These media outlets racked their brains and finally came up with a brilliant idea.
What's the most awesome thing about Mirror's Edge?
The art style is absolutely amazing.
But to make such exaggerated visuals so smooth, so smooth it's like watching a movie.
This kind of graphics technology is truly invaluable.
As for the nominations for [Best Sound Mixing], [Best Original Score], [Best Visual Design], [Best Innovative Game], and so on, there's no need to elaborate further.
Now the question is...
How do you categorize Battlefield 1991 and Mirror's Edge?
After those two finished their fight, there were still a bunch of heavyweights from their subsidiary studios.
Although " Papa's Pizzeria " is a small-budget production, its technological innovations absolutely deserve a basket of awards and are a film that will go down in history.
" The Return of the Obra Dinn " is a seminal work in Lucas Arts, and its overall quality is excellent.
After much deliberation and racking of brains for several days and nights, a group of gaming media outlets finally found a perfect solution.
"Mr. Lin, we've decided to establish a new 'Best Game Producer Award' for electronicgames, and we've decided to... no, no, no..."
Steve realized his wording was inappropriate and quickly corrected himself.
"I wonder if Mr. Lin would be so kind as to accept the nomination for this award?"
This is a completely customized award.
If Lin Lixin doesn't intend to take it, to be honest, they can't even find anyone else to claim it.
If they happen to pick up a random person off the street, the fans might want to sink the entire editorial team into the Gulf of Mexico.
"Of course, my friend."
Lin Lixin was amused.
It is, after all, the world's first truly "AAA" game.
Although it was far from reaching the scale of later generations, the amount of accumulated technology it utilized was truly extraordinary.
If we include the second phase of the cleanroom that Micronova upgraded specifically for the new process, the expenses would be even more staggering. Such a large-scale undertaking is, in a sense, expected.
However, what truly surprised Lin Lixin was that the game performed even better than he had expected.
This can only prove one thing.
The new process graphics chips performed better than I had imagined.
3D hardware-accelerated graphics card.
This technology is the true foundation of Gamenova.
Looking at the original timeline, the emergence of 3D cards was not so smooth.
It's not a limitation of the technology, but rather a lack of open-minded thinking.
In that era, no one could see the true direction of 3D technology.
There are speculators like 3do who find a unique path with madam, and there are also lucky ones like vodoo who bet on the right direction.
As a modern person, Lin Lixin is born with his own notebook of mistakes, which allows him to choose the right direction from the very beginning.
Without the time and financial costs of trial and error, 3D graphics cards possessed a superior advantage from the very beginning. The original Quake, developed by id Software, was even calculated directly using the processor.
If graphics cards had existed in that era, Carmack would have certainly found a more suitable path for id Software.
As long as Gamenova can maintain its leading position in this technology, its foundation will be very solid.
Graphics technology is a fundamental element of modern video games.
If we continue down this path, it wouldn't be difficult to create a few more phenomenal titles like Mirror's Edge.
Unfortunately, this miracle cannot be replicated.
It used far too many tricks.
Once is fine, but after it happens many times, players will naturally discover the trickery involved.
Once this filter is broken, its myth of perfect optimization will also be stripped of its mystery.
Want to create a truly open-world game like Mirror's Edge using fully real-time rendering?
So he can only gamble everything on the new era.
"Well then, we..." "Let's call it a day, Steve."
Lin Lixin waved his hand, interrupting the interview.
"I have other plans later."
"Certainly."
The reception room.
"Knock knock knock"
"Please come in."
Lin Lixin responded.
The receptionist gently pushed open the door and ushered the visitor in.
"Nice to meet you. I think this should be considered our first meeting, right?"
Lin Lixin looked at the newcomer and greeted him with a smile. "I suppose so, but this isn't the first time I've met you. I was there when W3C gave his speech at Stanford University. You are a successful warrior, Mr. Lin."
The other person nodded slightly and sat down on the sofa opposite.
For Lin Lixin, this was the first time he had met the other person in person.
But the connection between the two had actually been formed long ago.
Lin Lixin stood up, walked to the glass display case, and looked at the top row of seats.
The cabinet light illuminated the inside, revealing a thick device resembling a keyboard.
This is a Commodore 64.
To be precise, it was the one Lin Lixin used when he and Sam were living in the rented apartment.
It was also the development machine from which the 6504 assembly code source code for "tetris" was written.
For Gamenova, this is an absolute relic.
It's something worthy of being displayed in a museum.
If someone were to summon a heroic spirit centuries from now, they could most likely use this thing to summon Sage Lin. "Before we made our own machines, I used this all along, Mr. Tramiel."
