The world is in trouble

Chapter 308: All-Out Bloom! Samsung's Tragedy!
In the two largest film markets, China and the United States, the promotion of "2012" began several months ago.

However, the promotional costs are highest in the month leading up to the release.

Internal screenings are meant to give theaters and distributors confidence. If they think the film is of high quality, they're willing to allocate more screen time and invest more in promotion.

After the film ended, executives from major global theater chains expressed their opinions.

"Although this summer's movie season already features blockbusters like Transformers 2 and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, we believe the market has the capacity to accommodate three more blockbusters."

"Moreover, in every aspect, '2012' is in no way inferior to these two masterpieces."

"Although the release schedule may clash with 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,' the two films are completely different and even complementary."

Sony Classics, the global distributor, went even further, increasing its distribution and promotion costs from the original $100 million to around $130 million, which is far greater than the promotion costs for this film in history.

Based on this calculation, in terms of box office revenue alone, it would require approximately $600 million in global box office revenue to break even.

Therefore, in terms of pure return on investment, these blockbuster films are not particularly high. However, they serve as powerful benchmarks for the film industry; only by producing mega-productions and achieving huge global box office success can one solidify their position.

With such mega-productions being released one after another and achieving continuous box office success, Sony Columbia will not only be able to challenge Hollywood's top giant, but its position will also become increasingly secure.

This won't work like last year; only one film in the top ten was a Sony Columbia production.

Moreover, the success of a film of this caliber will directly boost the stock price. At that point, the publicity costs will be negligible, and the film could potentially recoup many times over.

After the preview ended.

The global promotion of "2012" was launched with great fanfare.

Classic scenes from "2012" were shown on major television stations around the world.

The Yellowstone volcano erupted.

The destruction of Los Angeles.

Each one is a super grand scene.

Repeat, repeat, and repeat.

It's not just on television, but also on internet video platforms, and even on screens in famous buildings around the world, it's being repeated constantly.

The visual impact and advertising effect of this kind of imagery are even stronger than those of "Kung Fu Panda".

Because the visual impact is so obvious and so direct.

With such overwhelming publicity, the popularity of the movie "2012" continued to rise, and the expectations of audiences around the world were constantly being raised.

We're just waiting for the day it will be released globally.

Because there haven't been any truly world-destroying blockbusters like this for several years now.

I'm really hungry for this type of movie.

The release of "2012" satisfied this demand to the extreme, to the point that it was difficult for new large-scale disaster films to appear for several years.

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Lin Xiao visited Er Gou's studio once again.

It's always the same; once a piece is completely finished, we invite him to play through it once.

Then, accept his final evaluation.

Should it be released directly, or should it be reworked and redone?

This time, the project is Fallout: New Vegas, but this time the main production team is Obsidian Entertainment, the former owner of the Fallout IP.

The copyright still belongs to ErGou Studio; this is a commissioned development. ErGou Studio did send people to participate, but their main focus was on the Last of Us project.

Historically, Fallout: New Vegas has received high praise, and many Fallout fans even consider it superior to Fallout 3.

However, in Lin Xiao's opinion, or rather in the opinion of the general public of gamers worldwide, Fallout: New Vegas is indeed an excellent game, but it is not as good as Fallout 3, and even in Lin Xiao's personal opinion, it is not as good as Fallout 4.

Indeed, it has a very strong smell of radiation.

However, compared to Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, it's a bit niche and too individualistic.

However, Lin Xiao did not interfere excessively with the development direction of Obsidian.

The goal is to maintain the original attributes and flavor of this work, giving players the feeling that it is very different from Fallout 3.

Only in this way can players feel that the money was well spent.

It's better to be unique than mediocre.

Historically, Fallout: New Vegas has been quite successful in terms of sales, with total sales exceeding ten million copies over its entire lifecycle.

In a short period of time, its sales quickly exceeded five million copies, making it an absolute best-selling game.

In this world, Lin Xiao still brought some changes to the game.

