" Cold War theme..."
Inside the office.
After listening to Lin Lixin's explanation, the group understood the situation.
Why choose this time to create a work on the Cold War?
There's really nothing to be confused about.
Because everyone is doing it.
As Russia's decline becomes increasingly apparent, this kind of subject matter is becoming more and more rampant in the consumer market.
Everyone could guess and see what would happen next.
Choosing this moment to ride the wave of popularity is indeed a good choice.
"Then let's replace the rebels and the Empire in ' The Dawn of the Kyber Crystal ' with the two sides of the Cold War?"
Its game framework is actually quite mature.
Simply modifying the unit's design will allow it to be directly adapted to this new theme. "Of course, but it's not just that; this time we're working on more countries, not just two options."
Lin Lixin nodded.
The last time Command & Conquer was almost five years ago.
The technological progress in the past few years has been nothing short of leaps and bounds, incomparable to what it was before.
Even if it's the same thing, if you recreate it with current technology, you'll never get the same result.
More importantly...
Today, Gamenova has mastered image compression technology and audio compression technology.
Although the CDs were still the same single-speed CD drive and standard 700MB discs used on the NX.
However, in terms of space utilization, they are definitely not the same thing.
With the same capacity, they can cram in far more content this time than before.
This means that some things that were impossible during the time of " Dawn of the Kyber Crystal " have now become a possible reality.
"CDs... that's a hassle too." Thinking of this, Lin Lixin silently made a mental note about upgrading the CD player.
The 32-bit next-generation console is about to be officially approved in the next few days.
Besides upgrading the semiconductor hardware, the optical disc drive is another crucial component that must be upgraded.
Today, the market penetration rate of CDs has been steadily increasing thanks to the efforts of Gamenova, Sony, Philips, and of course, 3do.
While it hasn't reached the point where everyone has a copy, its adoption rate is already quite considerable.
But CD drives...
Iteration is very fast.
Currently, the mainstream optical disc drives on the market are still the single-speed standard disc drives, namely the Sony and Philips standards.
The maximum read speed is only around 150kb/s+.
This number is definitely not fast.
To ensure smooth gameplay, Gamenova often Kung-Fu Master on optimizing file formats and caching technologies.
These problems can be mitigated by pre-caching content into memory or optimizing file layout. However, such optimization has its limits.
When software reaches its limits, the only way to make further breakthroughs is to look to hardware.
The capacity of a CD is primarily limited by physical conditions.
Laser wavelength, laser focusing capability, disc track spacing, pit depth, size...
To be honest, it's not that difficult to break through these barriers.
But it has a really disgusting problem.
The CD player must be replaced!
Different sizes of optical discs have drastically different requirements for the optical disc drive head.
Want to use a denser disk?
Okay, let's get a new CD player.
Want faster read speeds?
Okay, let's get a new CD drive. Only by making the tracks on the CD denser can it truly store more data.
Otherwise, even if Lin Lixin's programming skills were learned from aliens or Zentradi, it wouldn't make a difference.
Gamenova has tried to promote new optical disc drives before.
In fact, during the Myst era, Lin Lixin had already worked on a 2xCD-ROM, which is a 2x speed CD player.
With the new optical drive, players can enjoy much faster loading speeds than before, while maintaining full backward compatibility.
But that's the limit.
Not everyone is willing to spend more money just to speed up game loading.
Patience is the one thing that gamers in this era have no shortage of.
If we really want to promote a new era and new standards...
Alternatively, users can wait for data to grow larger and larger, eventually becoming impatient and prompting them to upgrade.
Or... take the initiative in the next generation.
The fifth generation of consoles heavily promoted the new optical disc drive. In fact, that's exactly what PlayStation did.
The original optical drive that came with the PS1 was Sony's proud 2x CD-ROM drive.
While maintaining the standard specifications of 12cm disc diameter and 780nm laser, the reading speed has been nearly doubled.
Many people are paying attention to the PS1's superior graphics performance.
But they overlooked this inconspicuous, completely unnoticed CD player.
In fact, this is Sony's true strength.
Sony has modified the ISO9660/CD-ROM XA standard to create its own proprietary disc format.
Mode 2 form 1 and Mode 2 form 2.
Simply put, the former stores critical data that requires higher reliability, while the latter is more efficient but has weaker error correction capabilities.
The former stores game logic code and save files, while the latter stores error-tolerant data such as video and audio.
With just this one move, Sony managed to squeeze out at least tens of megabytes of extra capacity without modifying the optical drive's hardware specifications at all.
Lin Lixin does not intend to take this path, even though it is indeed quite feasible.
