Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 434: Moving Forward Together
"President, our plan has encountered an unexpected situation. Kalinski-san, the president of Xinghai Entertainment, suddenly went to Bandai yesterday."

Starsea Group wanted to acquire Bandai, and Sega did the same, perhaps even more so than Starsea Group.

The pressure from Sony's PlayStation console is immense, as it continues to erode Sega's market share in the US console market.

This led to a significant increase in Sega's advertising and other expenses, while sales were not as good as before, resulting in even more serious losses.

Therefore, Sega has been secretly observing Bandai's every move and has been sending people to Bandai's president, Makoto Yamashina, to paint a rosy picture of the future after the merger of the two companies.

"Kalinski-san?"

Hayao Nakayama frowned, reciting the name of his former subordinate word by word.

He knew how capable Kalinsky was and had a premonition that things were going to develop in the direction he least wanted to see.

However, as a representative of the rebellious spirit in the gaming industry, even Nintendo, which once dominated the world, could not make him bow down. Starsea Entertainment, which is far inferior to Sega in the gaming industry now, will naturally not make Hayao Nakayama bow down and admit defeat.

He pondered for a moment, then gave a direct and straightforward instruction to his deputy, Iruko Shoichiro.

"Go to Bandai now and try to keep President Yamashina Makoto calm down for now."

"Yes, President!"

It was unlikely that language alone could stabilize Bandai, so Hayao Nakayama immediately called the company's chairman.

He hopes the company can raise its offer to Bandai to fend off competition from Starsea Entertainment.

After listening to Hayao Nakayama's description, Isao Okawa realized the seriousness of the situation and spoke frankly on the phone.

"Okay, I'll go over immediately."

"Yes, Chairman."

Sega was keeping a close eye on Bandai, and Starsea Entertainment was also closely monitoring Sega, which might affect its acquisition of Bandai.

Soon, news appeared on Kalinsky's desk that Sega would be holding a high-level meeting during the day.

"Oh, Sega can't sit still anymore and wants to get involved too?"

Kalinsky glanced through the intelligence briefly, then casually tossed the file back onto the table.

Sega, a dilapidated ship already showing signs of life, simply couldn't compete with Starsea Entertainment, which had its own abundant funds and even greater financial backing.

However, Sega is not without its merits.

For example, Xinghai Entertainment is very envious of its game consoles and its sales channels that have been deeply involved in the game industry for many years.

However, this slight advantage is far less significant than the generous terms offered by Xinghai Entertainment.

Since both options involve losing control of the company, why not join a stronger, more powerful, and more willing world-class giant company that will delegate authority to the Yamashina family?

Masato Takeshita didn't take the matter of Bandai too seriously.

Even if the acquisition ultimately fails, Xinghai Group has the capability to cultivate another giant in the toy and related products industry in Japan at any time.

After all, the most important thing in the toy industry is various popular IPs. And Xinghai Entertainment happens to have no shortage of popular IPs.

It's worth noting that Starsea Entertainment's animation company has been going all out in Japan this year.

Not only did the number of original animations reach a new high, but also, leveraging the advantages of TBS television, it secured the animation production rights to many well-known manga from the three major Japanese manga publishers: Shueisha, Kodansha, and Shogakukan.

Most of these animations are expected to be lukewarm after they are released.

But that's okay, as long as a few popular anime series come out, all the costs can be recovered, and a big profit can be made.

This is also a characteristic of the animation industry, very similar to venture capital. Investing in a large number of projects, most of which end in failure, with only a few successful ones turning things around in the end.

Besides animation, Starsea Entertainment's popular games can also be used to create toys and other related merchandise.

For example, the Street Fighter project would be very suitable for launching toy figures.

It's fair to say that if Bandai rejects the acquisition offer from Xinghai Group, the company's future will be even more difficult.

Takeshita Masato quickly put the Bandai matter out of his mind, as it was not a big deal for the Seikai Group.

Besides, with Kalinsky around, he felt quite at ease.

Young people are now more concerned about the stock market and the overall economic situation in Asia.

"So, when do you expect to complete the withdrawal of funds from Asian stock markets?"

When Masato Takeshita arrived at Starsea Capital, he sat in the main seat with an air of authority and casually asked Takamasa Kamoto a question.

He wanted to leave as soon as possible, so as not to earn the last penny.

"Based on the current opportunities, we can successfully complete the clearance sale by the end of March next year."