First, the overall story scope needs to be elevated, making the New California Republic (NCR) and Caesar's Legion seem more like two large, high-level factions, rather than two gangs fighting each other. Therefore, the prestige of these two factions needs to be further enhanced.

Therefore, a certain amount of spectacular construction is needed. Both the NCR and Caesar's Legion need some grand and impressive embellishment.

Secondly, Caesar's Legion needs some special, but powerful, weapons tailored specifically for them, instead of just resorting to simple melee combat like in the original game. The mutants and the Atomic Cult in Fallout 4 did a good job in this regard. Therefore, it's important to increase the sense of ritual and mystery.

Third: Increase the scale of events!

The third point is particularly important. The original Fallout games simply didn't have enough large-scale scenes. Even though Fallout 4 improved in this aspect, it still wasn't convincing. This isn't Red Dead Redemption or GTA; those games are just gang brawls that don't need large-scale visuals. But your game is a major battle between two factions, so the scale must be massive.

Call of Duty does this very well, especially in Call of Duty 5, the massive charge and decisive battle of the Battle of Stalingrad, that scene was truly exhilarating.

Another game, Serious Sam, also particularly likes to create such large-scale scenes of thousands of troops.

In reality, such massive armies are often just background scenery, used to create atmosphere. While they may put some strain on the graphics card and system configuration, they are definitely not impossible to achieve.

Under Lin Xiao's leadership, the game underwent these three changes.

Of course, there is also a major change, which is still the radicalization of the visuals.

Because of Lin Xiao's aggressive strategy, coupled with much higher development costs than in previous years, and a deep collaboration with Epic, Fallout 3 was already the pinnacle of game graphics at the time.

Now, two years later, Fallout: New Vegas has seen further improvements in graphics, and quite noticeably so.

Therefore, whether it's due to his personal charisma, stronger marketing capabilities, or the objectively significant improvement in the game's quality, it should achieve even greater success than in the past.

Of course, the game that truly pursues a huge leap in graphics quality and even strives to amaze the gaming world is Ergou Studio's next work, The Last of Us.

This project has been in production for two years, but it will probably take another year or so.

This game was developed by Ergou Studio, with nearly 700 people working across its Chinese and American branches.

The total development cost has exceeded one hundred million US dollars, which is two or three times that of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

Lin Xiao also increased his investment in another major game under development, The Witcher 2, with development costs increasing two or three times.

In fact, under Lin Xiao's influence, CDPR also established a studio in China and invested a lot of manpower in the development of The Witcher 2.

The goal is simple: to allow The Witcher 2 to enjoy the success and glory of The Witcher 3 ahead of time.

The plot of The Witcher 1 is more fantastical and suspenseful. However, its scale and scope are not large enough.

By the time of The Witcher 2, the world war had already begun, with the intricate power struggles and wars of annihilation involving multiple nations.

The scenes are grand, and the plot is complex and dramatic.

With sufficient financial and human resources, it could absolutely become a world-class mega-production.

So now the entire Ergou system is truly a galactic battleship in the gaming world.

They have the most people and the most money.

As before, Lin Xiao spent a full ten or twenty hours on the game.

It's not just a fleeting glimpse, but a genuine experience from beginning to end.

Even though he is already so busy and truly has countless affairs to attend to, he still managed to carve out this precious time.

This indicates that it has always been a gaming enthusiast and remains an angel investor in the global gaming industry.

A super boss who is extremely wealthy, sophisticated, and highly sensitive.

Meanwhile, the people from Er Gou Studio and Obsidian Studio stood behind him, awaiting his final verdict.

"Very good, thank you for your hard work!" Lin Xiao said.

Immediately, the entire stadium erupted in cheers!
Obsidian Entertainment spent two whole years successfully developing its own Fallout IP.

Now, the finished product has also received full approval from the big boss.

After Lin Xiao nodded, the promotional campaign for Fallout: New Vegas was launched in full swing.

The game was also sent directly to major media outlets for review, or rather, for public relations purposes.

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In the film and gaming industries, Er Gou continues to make great strides.

However, the development and promotion of WeChat remains awkward.