But Sony has its Sony way of doing things, and Gamenova also has its own way of doing things.
To truly challenge Sony, China must first achieve independence in the optical disc drive field.
Even if it's only partial technological self-sufficiency.
This is also why Lin Lixin has been in no hurry to launch the fifth generation.
NB and NX did indeed reap considerable benefits by seizing the initiative at the beginning.
The NB entered the Americas market earlier than the Famicom, consolidating its existing customer base from the Atari era and securing its dominance.
NX, leveraging its first-mover advantage in the 16-bit next-generation market, was able to establish itself in the market several years ahead of schedule and has also achieved remarkable results.
"""First""release"d""e""q""i""x""s".""o""r""g"
But this doesn't come without a price.
As time went on, NX's disadvantages became increasingly apparent.
It was developed too early, so early that many technologies were not yet mature. It could only be strengthened later by continuously adding external chips to the bus.
If the graphics performance can't keep up, then add an external graphics card.
If we can't calculate large numbers, then we'll build a large number auxiliary chip.
Floating-point numbers are difficult to calculate, so let's use the graphics card to assist...
It is filled with the compromises of the times.
But things are different now.
Gamenova now has ample resources.
This time, they will definitely forge a machine that can truly rule an entire era.
Facing Sony and the PlayStation 1, a home console with sales exceeding 100 million units, Lin Lixin had no choice but to take the situation seriously.
But before that, I still need to make sure I finish my last shift this year.
This project might be Gamenova's last first-party game on the NX platform. "In short, the design is largely similar to that of ' Kyber crystal,' dividing the game into two factions, but within each faction, we can further subdivide it into more countries for players to choose from."
This is a very typical and cool design in the Red Alert series.
Two completely different styles of military technology, two completely different combat experiences.
Even within the same faction, there can be various specialized units.
Allied forces include heavy artillery, Black Hawk helicopters, snipers, and incompetent killers.
Russian-made magnetic tanks, Magnetic Pump, Fallout Engineers...
Although there is almost no difference in buildings and most common units within the same faction.
But thanks to these unique units, the entire game can be incredibly varied, allowing for all sorts of creative gameplay.
This can be considered a model of creating as much content as possible while conserving resources.
"Theoretically speaking, we still only need the capacity for two factions. The space saved through compression technology is enough for us to fit content from different factions."
Lin Lixin grinned and quickly calculated the storage capacity in his mind.
The new compression technology can save significantly more space than just a little. As for what to do with that extra space?
He had already planned it all out.
"Get the engine up and running first. Is the tech stack all set up? Mike assured me you're all ready."
"Sir, yes sir!"
The Blizzard trio at the head and the Westwood brothers readily agreed.
The saying goes, "An army is raised for a thousand days to be used for one." Now that the army has been raised well, it's time to take it out and show it its true capabilities.
"Okay, I'll go to Hollywood first."
"Oh, is it about filming a new overlay video?"
Mike was delighted.
With Lin Lixin making arrangements in the middle, the lineup from Hollywood is definitely guaranteed.
The explosive marketing success of Command & Conquer: Dawn of the Kyber Crystal was largely due to its collaboration with Star Wars.
Those short cutscenes inserted into the game, and the adjutant's voice that sent shivers down your spine, have practically become iconic elements of the game. "No, no, no, this time I'm going to cram a complete movie into the game—I mean, a complete animated story!"
Red Alert was definitely not the first game to use FMV, nor was it the first game to have a complete story video.
Before its birth, the entire gaming industry had already experienced a wave of "interactive movies".
The name of the person who started this trend is 3do.
In theory, 3D should have been a major driving force behind the FMV live-action video trend.
However, in this timeline, due to the sudden emergence of Gamenova, EA did not fare very well in any aspect.
3DO, which could have gained some popularity thanks to the live-action movie trend, was kicked half to death like a roadside stall.
Even now, Panasonic and several other franchise partners are still trying to control 3do's pricing in an attempt to salvage the project.
But it remained stagnant.
Developers are worried about its small market share; unless 3do offers substantial subsidies, no one is willing to develop games on it.
After all, you'd need to learn Madam + Cilo development separately. With that Kung-Fu Master, why not learn NovaScript and work with Activision to make small games?
In short, for various reasons, the path of live-action video production was unexpectedly and inadvertently cut off by Lin Lixin.
That won't do.
Every game has its purpose.
Although Lin Lixin doesn't plan to make interactive films, he could certainly cram a sufficient amount of video content into " Red Alert " to try and revive this genre.
From this perspective, Sage Lin is actually a compassionate and great gamer.
As for how live-action video games collapsed, well, that's another story.