"The end of March won't do, that's too slow."

The young man shook his head, worried that they wouldn't be able to evacuate in the final stage.

Who knows if Soros and other Wall Street pawns might also be thinking of taking a share of the young man's assets to launch an attack on Thailand ahead of time.

It's important to understand that Wall Street's financial offensive against Asia, besides aiming to profit from Southeast Asia and China, was primarily targeting Japan.

The bursting of the bubble economy did indeed deal a severe blow to Japan, but it was still not considered a major blow by Americans.

Japanese electronics brands such as Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic, and Japanese car brands such as Toyota, Honda, and Hitachi, continue to thrive in their respective markets.

Given this situation, the United States naturally wants to intensify its efforts.

The fact that banks with a large number of bad debts is yet another weakness of Japan in the eyes of Americans.

Yes, Soros and other Wall Street white gloves are attacking Southeast Asia, but their ultimate goal is still Japan.

Because Japan has hundreds of billions of dollars in industrial and capital investments in Southeast Asia, if the Southeast Asian economy shrinks, these investments will depreciate, ultimately affecting Japanese banks that lend to related companies and even directly intervene in the market.

Besides targeting Japan, Wall Street is also indirectly targeting Chinese banks.

Because Chinese banks actually have more bad debts.

However, China's financial scale is small, and banks' bad debts are relatively controllable.

The Chinese government can afford this bad debt and help banks get back on their feet.

But Japan is not so good at it, because its financial industry is too developed.

Even if the government wanted to save the world, it couldn't possibly do so, nor did it have enough money to save everyone. Therefore, the most important target of Wall Street's conspiracy was still Japan.

Masato Takeshita didn't know if his conspiracy theory was correct or not, but he was willing to earn less money for it.

"By the end of this year, the company must liquidate all its capital investments in Asia."

"As for investments in industries such as telecommunications, we will make a portion depending on the situation, but it cannot exceed half of the total investment."

Masato Takeshita is preparing to hedge his industrial holdings. However, he neither wants to relinquish control over Southeast Asian telecommunications and other industries, nor does he want to lose money.

Therefore, selling up to half of the shares would be the best option. This would not only allow for a small profit but also pave the way for re-entry into the market.

"Yes, Chairman!" Jia Benlong immediately realized the seriousness of the matter and decided to convey the chairman's new instructions to the traders after the chairman left.

However, thinking about the funds after the liquidation, he cautiously asked, "Chairman, should the funds be temporarily held by the company, or should we proceed as instructed last time?"

"Hmm~"

Without much hesitation, Masato Takeshita quickly looked up and said, "Let's proceed according to the plan from last time. First, convert it into US dollars and then invest in US tech stocks."

Although US tech stocks didn't go as wild in 1997 as they did in the following years, companies like Intel were already experiencing growth rates ranging from a minimum of 50% to several times their initial investment.

Keeping this money in your hands is far less worthwhile than investing it directly.

"Yes, President!"

After assigning the tasks, Masato Takeshita inquired about Xinghai Investment before reluctantly heading to Xinghai Technology.

“Scarliss, Masuoka, do you think it’s appropriate for the company to enter the memory chip industry now?”

When asked by his chairman, Fujio Masuoka, the head of Xinghai Chip and chief scientist of Xinghai Group, shook his head.

"President, I think it's best for the company not to enter this meat grinder battlefield."

"In recent years, major semiconductor companies have built too many wafer fabs, and all of them are selling memory chips at a loss."

Since Xinghai Group released the Xinghai operating system, computer sales worldwide have experienced a new surge.

Electronics companies such as Toshiba, NEC, and Samsung, which mainly focus on memory chips, naturally made huge profits in this process.

Everyone loves a profitable business, and other semiconductor companies are not to be outdone, investing heavily in building wafer fabs in an attempt to grab a share of the pie.

Companies like Toshiba, having made money, naturally didn't want their market share to be taken away, so they also invested heavily in building new wafer fabs.

As a result, wafer fabs around the world, much like China's photovoltaic industry later became, experienced severe overproduction.

What if you can't sell the memory chips you produce?
It's very simple, as long as I sell it cheaper than others, that's enough.

Soon, memory chips plummeted to rock-bottom prices again due to fierce competition among major semiconductor companies.

If Xinghai Group enters at this time, wouldn't it become a sucker?
"Yes, President, we don't need to get involved in this mess right now."