WeChat's global performance has been quite encouraging, with both the number of users and activity levels increasing.

However, in the country, the growth of WeChat users remains very slow.

However, behind this slowdown, there are actually encouraging changes.

That is, smartphone users are becoming increasingly reliant on it and more and more sticky with it.

After using it for more than half a year, they have clearly felt the difference between WeChat and QQ.

Of course, there aren't many smartphone users yet, and even if we combine the number of quantum phones in China with Apple phones, it's unlikely to exceed ten million.

Logically speaking, it would be difficult for a user base of this size to form a social ecosystem.

However, the users who currently purchase expensive smartphones are indeed mostly high-income, highly educated individuals.

These people are basically in circles, so even with tens of millions of users, they have already established a solid social foundation.

These users are using QQ less and less frequently these days, spending most of their time chatting on WeChat.

And inexplicably, it even exuded a sense of superiority.

Even on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), similar sentences that incite hatred have appeared.

"If you don't use WeChat, then I'm very sorry, I can't chat with you on QQ because we're not in the same world."

Of course, similar remarks have appeared before, such as during the MSN big promotion.

However, MSN is still too unfriendly to domestic users, and its work-related attributes far outweigh its social attributes.

Next, both WeChat and Wechat are preparing a major update, which will add a significant new feature.

That is online translation.

Historically, WeChat launched this feature very late, not because the technology was insufficient, but because it was unnecessary.

Because it is basically focused entirely on the domestic market and has no international presence.

WeChat and Wechat were designed with an international strategy from the beginning, being promoted both in China and abroad.

Although these two software programs are actually quite different, one is tailor-made for domestic users and the other is tailor-made for overseas users.

However, data is shared, so domestic WeChat users can directly add overseas WeChat users as friends.

Language barriers are a persistent pain point. To address this issue, Lightning Group acquired a company specializing in language translation two years ago.

Then, coinciding with this major update, this feature was launched. Of course, it currently only supports a few major global languages, and there is a high possibility that the translation may not be accurate enough.

Even... it's highly unlikely that there will be many cross-border users chatting and exchanging information at present.

Therefore, doing this is not cost-effective, and the form outweighs the content.

But this is a typical example of information infrastructure, and its power will be fully realized in a few years.

Just like the current Itchy Live Room, it's completely losing money to gain popularity, and there's no income even from suggestive tips anymore.

But all of this is for the arrival of the live streaming boom a few years later.

Moreover, quantum technology has already begun developing a television version of the X operating system.

Mr. Chen Tianqiao's TV box project has suffered a huge defeat, and Quantum Technology is taking its place.

Smart TVs are still a thing of the past.

Under Lin Xiao's influence, the entire Facebook group, the Lightning group, and the Quantum group are not only doing what they are doing now, but also planning for what will happen a few years from now.

Continuous and sustained investment is not about waiting for a trend, but about creating one.

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Of course, what's most important to Lin Xiao right now is the battle over the operating system.

If we cannot break through the encirclement of Google and other global giants, then everything we have now is just a mirage.

Meanwhile, Samsung's first-generation Android flagship, the i7500, continued its rapid growth.

Order volume continues to break new records.

The price was so high that Samsung even regretted not having started manufacturing smartphones earlier.
Major global review media outlets are still giving Samsung's Galaxy GT-I7500 overwhelmingly positive reviews.

This fully proves the saying that the world of martial arts is not just about fighting and killing, but about human relationships and social interactions.

These review media outlets are well aware of the shortcomings of this phone, and even its inadequacies compared to quantum phones.

However, if you take someone's money, you have to do things for them.

In addition, we should try to remain objective. So how do we do that?

That is, to lavish praise on objective strengths, while either omitting or glossing over objective weaknesses.

"The Android 2.0 system on Samsung's flagship phone is a complete transformation compared to Android 1.0, and the progress is amazing. Although the entire UI design adopts a completely different approach from the X OS, using a three-dimensional and skeuomorphic style, it looks a bit like iOS, but there is no doubt that it has made up for its previous shortcomings and become a world-class operating system."

