Chapter 315: Classic Game: Super Mario

Shan Nei Pu and Gong Ben Mao exchanged a glance, seeing …… disappointment in each other's eyes.

They were optimistic about the Eastern market! Now, the other side is demanding that we not enter the Eastern market—what does that mean? Surely they want to develop a similar console and don't want Nintendo to make money!

Actually, Qin Miao certainly didn't think that way; he simply didn't want video game consoles to harm the nation's blossoms.

Of course, getting to the root of it, we can't blame the games; we must blame those who play them without self‑control. Without games, there would still be other things—in the 60s and 70s it was Jin Yong's wuxia and Qiong Yao's novels, which who knows how many people got addicted to; later came electronic games, then the Internet, and finally mobile phones.

No matter the era, there's always something that can addict people!

Those addicted to mobile games never blame their own children's lack of self‑control; instead they blame society and demand that society ban mobile games, unaware that without mobile games there's still other stuff—live streaming, short videos, whatever—you can easily swipe away hours at a time.

Qin Miao can't interfere with those, but he can avoid taking the blame. When arcades were everywhere in the 80s and 90s, spawning countless reckless youths, he could stand tall and say, "I won't take the fall for arcades—I've already done my best!"

"President Qin, … may we take a look at your game concept? If the idea is good enough, we can agree to your request. Please rest assured—even if we show it to you here, we will absolutely not go back and copy it on our own; we place the utmost importance on intellectual property."

Qin Miao nodded: "All right, let's first take a look at my game."

Qin Miao waved at Chu Miaomiao, so she hurriedly unfurled the paper roll in her hand; it grew longer and longer, filling the entire room, yet still not fully unrolled.

"This is a side‑scrolling platformer in which the player controls some of the characters, jumping on mushrooms, hitting bricks, collecting coins, ultimately defeating the boss Bowser to save Princess Peach. There are two characters in total, called Mario and Luigi……"

What Qin Miao described is, of course, the world‑famous Super Mario game!

Games of this era were still very chaotic, lacking any definite structure and not very fun to play, whereas Super Mario—the game Nintendo created for the Famicom—is practically the original template for home consoles!

After this game, no other game could break out of that template until computer games grew strong, at which point the home‑console market began to shrink!

Determining characters, game objectives, process distribution, hidden elements……

The creator of this game is actually the very Gong Ben Mao before us!

At that moment, Gong Ben Mao widened his eyes, listening to Qin Miao's introduction, his gaze shining with excitement.

"Not bad, not bad! This is practically a trans‑era game!"

"Once this game goes on sale, it will surely be a hot seller!"

"Fantastic! I can already see the future of this game—even if we don't sell Nintendo consoles in the Eastern market, it would still be worth it!" Shan Nei Pu's face lit up with excitement, as if he had already seen Nintendo's rise!

In 1983, Nintendo's Famicom debuted, and it was only then that the Mario brothers' works first appeared. For the next two years Mario existed but wasn't particularly popular, until the 1985 release of *Super Mario Bros. * made it explode onto the scene.

Now, Qin Miao has brought out that 1985 game, and it is absolutely trans‑era!

"Qin, we'll sign the contract tomorrow and purchase an initial batch of one million Loongson processors!" Shan Nei Pu continued: "We need to quickly build this classic game and make it a global hit!"

Nintendo isn't short of money; what they lack is advanced hardware and excellent works—and now those are right before their eyes!

How could Shan Nei Pu not be excited!

"What I've brought mainly consists of two theme scenes and sixteen levels; according to my plan, there will be eight theme scenes and sixty‑four levels, plus a few character cards." Qin Miao said: "Since you've taken a liking to it, I'll leave this scroll with you for now, and after the formal contract is signed I'll hand over the rest."

"Good, good, good!" Shan Nei Pu nodded repeatedly: "Mr. Qin, your Harbin Institute of Technology is our best partner! We can't just take your game for nothing—aside from our promise not to enter the mainland market, we'll also spend a sum of money to buy this game…… one million dollars. What do you think?"

Chu Miaomiao widened her eyes.

After the press conference ended, Qin Miao returned to Harbin Institute of Technology, gathered some people who could draw, and hastily put together this odd‑looking thing that nobody knew what it was; after fussing over it for a while, it turned out to be an electronic game!

And yet, it's actually worth a lot!

"Shan Nei, this is also why I intend to give it to you—one million is not its value! Rest assured, since we've given you the game we certainly won't give it to anyone else, and furthermore……"

"Three million, no, five million! We want to secure the exclusive license for this game!"

Shan Nei Pu isn't stupid; this game was designed by Qin Miao, and there will be plenty more levels and theme scenes down the line, all of which will surely be top‑notch! He must get hold of the game's copyright, otherwise…… what if Atari also gets it?

"All right, then five million—within a week the remainder will be handed over to you."

"Mm‑hm."

Five million!

Chu Miaomiao felt her heart pounding helplessly; she knew San Shui was capable, but she had no idea he could be this capable!

Our side is to give, theirs is to pay, and they've raised the price several times!

Leaving the Hua Qiao Fan Dian, they got into a Land Rover, and Chu Miaomiao still hadn't recovered.

"San Shui bro, is this thing profitable?"

"Yeah, just this one game alone could sell at least five hundred million copies; even if each copy brought in only twenty dollars, that would be ten billion dollars."

Chu Miaomiao widened her eyes: "If it's this lucrative, why aren't we going into this business?"

"Guess how much we could make by selling processors to Nintendo to assemble consoles—if Nintendo's consoles sell well, other manufacturers will see the excellence of our Loongson No. 1 and come to us for orders, and that would bring in even more money."

"People, you can't keep thinking you'll earn all the money there is—that's impossible!"

"Everyone getting rich together is the best choice! More importantly, using Nintendo consoles as a breakthrough, we can sell Loongson No. 1 worldwide!"

"Actually, there's another reason Qin Miao didn't mention."

"Once our 32‑bit Loongson No. 2 comes out, we'll go on to make computer games! The glory of Nintendo consoles will last at most five years—there's no need to lay out a short‑lived project!"