Sculley also disagreed, arguing that his company was thriving in the fields of flash memory chips, radio frequency chips, and microprocessors (CPUs), and there was no need to enter the fiercely competitive memory chip market.

"If we want to ensure the security of our company's semiconductor supply chain, we cannot miss out on the memory chip market."

Masato Takeshita aims to follow Samsung's complete semiconductor supply chain strategy, and his ambitions even surpass Samsung's. His semiconductor strategy extends from upstream materials and equipment all the way to the downstream sales market. Naturally, he cannot afford to miss any crucial link in the semiconductor industry.

However, considering that the memory chip market is currently experiencing its most intense competition, the young man did not act entirely unilaterally.

He quickly added, "In this way, we will increase our investment in the research and development of memory chips, but only produce a small quantity for testing and experimentation. Once the giants have finished their battles, we will look for a suitable opportunity to enter the market."

Although experiments also cost money, they are much less expensive than production.

In this way, Xinghai Group will be able to take over when the Japanese semiconductor giants are losing out in the memory field.

He didn't want the Xinghai Group to be dominated by the original forces when it took over the memory business of the Japanese semiconductor company in the future.

"Yes, understand."

Scully and Masuoka Fujio knew that this was their chairman's ultimatum, and there was no point in opposing it, so they might as well go with the flow.

Besides, neither of them wanted to object.

Scully believed that the memory chip market was vast. If the company could enter the market while it was profitable, Xinghai Technology, under his leadership, could become even stronger.

Fujio Masuoka's reasoning was related to company security.

Although he didn't have the same strong sense of crisis as Masato Takeshita, he felt that it would be safer for the company to pursue a full-chain strategy.

Even if unexpected situations arise, the company will not be in dire straits.

“OK, then it’s settled. Starting next year, we will increase our investment in memory chips by 100 billion yen annually.”

"Yes, President!"

The two bowed in unison in response.

Besides memory chips, Masato Takeshita also wanted to learn about the development of his company's graphics chips, or graphics card chips.

This aspect falls under the purview of Fujio Masuoka.

"Our company's graphics card chips have caught up with the level of advanced American companies and are on par with Nvidia."

Graphics card chips are still a relatively new category of chips, so catching up isn't difficult. Starsea Chips, with an investment of just over 100 billion yen, has already closely followed the world's advanced levels.

Unfortunately, the world's main electronic devices using graphics card chips, such as game consoles, have been dominated by graphics card companies like Nvidia, which were established earlier.

Xinghai Chips possesses advanced technology, but can only be sold to a limited number of computer brands.

"I see. Have you considered selling some low-end graphics card chips to pirated game console manufacturers in China and other countries?"

"Selling low-end chips?"

"Yes."

Masato Takeshita gave an affirmative answer.

"Our products lack brand recognition, so it's best to first establish a foothold in the low-end market before partnering with companies like Nintendo and Sega."

Sony and Starsea compete in many areas, and given a choice, Sony Entertainment would not use Starsea Group's chips.

Masato Takeshita simply didn't say anything, only targeting Nintendo and Sega.

Both of these companies have good relationships with Xinghai Group.

"Another thing is to focus on developing the top-of-the-line graphics card chips, and then perform the skill-showing operations on the computer."

The best way to demonstrate a company's powerful graphics cards is to produce sufficiently powerful graphics cards for computers. Companies like Nvidia have secured a large number of orders using this method.

Of course, maintaining a good relationship with business leaders is also particularly important.

The reason Sega game consoles used graphics card chips manufactured by Japanese companies instead of more advanced American graphics card chips was due to personal connections among high-ranking executives.

"Yes, please rest assured, Chairman. The company will definitely be able to produce a product next year that outperforms all other graphics cards on the market."

It's just about spending money to create a high-end image; Masuoka Fujio is very familiar with this kind of work.

Because Xinghai Chips has always done this with its flash memory chips. They frequently release ultra-high capacity memory cards, but as for the manufacturing cost, well, let's just say it's ridiculous.

Except for a very few suckers or companies that really need massive storage, most people don't need to buy it.

It's better to buy a cheaper one first, and then buy a larger capacity one a few years later when you need to downgrade.

Of course, buying early isn't a bad idea. After all, memory cards, like other electronic products, are something you can enjoy early and get a discount if you buy late.

(End of this chapter)