The visitor was Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International, and... the current CEO of Atari.
To be honest, Lin Lixin was somewhat surprised when he received the letter from the other party.
After all, Gamenova and Atari don't have a particularly good relationship in name only.
To the average person outside the industry, the history of gaming is that Gamenova appeared out of nowhere and ended Atari's dominance in North America.
This directly led to the mass exile of the developers from the old era and the avalanche-like collapse of the entire Atari company.
To put it nicely, it's called taking over; to put it bluntly, it's a successor that completely smothered Atari, its predecessor.
"Commodore64, it's outdated. Nobody uses 8-bit machines anymore."
Tramiel gave a noncommittal reply.
It must be admitted that the C64 was definitely one of the best PCs ever made.
In that era when manufacturers competed so fiercely that they fought tooth and nail.
With its exceptionally superior configuration, unique ecosystem, and shockingly low price, it carved out its own niche in the 1980s. Its main processor was a MOS6510 with a paltry 1MHz frequency, insufficient for anything even today.
Storage was done using outdated old-fashioned methods like magnetic tapes and floppy disks.
Even NAND flash memory can easily surpass it in capacity now.
But back then, the C64 had a unique advantage.
It features a VIC-II graphics chip, a SID audio chip, a full 64KB of memory, and the lowest price in the industry.
What does this mean?
This means that the C64 was the most suitable PC for playing games and also the most suitable for making games among the PCs that ordinary people could buy in the 1980s.
It is also the cheapest one.
To gamers, it's just a game console disguised as a PC.
Countless developers of the golden age started by teaching themselves BASIC and making games on C64.
Lin Lixin and Sam were among them.
For them, this machine was indeed of great value. "Mr. Tramiel, our PokéPal and NP handhelds are also 8-bit machines."
Upon hearing this, Jack Tramiel smirked.
That's so infuriating!
Atari's most disastrous business project in recent years has undoubtedly been the Atari Lynx handheld console.
A high-end machine that was highly anticipated ultimately failed completely due to various reasons, and even caused the core engineering team to leave 3do.
"Alright, let's not talk about that now. Mr. Tramiel, what brings you here today...?"
Atari needs chips.
Jack Tramiel didn't waste any words and went straight to the point.
The arcade board for Mirror's Edge is GG, the most powerful chip in the world.
For players, they might only be concerned with how amazing the arcade machine's performance is.
But for these hardware engineers, their focus was entirely on this strange substrate.
Unlike other general-purpose circuit boards, which can typically be used for many similar games, this circuit board was completely custom-made for Mirror's Edge.
Every circuit, even every transistor, was created specifically for this game.
This is an engineering marvel combining hardware and software.
This also allowed Tramiel to see just how far Micro-Nova Semiconductor had progressed in the field of chip manufacturing.
It's not in the strongest category.
In terms of overall quality, it cannot compare to the MIPS labs or Intel, which currently boasts the world's most advanced manufacturing processes.
However, in terms of specialization, or rather, in terms of meeting specific needs, Gamenova's chips are undoubtedly the strongest.
What Athena-II and SDRAM memory excel at is exactly what Tramiel needs now.
What is it used for?
"... game consoles, and a new Ataris computer."
Tramiel hesitated for a moment before revealing the whole story.
Both projects are in the same competitive field as Gamenova. "Oh..."
Lin Lixin nodded knowingly, finally piecing together the situation.
He knew what was going on.
Atari Jaguar!
The final dance of Atari, the former hegemon.
This was the last desperate attempt by the once dominant force that controlled almost the entire gaming industry.
They are trying to prove that they still have the ability to produce a mainstream game console.
Its fate... is self-evident.
The name Atari never appeared in the gaming industry in later generations.
Competitors are coming to me to buy chips?
This script looks so familiar!
The last time someone did something like this was President Hayao Nakayama. "Of course, Mr. Tramiel. Atari has always been a respected predecessor of Gamenova, making indelible contributions to the development of video games."
This statement was certainly not made by Hu Qin.
Although the Atari Shock nearly wiped out the gaming industry.
But this incident also proves that the market for video games was already very large at that time.
And this wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of Atari and other established manufacturers.
"However... as a friend, I still want to remind you of something."
Lin Lixin said slowly,
"It's highly unlikely to work. Atari's R&D capabilities and industrial accumulation are outdated. A 32-bit machine is not an 8-bit machine, Mr. Tramiel. These are completely different fields."
"I understand, but I don't want to give up like this."
I think so too.