Reborn in America: Starting as a California Resident

On June 19th, Henry once again stepped through the doors of the North American headquarters of the science fiction arcade.

In the conference room, he sat in the chief seat and spread out the meticulously prepared design blueprints, which Robert distributed to the ten hardware engineers in the room.

"Over the past few weeks, everyone has been busy with the marketing of Hong Kong game consoles;

The agency rights for the entire United States have now been basically finalized, and the most intense phase has passed.

Looking ahead, the North American division will continue to leverage its R&D strengths and abundant human resources to create even more innovative products.

Henry's gaze swept across the faces of each engineer as he continued, "Our new task is to launch a self-developed product before Christmas this year—the Lighthouse Handheld Game Console."

"This game console is a portable entertainment device that allows users to enjoy gaming anytime, anywhere."

Unlike arcade machines that require a fixed location, the 'Lighthouse' is small and lightweight, powered by a built-in or replaceable battery, allowing players to enjoy the game on buses, trains, or any spare moment.

Its core components include a central processing unit (CPU), a monochrome liquid crystal display (LCD), memory (RAM), and read-only memory (ROM).

The design measures approximately 15 cm x 8 cm, with a screen size of 5 x 3 cm and a thickness of about 2 cm, balancing portability and ergonomics.

The outer shell is made of ABS plastic, and the overall weight is kept to within 200 grams.

In terms of controls, it features four directional keys and two main control buttons (A and B). The buttons need to have a crisp feel and clear feedback to ensure precise game operation...

"Boss, your idea is truly amazing!"

If this idea could be turned into reality, it would undoubtedly be an extremely attractive product.

After hearing Henry's idea, Robert was filled with admiration for his young colleague's creativity, but at the same time, he couldn't help but feel a little worried about the many difficulties that lay ahead.

As a seasoned expert in the gaming industry, he has a keen insight into every detail.

"From a hardware perspective alone, we have to use the most advanced processors on the market to ensure the basic performance of the game console."

If we decide to use a monochrome LCD screen again, then we will need to solve a series of display problems, such as how to improve brightness and contrast, and ensure a smooth refresh rate.

Therefore, we need to invest a lot of time and effort in finding manufacturers willing to collaborate with us on the development of customized display modules.

"Of course, there must be many difficulties here;

I never believed that realizing such a product would be a smooth process.

But I believe that everyone here is an elite in the industry, and there is nothing we cannot solve.

Our goal has always been to create the perfect product. If it were easy, what would be the point of us?

Henry stood up, walked to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and drew several key points on the board.

"Everyone is welcome to raise their concerns or suggestions now, and we can discuss solutions together."

In the conference room, the engineers began to whisper among themselves.

Nimitz, the newly recruited chief engineer for the sci-fi arcade machine, said: "Boss, integrating all these components into a device that weighs no more than 200 grams and is of moderate size requires meticulous attention to detail."

Not only is it necessary to optimize the hardware design to reduce energy consumption, but it is also necessary to write a simple and easy-to-use operating system to manage functions such as game loading and saving.

Even if ROM chips are used to pre-store games, the capacity is still limited;

At that point, our Pac-Man game will likely struggle to run perfectly on handheld consoles.

"storage?"

"That is indeed a significant problem."

Henry thought for a moment and said, "Do you think it's possible to increase the number of games using external ROM cartridges?"

The emergence of handheld game console ROM cartridge technology was in November 1979, when Milton Bradley in the United States released the world's first handheld game console using ROM cartridge technology, the Microvision.

Microvision's processors are located in the game card, using either an Intel 8021 or a Texas Instruments TMS1100 processor, and are equipped with 16KB of RAM and 2KB of ROM.

"Boss, what is ROM cartridge technology?"

Seeing the puzzled looks on the faces of the people below, Henry knew that he was once again trapped by the knowledge of the Heavenly Eye.

This technology hasn't been released yet, so how would anyone know about it?

Henry smiled and explained, "ROM, or Read-Only Memory, is a non-volatile storage medium, which means that once information is written, it cannot be changed."

However, by using external ROM cartridges, we can allow users to switch between different games without being limited by the handheld's fixed internal storage space.

In the conference room, Nimitz fell into deep thought, and finally nodded with a hint of hesitation: "This plan may be feasible."

With external ROM cartridges, we can not only enjoy a rich lineup of games, but also get rid of the problem of limited internal storage space.

However, the ensuing challenge is how to design a cartridge interface that is both secure and reliable to ensure stable reading of game data.

Robert continued, "That's right, and we also have to consider the cost of the cassette and the production cycle."

If we want to launch our handheld game console before Christmas, the time allotted for cartridge production and development will be extremely tight.

Henry nodded in agreement: "Regarding the cost and time issues, I will inform the finance department and allocate all available resources to you."

As for the cartridge design, I hope the team can submit the initial draft as soon as possible so that we can start prototype testing sooner.

In addition to porting Pac-Man and American Blocks, we also need to develop some new games specifically designed for handheld consoles to enrich our game library.

As a newly established company, Sci-Fi Arcade lacks its own game library, which makes the situation tricky.

"Robert, your next task is to personally go to Little Ghost Games to discuss purchasing the copyright to their Snake game."

We can offer up to ten million US dollars, but the final price will depend on the outcome of negotiations.

According to memory, the game "Snake" will soon be bought out by Atari for two million dollars.

The reason it was so cheap was simply because the Atari 2600 game console was dominant in that era.

They were extremely arrogant towards the developers.

Many developers have long harbored resentment towards them.

If a sci-fi arcade game were to emerge at this time, and the developer were to purchase the game's copyright from the little devil at a high price, the other party would certainly be very happy.