Hello There, Mr. Ho
Gerald could not give a precise answer.
The prosperity of the arcade market had no connection to the home console market.
If players still refused to buy in, Lin Lixin might fall and shatter himself to pieces by rashly venturing into a new field.
Lin Lixin was in no hurry for an answer either. After explaining the arcade standardization work, he hurried off.
A few days later, at GAMENOVA.
After all three arcade games officially went on sale, foot traffic at their arcade finally dropped noticeably.
Many players switched to large arcades closer to home or with more lavish decor.
GAMENOVA's only advantage might have been its unchanging price of twenty-five cents per play.
But that was fine too. Lin Lixin welcomed a little peace and quiet so he could make some progress during the day.
He emptied his mind, sank into his consciousness, and summoned the system interface.
[User]: Lin Lixin (Jesse) [Attributes]: [Programming]: 51 [Scriptwriting]: 22 [Graphic design]: 13 [Music composition]: 11 [Hardware technology]: 45
After so much development work, all his attributes had improved significantly.
With the series of rewards Contra had brought him as well, Lin Lixin could now be said to have made strides in every field.
A skill pack lay quietly in the bottom row of the panel.
He had suddenly received it on his way back not long ago, as a reward for Contra's cumulative player count.
Hopefully, it'll be a hardware- or graphics-related skill.
Lin Lixin thought it over. There was actually little more he could do on the software side at present.
Before the hardware received an across-the-board upgrade, further refining his programming skills would bring little benefit.
[Ding!] [Skill acquired]: [The Art of Language]: [You have mastered the essence of communicating with machines and can easily read assembly and machine code]
"Huh?"
Lin Lixin froze for a moment.
This skill could neither be called a hardware ability nor counted as software expertise.
Yet it was exceptionally useful!
Unlike modern high-level languages such as C#, Java, C++, and Python, assembly could hardly be considered easy to learn.
The games might look flashy in their final form, but the development process was truly painful.
In an era when the concept of a game engine was still immature, Lin Lixin's development process was actually closer to operating the computer itself directly.
He had to write assembly instructions to control things down to each individual register.
Just making a single pixel move across the screen required a long string of code.
With this skill, however, what he could do would be a different story.
He could even wrap things up into a high-level language of his own!
"Hey, sleeping in broad daylight? Pull an all-nighter yesterday?"
Vivian's voice interrupted Lin Lixin's thoughts.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw Vivian waving a stack of neatly printed drawings.
"Here. Mr. Gerald asked me to bring these over."
One glance told him these were the specifications he had previously commissioned for interchangeable circuit boards.
He had not expected results so soon.
Lin Lixin took the documents and looked through them carefully, astonished by Gerald's workmanship.
"Sam, come take a look at this document."
Sam, who had just finished his chores and stepped up to a Contra cabinet, stiffened. He sheepishly stuffed his coin back into his pocket and returned to the counter.
"Is this that modular production you mentioned before?"
After giving the contents a cursory scan, he immediately recognized the enormous room for profit.
"Should I arrange for the contract manufacturer to adjust the production line right away?"
"Yes, the sooner the better. They'll need some time to adapt to the new model too."
Only after watching Sam rush out the door like a whirlwind did Lin Lixin turn to Vivian and give her a slight nod.
"Thank you for making a special trip, senior."
At his words, Vivian deliberately put on an indignant look and teased him:
"You've got some nerve saying that! Mr. Gerald shut down VideoSoft, and now I'm unemployed!"
Lin Lixin chuckled. To be fair, he really had caused that.
Still, he had intended to recruit this highly promising talent anyway. At least the fertile water had not flowed into someone else's field.
Just as he was about to speak, Lin Lixin suddenly thought of the home console project he was planning with Gerald. His eyes lit up, and he immediately changed his mind.
"Vivian, you've done quite a bit of work on graphics chips, haven't you?"
"Hmm... I've done all right? Why?"
The corners of Lin Lixin's mouth lifted into a harmless smile.
"We at GAMENOVA are currently preparing to establish our own graphics chip subsidiary. Would you be interested in heading it up?"
Vivian's eyes widened. She had not expected Lin Lixin to say anything like that.
"You want to make your own graphics chips?"
"That's right, covering graphics coprocessors for arcade machines and graphics chips for home consoles. I believe this is an important direction for future development."
If he wanted to make his own home console, graphics chips were a component he simply could not get around.
Given the feeble performance of eight-bit processors, achieving those dazzling effects required a graphics coprocessor.
And this thing's next form would be an important cornerstone of future information technology-the graphics card.
Whether in graphic design, video games, or artificial intelligence, graphics cards were now indispensable.
NVIDIA and AMD had both filled their coffers to the brim through their graphics card businesses.
"That's so cool! Of course I'm willing!"
With such a windfall falling into her lap, Vivian naturally agreed without a second thought.
"How many people are there now? I can start work immediately!"
"Hmm... strictly speaking, you're the only one at the moment."
"¿" Vivian felt as though someone had suddenly dumped a basin of cold water over her, chilling her from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.
"Wait, I'm supposed to do this alone? Develop graphics chips??"
She had assumed someone as capable as Lin Lixin would surely have made thorough preparations.
At the very least, he ought to have brought a few industry heavyweights on board.
After all that, it turned out the stall had not even been set up yet.
"Although you're the only one right now, don't worry. I've already picked out a few capable helpers for you."
Lin Lixin smiled as he watched Vivian leave, then took out his phone book and found a number.
Toronto, Canada.
Ho Kwok Yuen had just finished yet another unsatisfactory job and sat listlessly alone in his room.
As a Chinese immigrant, he met obstacles at every turn in his life here, and his pay had fallen again and again.
He could not help thinking back to his days in HK. At least then, he had earned an annual salary of five hundred thousand dollars and had been a successful man of some standing.
"Ah..."
He sighed and turned his gaze toward a draft proposal on the table.
A line at the very top read: Metallurgical Heaven ATI.
If he still could not find a job he liked, he would have to take out his savings and make a gamble!
Just then, the landline at home suddenly rang.
Could the headhunter have news?
He hurried to answer.
Yet what came through the phone was an unfamiliar, youthful voice speaking Mandarin, mixed with a deliberately affected, lively Greater Bay Area accent.
"Hello there, Mr. Ho~"