"The screen on this flagship phone has the same resolution as the quantum phone, which is currently the highest resolution screen on mainstream mobile phones in the world. Moreover, due to the characteristics of AMOLED screens, its colors are more accurate, more vivid, and more transparent. Especially when displaying black, it is true black, unlike TFTLCD screens, which are actually a gray. In terms of color display and brightness, it has almost completely overtaken the quantum phone."

However, the most crucial aspect—clarity—is completely ignored. Although both are 480P, due to the characteristics of AMOLED screens, the actual clarity is only about 70% of that of the quantum phone.

"In terms of photography performance, this Samsung flagship phone also boasts an 800-megapixel camera, with such high resolution that it is in no way inferior to quantum phones. Moreover, due to the screen, every photo is more striking and has higher contrast."

However, they still didn't mention anything about the camera performance of the two phones.

Samsung and Google also used the month-long gap between the launch event and the official release to work on final optimizations.

It has some effect, but it's not very noticeable.

That's why it was done in a hurry.

The quantum phone took a full three and a half years to develop, while Samsung's phone underwent a major overhaul midway through development, completely redesigning and rebuilding it from scratch, with the entire R&D cycle taking less than ten months.

Even Google's new operating system was only officially launched two and a half months ago.

But there was no other way; they had to seize the market.

Faced with this massive number of pre-orders, Google and Samsung were both delighted and apprehensive.

Following this trend, Samsung's sales of just one phone could surpass those of quantum phones. Next, there are new products from giants like Lenovo, LG, and Motorola, and next year will see the highly anticipated Nexus One, Google's own flagship phone, launched.

According to authoritative predictions, by the end of this year, shipments of Android-powered smartphones will exceed 2500 million, far surpassing quantum phones.

And next year, it will be several times more advanced than quantum phones.

This is the advantage of team battles, and so far, the X operating system only has one model: the quantum phone.

Two fists can't beat four hands, let alone multiple giants ganging up on a quantum phone.

Sony, the only major ally in quantum technology, is currently embroiled in a civil war with Ericsson over Sony Ericsson, and the development of a phone with the X operating system is still a long way off.

Google believes that this numerical advantage will render quantum technology's X operating system obsolete in just two to three years.

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End of June!

The official release date for the Samsung Galaxy GT-I7500 has finally arrived.

Millions of pre-order customers flocked to Samsung flagship stores to pick up their phones.

For the vast majority of users, their first reaction upon receiving the product was one of great satisfaction.

Because most of these people were users from the era of Samsung feature phones and were loyal Samsung consumers, the I7500 was far superior to previous feature phones, leading in every aspect.

Another group consists of former Google G1 users, who are also very satisfied.

This phone is a complete game-changer for the G1.

Only a small percentage of buyers are users of quantum phones.

This group of people are either tech professionals or passionate about pursuing the latest technological products.

Either they have high expectations for brand value—Quantum Phone is a relatively new brand, while Samsung is a globally renowned brand that has been around for several years—or, if the product capabilities are comparable, they would prefer to use a globally recognized brand.

After receiving the phone, this group of people will immediately take out the quantum phone for comparison.

The result... will be very disappointing.

Although Samsung is much more powerful, its strict cost control results in a slight deficiency in terms of appearance and workmanship.

This is actually much better than Samsung in the past. Although Samsung's flagship phones were expensive in the early years, they were always criticized for having a cheap feel. Samsung was known as "big plastic" for many years.

However, starting from a certain year, Samsung became more aggressive in its exterior and industrial design, and its build quality improved significantly. But after 2020, while its build quality remained excellent, its industrial design completely stagnated; the design of its flagship phones hardly changed for four whole years, which is truly astounding.

The difference in industrial design and high-cost workmanship is not apparent in videos and pictures, but becomes quite obvious when you hold them in your hands.

While the differences in appearance and workmanship may not be significant, the contrast becomes striking the moment the screen is turned on.

