluohua, who caused so much trouble for Activision.

The second generation was the Atari 2600, which is very familiar to Sam's generation.

The Fairchild Semiconductor ChanneIF, the product of Gerald's breakout game, is also a representative of the second generation of semiconductors.

As for the next era, that would be the third generation, spearheaded by Nintendo's FC Famicom) and Gamenova's NovaBo.

With the release of the NovaXeno, the development of game consoles had effectively entered its fourth generation.

The next model, the NovaSwift, is also an important product of the fourth generation.

On handheld consoles where parameters are almost unimproved, or even slightly reduced, a wealth of project experience from NX can be reused.

For Gerald, there are actually only two truly challenging issues with this new handheld console.

Screen, and storage.

The former was dealt with by Lin Lixin in a casual move not long ago.

Now, only this last hurdle remains.

It's the same old saying.

Short-term chip shortage, long-term energy shortage, and a perpetual memory shortage!

Handheld consoles aren't like the Notebook or NX; if you want to play games, it's just too inconvenient to lug around a bulky disc drive.

However, if it doesn't use a CD-ROM drive or a floppy disk drive, then the game size that this handheld console can accept is a pitiful 64KB.

In the past, this capacity would have been more than enough to unleash one's creative desires.

But not now.

As the saying goes, it's easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance

"Why not just customize a small CD player?"

When this demand is mentioned, Lin Lixin immediately thinks of the UMD disc drive that Sony used on the PSP.

A specially designed optical disc, only 60mm in diameter, yet through incredibly advanced technology, its capacity was increased to 1.8GB.

The degree of.

With a suitable power management system, this thing should theoretically allow handheld consoles to successfully use optical disc drives.

"Tested, it doesn't work."

Gerald shook his head.

He had heard Lin Lixin mention this plan many times, but when it came to actually implementing it in practice, the problems were far more numerous than he had imagined.

"First of all, miniaturizing the optical disc drive is indeed feasible. I've done a simple calculation, and after reducing the speed and replacing the laser light source, the power consumption can be reduced to less than 2 watts."

"But this power consumption is still a bit too high for a handheld console."

"In addition, system-level energy management consumes a significant amount of processor resources."

"If we add a dedicated coprocessor chip for power control, the cost will skyrocket, and heat dissipation will also be compromised."

There's one more thing Gerald didn't mention.

The battery compartment already takes up a lot of space in the device, leaving very little room for them to stuff things inside.

After filling four AA batteries, how do I find room to fit an entire CD-ROM drive system?

Then this handheld console is absolutely unworthy of the name "Swift".

"Um·"

Lin Lixin pondered for a moment.

The deeper one delves into hardware research, the more one can appreciate just how formidable the industrial design expertise of the "Big Three" manufacturers truly is.

It's worth noting that Sony chose an 1800mAh lithium battery for its PSP in pursuit of a slim and portable design, instead of the larger and more mainstream dry cell battery.

With a 64-bit processor and a host of electronic components that outperform current technology, Sony still manages to keep the PSP's battery life at 3-6 hours of gameplay.

This assembly capability is simply outrageous.

The heritage of a long-established consumer electronics company is no joke.

Even if Lin Lixin had a cheat code, they could only try to bridge this gap in pure experience and knowledge through technological advancement and continuous refinement.

"It's definitely too early to use a CD player."

Lin Lixin sighed. The fourth generation still has too many limitations. "However, its positioning doesn't need to be like the NX, focusing on high-end games. Handheld consoles have their own way of doing things."

If you don't plan to make all the games on the NX compatible with the new handheld, then there aren't that many things to consider.

"This is a differentiated product, focusing on leisure and lightweight design."

"Alright, let's switch back to the ROM cartridge. Vivian and I will take care of the capacity issue."

Upon hearing Lin Lixin's words, both Vivian and Gerald's eyes flashed with understanding.

MicroNova has never stopped its research and development of flash memory technology.

Another project that started at the same time as the CD player is now nearing completion.

NAND flash memory.

A new storage granular architecture sacrifices read speed for massive storage capacity.