An in-house language and low-cost chips

"Wait... what?"

Vivian stared at what was on the screen in disbelief, scarcely trusting her ears.

"So... you built this test level with this tool?"

"That's right."

Lin Lixin nodded and opened a file.

A layout identical to the level Sam was playing immediately appeared on the screen.

"Each tile can be represented by three numbers. This map takes up less than 1 KB."

He typed a command on the computer, and the clearly defined map instantly became a matrix of numbers.

Three numbers were clearly displayed on each tile.

Vivian understood with just one glance how remarkable this extremely simple, intuitive feature was.

"The first two numbers represent its rendering position, and the third tells the graphics processor what it looks like?"

"Exactly. The texture only needs to be loaded into video memory once. After that, all we need are indices."

Lin Lixin had actually made a prototype of this technology while developing Contra.

But turning it into a dedicated program like this had only occurred to him while he was developing Metal Gear.

With tile maps, both memory and video memory usage dropped dramatically.

All the capacity saved could be put toward animation and special effects.

Vivian no longer knew what to say. She silently sat down at the C64, intending to try out the map editor.

"Huh? Wait, that wasn't assembly or BASIC you were using just now, was it? What language was that?"

She was about to type when she suddenly realized she did not seem to know how to use this program at all.

After checking the command-line history, Vivian discovered that this did not seem to be any programming language she knew.

Even so, its contents were exceptionally easy to understand, with names written directly in clear, concise English.

"You can call it [N Language]. Yes, short for Nova Language. It's a programming language I'm developing."

Vivian watched as Lin Lixin took a stack of printed documents out of a drawer.

It was the N Language specification manual.

"With its help, the development process can be simplified considerably."

Lin Lixin flipped through a few pages and stopped at an example.

Vivian glanced over it a few times and seemed to guess which program the source code belonged to. Her breath caught.

"...Is this Tetris?"

"Exactly. Rewritten in N Language, it only takes this one page of code."

Sitting nearby, Sam was in considerably better shape than Vivian, whose head was already spinning.

He had long since grown used to Lin Lixin's outrageous technical prowess.

But he was indeed full of interest in this map editor.

He took the keyboard and tried designing a map according to the documentation.

A little over ten minutes later, he had drawn a simple cross-shaped corridor.

Using commands to compile it and burn it onto the chip, Sam restarted the game.

Sure enough, the map had changed to the one he had designed.

This practically brought the difficulty of development down to baby level. Anyone could quickly master the method of drawing maps.

"Do you still think making 200 levels would be difficult?"

Lin Lixin spread his hands, knowing he no longer needed to say anything more.

With this technology, they could even split into dedicated planning and development teams.

The planning team would only need to design the level concepts on paper, and the development team would translate the concept drawings into game maps.

This was nothing short of a revolutionary, next-generation development model!

October.

Ho Kwok Yuen submitted a report.

A graphics card designed using brand-new ASIC integrated circuit technology had finally been born in the former VideoSoft office in Santa Clara.

This new technology had nearly drained all the revenue GAMENOVA had earned from arcade machines over the past few months.

But no matter how Sam complained about it, Lin Lixin had insisted on using it for their first graphics chip.

And now, this semiconductor technology that went against the mainstream was finally about to start earning him money.

Lin Lixin understood clearly that ASICs were precisely the key that had allowed ATI, a small company with an initial investment of only a little over a hundred thousand Canadian dollars, to defeat the other giants.

"Sam, take a look at this."

In his hand was the first fabricated graphics card sample Vivian had sent over.

Compared with previous graphics cards, it looked much simpler, with noticeably fewer external components.

"All that time, just to make it a little smaller?"

Sam kept an eye on GAMENOVA's financial reports every day, so naturally, he knew exactly how much the chip's design process had cost.

Lin Lixin smiled without answering. Instead, he waved the chip in his hand and asked, "Guess how much this graphics chip costs?"

"Forty dollars?"

Sam often discussed such matters with the foundry, so he had his own rough estimate of the price.

Lin Lixin shook his head and held up three fingers.

Sam's eyes widened.

"Thirty dollars?! That really does cut costs quite a bit!"

But Lin Lixin shook his head again before slowly saying, "No. Three dollars."

"Huh?"

"Of course, that's the price for large-scale fabrication. Right now, it still costs about ten dollars."

Lin Lixin set the chip aside and picked up another quotation.

It listed the production costs of the Metal Gear arcade board.

"At this price, we can get our hardware costs below two hundred dollars. Including the cabinet and the contract manufacturer's labor costs, each machine will only cost around five hundred dollars to produce."

With trembling hands, Sam took the quotation and repeatedly checked that Lin Lixin was not joking.

"I did say I wanted you to make a cheaper arcade machine... but this is way too outrageous!"

A five-hundred-dollar arcade machine was truly unheard of.

After all, even an Atari 2600 cost two hundred dollars.

That meant the price of two home consoles could buy a complete arcade machine!

"Including shipping and storage costs, the selling price would only be a thousand dollars per machine... my God, the same price as Pac-Man!"

Sam felt dizzy. The impact of that price was still a little too much for him.

Lin Lixin, on the other hand, was not particularly surprised by the quotation.

Separate production, low-cost graphics chips, an 8-bit processor...

From the very beginning, he had planned to drive the price all the way down.

At this moment, all his arrangements had simply, finally borne fruit.

Meyer finally received the call he had been eagerly awaiting from his God of Wealth.

Without asking so much as half a word more, he set off and came straight to Lin Lixin.

"Mr. Lin! I've missed you to death!"

"Here it is, the Metal Gear prototype. Want to give it a try?"

"Of course! Of course!"

Meyer nodded eagerly, immediately stepped up to the arcade machine, and started the game.

Half an hour later, Meyer once again realized just how terrifying Lin Lixin was.

Breathing rapidly, his face flushed, he gesticulated like a madman, spittle flying.

"Mr. Lin! This game will definitely sell for no less than Contra! Just tell me, what's the cost price? I'll pay in full for a hundred units up front!"