Chapter 326: The island nation's people who can't straighten their backs

Island nation, southern Kyoto district, Upper Toriha Halberd-standing Town.

A building stood tall and imposing, seven stories high, square and boxy, looking like a plain box with no aesthetic appeal whatsoever; on the upper right corner of the front facade, at the roof level, large Japanese characters were written.

Nintendo Co., Ltd.

This is where Nintendo is preparing to make a stunning debut!

On the first floor of the company, in the conference room, more and more people arrived—news media, industry peers from the island nation… Hitachi, Toshiba, and others came to show support. After all, the big players all shared one goal: to go overseas and seize the American market!

When a group of Americans in suits appeared at the doorway, they were all stunned.

This…

What are these Americans here for?

Toshiba's person in charge quickly slipped into the crowd; their company's memory had beaten Intel black and blue, and now, seeing Geluofu's aggressive demeanor, could it be they've come for revenge?

Although the island nation is economically strong, politically it is weak—getting beaten up by the Americans is something they just have to accept!

At that moment, Huangchuan Shi hurried out.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nintendo for our new game console launch event. You are all leaders in the electronics industry; it is our honor to have you here…"

"Huangchuan, if you truly welcome us, then use our 286 processor chips instead of the unreliable Dragon Core in your game consoles! You are major clients; we can even lower the price a bit."

As he said this, Geluofu wore a stern expression.

These guys beside him, after getting off the plane, ditched Geluofu, saying they were going to stay at hotels and sightsee, yet now they're meeting here just the same?

Hmph, these guys are simply going too far!

Now he was full of anger, and his face naturally looked unpleasant.

We must use our 286 processor instead of whatever Dragon Core, or else…

"Well… our R&D team will consider it; we… will first buy a portion to try. How about a hundred units?"

"At least buy a thousand units!"

"This…"

"If you can't make the decision, have Shan Nei Pu come out and talk to me!"

"Sorry, my father-in-law is accompanying the honored guests and can't come out to see you right now."

"What honored guests?"

"This…"

"Speak!"

"Qin Sang."

"What?"

"Qin Miao? Is it that Qin Miao from Harbin Institute of Technology again?"

It's obvious: since the new game console uses Dragon Core, they'd naturally invite someone from the East; the Dragon Core team is busy, and because they're handling confidential material, it's inconvenient for them to appear, so Qin Miao came to participate, and he surely brought his wife along.

At that moment, the two sat in Shan Nei Pu's office, watching him give an introduction with spit flying.

"After finishing the design of the game console and developing the games, we selected a batch of internal test users; the response was overwhelmingly positive, they said it's absolutely a groundbreaking game! We have full confidence in the console, sure we can beat Atari! Qin, do you have any other ideas?"

"Other… I need to think about it; maybe inspiration will strike one day."

Thump thump thump…

Footsteps sounded.

"Mr. Geluofu, Mr. Geluofu, you cannot go in, you cannot go in!"

Bang!

The door was pushed open, and Geluofu appeared at the doorway, furious: "Shan Nei Pu, you bastard, we Americans have come, and you don't even come out to greet us—are you looking down on us Americans?"

"Sorry, really sorry." Shan Nei Pu hastily bowed, not daring to raise his head.

Qin Miao said nothing, just watching from the side; the servility of the island nation's people is exactly like this—still dreaming of becoming a world power? They can't even straighten their backs!

"Sorry? Is just expressing an apology enough?" Geluofu gritted his teeth: "Unless you sign a purchase agreement and buy ten thousand 286 processors from our Intel!"

Shan Nei Pu's body trembled slightly, he gritted his teeth: "Yes, no problem."

Faced with their American masters, they dare not defy them—even if it means burdening Nintendo with a heavy load, they must accept it!

Beside her, Chu Miaomiao wore a complex expression.

This time, San Shui brought me abroad, and indeed my horizons broadened again; these islanders, who act high and mighty in our East, when seen in front of Americans, hmph, no matter how strong their economy, they remain a weak nation!

"Get up."

"Yes."

Geluofu was finally satisfied; he was just making an excuse, and now he could finally sell ten thousand 286 processors—this counts as a great start!

"Father-in-law, it's already time to open the press conference." Huangchuan Shi spoke cautiously.

"Alright, let's go, Mr. Qin, Ms. Chu…"

Before he could finish speaking, Geluofu coughed twice beside him.

"Mr. Geluofu, please!"

Geluofu walked ahead, head held high.

First floor, lobby.

This place had been set up as the press venue; Gong Ben Mao had been busy, and now seeing everyone assembled, he cleared his throat.

"Everyone, now let's first show you our new game console, bundled with the Super Mario game."

Having said that, he opened a package, revealing the red-and-white game console body, which looked very attractive.

On the podium, a 25-inch NEC television had been placed in advance—the largest size currently on the market; since it sat on the table, the view below could be seen clearly.

After connecting the circuitry and flipping the switch, after a flurry of snowflakes, the screen showed a little figure in overalls with a big nose and big mustache; this image… is it too clear?

This is just a logo; once you enter the game, the picture definitely won't be this clear!

The game loaded, the screen appeared, first level!

Underfoot lay purplish‑red brick‑shaped ground; above it was a blue sky against a blue backdrop, and along the ground stretched green meadows, little hills, and several heads appeared on the screen.

No jagged edges were visible; the screen quality was as high as that logo!

"No, this is impossible—what PPU is this game console using?" said an engineer.

Early game consoles, like the currently hot‑selling Atari, had a screen resolution of only 240×256 pixels—that is, 256 rows of 240 pixels each.

The resulting image would inevitably be jagged, given the low resolution—compared to today's 4K, it would need to reach 4096×2160!

There's nothing to be done—data processing isn't easy; an 8‑bit processor does the calculations, then sends them to the PPU for rendering. This era lacked a dedicated graphics chip (i. e., a GPU); the PPU is merely an image‑processing unit that renders according to its hard‑wired logic and has no programming capability.

"We didn't use a PPU."

"Then what did you use?"

"A Loongson processor, handling all the calculations!"

Instantly, an uproar broke out!