Damn, didn't Samsung brag that its screen was also 720*480P? Didn't you say it was clearer, more vibrant, and completely crushed quantum phones?
result……

The difference in clarity is so significant?
The graininess in your image is too obvious.

Users' first perception is always clarity. Only when the clarity reaches a certain threshold will they begin to perceive transparency, color, and so on.

Moreover, Sharp's LCD screen is among the best in the world. Even if Samsung's AMOLED screen surpasses Sharp in terms of clarity, color vibrancy, and brightness, this advantage is not currently significant.

At the very least, the user's perception is unclear.

They only see that your resolution is far too low.

Therefore, it made perfect sense that flagship smartphones in the early years all used TFT LCD, and it also made sense that Sharp was unwilling to transform.

Immediately afterwards, these specialized technologists conducted extreme tests on the two phones.

It was immediately discovered that this Samsung phone gradually started to lag, and it became increasingly laggy.

Because the SOC was inadequate, Qualcomm's QSD8250 processor used a 65-nanometer process, and in the initial design, there was no such high target.

It was initially positioned as a 320P screen, but Google and Samsung forced it to be 480P in order to suppress quantum phones.

Moreover, Android 2.0 underwent a major upgrade in order to catch up with the X operating system.

To differentiate it from the X operating system, a lot of skeuomorphic flower designs were used, including 3D effects and shadows, which require more resources.

Unlike the X operating system, which is flat and monochromatic.

In addition, in order to catch up with the X operating system, Google abandoned its original superior technology and previous simplification, and added a lot of features to the operation.

Ironically, this was something other mobile phone manufacturers did in the early days.

After getting the stock Android system, they frantically add features, making it flashy and elaborate, so that they can boast about it.

Several years later, people finally started to simplify.

While this addition makes the entire operating system look advanced, it also makes it more bloated.

The current performance of the SOC is not up to par, which leads to even greater lag.

Of course, ordinary users don't use their devices that intensively, so they can tolerate this kind of lag.

They'll just think that quantum phones seem to be a bit smoother.

But there's one thing they can't tolerate.

Where is my Facebook? My Instagram? My OnlyFans? My Twitter? My YouTube?
Why aren't these apps available?

Who wants The Faces? Who wants YouShow?
I'm already used to these apps on the quantum phone.

When I switched to a Samsung phone, none of these apps worked.

I can't even play a game.

Although Android has also developed some mobile games, Lin Xiao started developing them several years in advance, and he has almost covered all the classic mobile games in history.

However... even so, most users remained unmoved, still filled with surprise and satisfaction.

Because this is their first smartphone.

Without comparison, there is no harm!

This is why Google and Samsung are so emboldened to launch immature products ahead of schedule.

However, you yourselves do not make comparisons.

Public opinion will not let you off the hook.

A large number of reviewers will not let you off the hook.

Because online video is already very developed now, especially YouTube, which is controlled by Lin Xiao.

Then, a flood of review videos and comparison videos appeared.

"Google and Samsung, you've served up a pile of shit for users around the world!"

"We had high expectations for this Samsung flagship phone, but a year later, you are still far behind."

"At the press conference, it claimed to be superior in every way, completely overwhelming us. But once we actually got our hands on it, it was inferior in every aspect!"

"Although the quantum phone is a product from a year ago, it still surpasses the Samsung I7500 in every aspect."

"Please note that this is a comprehensive backwardness, a backwardness that is visible to the naked eye! No professional is needed; any ordinary person can pick up two phones and feel the huge difference the moment they turn on the screen."

"The appearance of Samsung's I7500 proves only one thing: the excellence of quantum phones!"

"To all customers who have pre-ordered the Samsung I7500, please go to your nearest store, pick up the Quantum phone and compare it with the other phones, then cancel your pre-order. Even the most foolish person would make this choice."

Within just a few days, such videos appeared everywhere.

Samsung's flagship phone had only enjoyed its glory for less than two months before it was attacked by a barrage of negative reviews.

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Note: I arrived two hours early today. Could you please give me your guaranteed monthly pass, my benefactor? Thank you so much!

(End of this chapter)