"What should we do then?" Jiuliang Mu Jian hesitated, then whispered, "If this plan is realized, wouldn't it be very disadvantageous to Senior? Should we try to sabotage this plan?"
In fact, the entire board of directors and even Sony wanted to get rid of Nobuyuki Idei, because Nobuyuki Idei was Sony's first president to graduate from an arts faculty. Before him, all presidents, CEOs, and chairmen had graduated from science and engineering faculties.
Therefore, when Nobuyuki Idei took office, the entire Sony was very unhappy with him. Previously, as long as he led the company to generate profits, these conflicts were suppressed. But now, after two consecutive years of losses and continuous missteps and wrong choices, replacing Nobuyuki Idei had become a consensus, but who would succeed him was still unknown.
The most likely candidates were Kazuo Hirai and Koji Koga, two great generals of Sony. From Koji Koga's attitude of roaring at the president, it could be seen that Koji Koga outwardly no longer respected Nobuyuki Idei at all.
On the other hand, Kazuo Hirai had always been silent and very respectful to Nobuyuki Idei, basically obeying his every word. Therefore, few people knew that Kazuo Hirai had also done many things behind the scenes. Only his loyal subordinate Jiuliang Mu Jian knew about his senior's plan.
Originally, if things had continued to develop this way, Nobuyuki Idei's abdication would have been inevitable, and Kazuo Hirai would have had the opportunity to take over. But if Nobuyuki Idei managed to stabilize his position as president with the profits brought by this event, then it would be counterproductive.
"It's fine. The board of directors also knows that this kind of profit generated by cost-saving is not Nobuyuki Idei's credit. He will still step down in disgrace. Not to mention that his current actions have completely offended the people in the electronics division, making it even harder for him to stay in the company!" Kazuo Hirai said calmly. "Also, those old men hate people who don't follow the rules. Koji Koga, relying on his influence, dared to lose his temper in front of the chairman. His actions will completely ruin his future!"
"Therefore, we only need to strictly follow the orders of the chairman and the board of directors and let Nobuyuki Idei and Koji Koga fight each other. These fools, they don't know that no matter who wins between them, they will both lose completely in the end!"
"Yes!" Jiuliang Mu Jian nodded, a smile appearing on his face. If his old boss advanced further, wouldn't he also rise to the top? This was a good thing!
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A few days later, Sony and Jiangnan Group reached an agreement similar to Nintendo's, licensing all their cultural IPs to Jiangnan Group. Then, Sony Group immediately ordered 90 million storage chips, and Boss Huang readily agreed to all of them.
Such a massive transaction was naturally difficult to keep secret, so the entire market soon learned of Sony's grand gesture, which also shocked the chip market.
At the same time, market participants realized that Sony was completely abandoning the storage chip industry. After all, ordering 90 million chips was not the quantity required for high-end products, meaning Sony would completely switch to purchasing and using Jiangnan's storage chips, implying that Sony was abandoning its own chip industry.
Therefore, what Koji Koga worried about soon happened. Those buyers who had originally ordered Sony chips began to cancel their orders. They stated their reasons concisely, with various excuses, but the underlying reason was the same: they did not believe that a company that fully adopted a competitor's chips could still produce good chips.
Nobuyuki Idei's actions were also very swift. After the orders rapidly declined, within a month, he directly cut off the entire storage chip business. Personnel in related departments were either laid off or reassigned, and all related equipment was sold… It was reportedly sold directly to Jiangnan Optoelectronics, as Jiangnan Optoelectronics expressed willingness to acquire the equipment at a price 20% above market value.
However, this was not paid in cash, but offset against chip consumption. But for Sony, there was no loss, so the entire Sony happily agreed.
All these events left Koji Koga in tears, because the equipment was not old, all of it was ordered after 2002, meaning it was only two years old.
Actually, the origin of this batch of equipment was quite miraculous, because it was the equipment that Nobuyuki Idei had approved and strongly pushed for purchase two years ago.
This was because Nobuyuki Idei had stated at the time that he wanted to promote Sony's layout and development in the chip industry. Thus, despite the board's pressure, he approved 1.47 billion US dollars for R&D and equipment procurement to compete with the South Korean semiconductor industry.
Unfortunately, the US, favoring certain parties, continuously introduced policies to crack down on Japan, leading to the disastrous failure of this investment. Until now, it remained the largest loss on paper.
Being able to sell this batch of equipment at a relatively favorable price was considered a small recovery for Sony. At least the financial report for this year directly changed from a loss of 100 million US dollars to a net profit of 400 million US dollars.
However, with the sale of this equipment, not only the storage chip industry but also other chip-related industries suffered a fatal blow. Although they could still survive, there was no possibility for further development.
Of course, as a byproduct of the cooperation, all games under Blizzard Entertainment officially gained console platforms.
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In the evening, Mutou Game was idly reading a comic book, but he couldn't see any of the words in it. Mutou Game had not been happy these past few days. After revealing that Blizzard might be stationed on the Nintendo platform, Mutou Game's blind box Hua Huang Shang news reports all became hot articles, greatly increasing the sales of Game Tsushin magazine.
However, the result was the opposite. Mutou Game not only did not get promoted or a raise, but he could also vaguely sense various suppressions from the editor-in-chief, which made Mutou Game extremely uncomfortable.
The reason was actually easy to guess. This editor-in-chief was an incompetent person, and he absolutely could not tolerate having capable subordinates under him, because this would seriously threaten his position. Therefore, suppression was inevitable.
He was not afraid of driving Mutou Game away. Anyway, the magazine was already so bad, a little worse would not make the parent company feel worse. On the contrary, if the company's performance improved and Mutou Game left, causing the company's performance to decline again, then it would be his fault.
So, Mutou Game being suppressed was the most normal thing.
And his methods were effective. At this time, Mutou Game was already contemplating resignation. Moreover, many more excellent game magazines had invited him to work there, so he was not afraid of not finding a new job.
As a result, at this moment, a phone call suddenly came. Mutou Game answered the phone and heard a familiar and very surprising voice, "Boss Huang, is that really you?"
"It's me!" Boss Huang admitted, then continued concisely, "Are you willing to work for me?"
"Huh?" Mutou Game was stunned. He found that he couldn't quite understand Boss Huang's Japanese. Although his Japanese was actually quite good.
"Simply put, I plan to start a game magazine!" Huang He smiled and said, "If you are willing to work for me, then I will buy Game Tsushin, and you will be the editor-in-chief."
"If you are not willing, then I won't buy this magazine. Although this magazine is indeed relatively cheap, occupying the market is more troublesome. I prefer to spend money to buy magazines with broader influence. However, I think highly of you, so I plan to give you an opportunity. You just need to answer whether you are willing or not!"
"I prostrate myself in admiration!" Upon hearing that he had the opportunity to join Game Tsushin and become its editor-in-chief, controlling the entire magazine's operations, and seeing the expression of the original editor-in-chief looking like he had eaten dog feces, Mutou Game immediately agreed, and he truly prostrated himself in admiration... At this moment, he was still on the phone while lying on the ground.
"Very good, then you will be the editor-in-chief of Game Tsushin tomorrow!" Boss Huang said, and then hung up with a smile.
The next day, under the astonished, surprised, angry, fearful, resentful, and jealous expressions of the original editor-in-chief, Mutou Game happily escorted the editor-in-chief out of the editor-in-chief's office and arranged for him a job near the water dispenser, with the main task of pouring hot water for everyone. Then, Mutou Game took over Game Tsushin magazine.
Then Game Tsushin magazine released its first major news after the change of ownership: "Blizzard Entertainment and Sony Platform Reach Cooperation, Blizzard Games to Enter Sony Console Platform Within the Year!"
This news completely baffled the entire gaming community. Your magazine had confidently stated just over a week ago that Blizzard Games was in contact with Nintendo and was about to be stationed on the Nintendo platform.
But after more than a week, how did it become Sony's platform for Blizzard Games to be stationed on? Can you have any shame?
However, Mutou Game sincerely stated in the magazine that after obtaining the investigation results last time, he had been continuously tracking and investigating Jiangnan and Blizzard Entertainment, obtaining first-hand investigation data.
Then he discovered that Jiangnan Group was also in contact with Sony. This was a very normal operation. It was natural to compare prices when buying things. Finally, it was estimated that Sony offered a better price, so Blizzard Games ultimately chose Sony.
The evidence was that Mutou Game obtained a sample of a brochure with a picture of a Kodo beast biting a PS5 console in its mouth, with the word "sample" printed on it. This was clearly a promotional poster for the upcoming cooperation between Sony and Blizzard.
Then, amidst this bewilderment, Sony and Blizzard jointly announced their cooperation and the news that console versions of Blizzard games would be released within the year, with Diablo II being the first game to be ported to consoles.
However, that was not all. The most crucial point was that when a reporter learned of this news, they stood up and asked when Diablo III would be available on console platforms.
This was actually just an entertainment question, as Diablo III was still just a concept. Unexpectedly, the representative from Blizzard Entertainment earnestly stated that he only knew it would definitely not be this year.
This statement was very subtle. If it wasn't this year, would it be next year or the year after?
Considering that Blizzard Games had a pattern of releasing a major work every two years.
For example, in 1998, they released StarCraft 1; in 2000, they released Diablo 2; in 2002, they released Warcraft 3; in 2004, they released World of Warcraft. Then, releasing Diablo 3 in 2006 would be very reasonable.
Thinking that they could play a masterpiece like Diablo 3 on the console platform at the first opportunity, players still felt very excited.
Of course, in this way, Nintendo was directly affected.