Boss Huang was unaware that someone was already planning to make him into a son-in-law for someone else. He couldn't handle this kind of trope for a son-in-law novel.
Over the next few days, the Yu-Gi-Oh! blind box Hua Huang Shang continued uninterrupted, attracting a large number of rare Yu-Gi-Oh! players daily. Many players from other counties and cities also flocked over upon hearing about the interesting event.
The daily sales of blind box Hua Huang Shang increased from two sets on the first day to about ten sets per day, and they were always sold out. They would be gone in less than half a morning.
However, Boss Huang was no longer personally handling these matters as he was now in intense negotiations with Sony.
The negotiations with Sony began three days after Boss Huang attended the NDS launch event. This time, the negotiation was initiated entirely by the Sony Group.
The reason, naturally, was that the head of Sony Group's entertainment division, also known as the father of PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, had seen the report written by Mutou Yugi. He had seen the article where Mutou Yugi confidently declared that Blizzard games would be fully integrated into the Nintendo platform.
This truly frightened Ken Kutaragi.
Under normal circumstances, Blizzard wouldn't be something Sony would take too seriously. However, Sony and Nintendo were currently in the fiercest of battles, especially in the handheld market. If the PSP could achieve a great victory, Nintendo would be completely ousted from its dominant position, and the entire console market would belong to Sony in the future.
Therefore, this battle could not be lost, and any factor that could lead to failure had to be nipped in the bud.
Thus, Ken Kutaragi immediately extended an invitation to Boss Huang, inviting him to visit Sony for discussions. Boss Huang spent the entire morning touring Sony accompanied by many relevant personnel, gaining a full understanding of Sony's glorious history. During the lunch banquet, Ken Kutaragi said with great emotion, "Congratulations to Mr. Huang Hesheng on your cooperation with Nintendo. From now on, we are competitors!"
"Finally, you're here!" Boss Huang smiled slightly and replied, "Not at all. We haven't reached that point yet. Who is a friend and who is a foe is yet to be determined!"
"Is that so?" Ken Kutaragi's face immediately showed a hint of a smile. "If that's the case, then the rumors in the market are false?"
"I don't know what the rumors are, but I did have a good meeting with President Iwata two days ago, and we reached a cooperation. I did say something to a reporter, and it was all true!" Huang He laughed.
"I see!" Ken Kutaragi nodded and pondered for a moment before saying, "In that case, I won't beat around the bush with you, Mr. Huang. Our PlayStation platform sincerely invites Blizzard games and all their game master plans to be integrated into our PlayStation console game platform!"
"I guarantee that your company's games will receive the strongest treatment, including the free arrangement of professional personnel to help Blizzard games with console porting modifications, and a profit-sharing ratio of 80% after logging onto the platform in the future."
"You take 80%, and we get 20%," Ken Kutaragi said solemnly.
This condition was indeed quite good, as the PlayStation platform's bottom line was a 3-7 split. Being able to offer a 2-8 split was quite favorable.
"That's not enough!" Boss Huang replied very frankly. "In fact, someone has already given me such terms, but I refused. Console porting is actually a very risky matter and could very well lead to the collapse of a game's reputation.
"Furthermore, Blizzard games' main strength is on PC. Even with Sony's help for console porting, the cooperation between the two forces might actually generate more bugs. For the sake of Blizzard games' future, I have to carefully consider and decide on this matter!" Boss Huang said.
"Mr. Huang, I said, let's not beat around the bush. Just state your demands directly, and then we can talk!" Ken Kutaragi said very sincerely.
"Alright then!" Boss Huang nodded. "In that case, I'll be direct. I want the IP authorization for all of Sony's cultural products, including games, music, and films. All these cultural products can be used for free by all companies under Jiangnan Group. This is my condition!"
"Whoosh!" There was an immediate stir in the venue. Except for the few employees Boss Huang brought, all the Sony staff became restless.
Some staff even stood up directly and glared at Boss Huang. This condition was clearly unacceptable to them.
"Mr. Huang, we cannot accept your terms. Do you know how many cultural products and IPs Sony Group currently has?" Ken Kutaragi said, forcibly suppressing his anger.
Compared to Nintendo, Sony was a more terrifying king when it came to copyrights.
Therefore, purely in terms of game IPs, Nintendo was definitely stronger than Sony.
But Sony had more than just games. Sony had a vast cultural industry under it, the most famous of which were Sony Music and Sony Pictures.
Sony Music had signed over 400 singers from different countries worldwide, including Jay Chou, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and others. Just hearing their names, one could tell how popular they were globally.
And all their music was in Sony's hands. This was a massive library of over 500,000 songs. Even if only 1% of these works became popular, it would still be terrifying.
What's more, Sony Pictures also owned famous films such as Godzilla, Black Hawk Down, Sweet Home Alabama, Men in Black, Spider-Man, Resident Evil, The Terminator, and so on.
The film library from these movies combined had over a thousand titles.
Simply for the integration of Blizzard games, giving free authorization of such a vast IP resource to Jiangnan Group would be something that none of the Sony Group's board of directors would ever agree to, unless their brains were hit by a car.
"Please, everyone, do not get agitated. Of course, I know these terms are not enough, so I have another new condition!" Boss Huang paused for a moment, then said, "I called yesterday and asked. As of today, in the first half of 2004, Sony Group imported a total of 22 million storage chips from us, with a total procurement contract reaching 500 million US dollars, is that correct?"
"...I don't know the specific number," Ken Kutaragi said, momentarily stunned.
Ken Kutaragi truly didn't know because he was the head of the gaming department. At most, he knew how many Jiangnan storage chips were used in game consoles. As for how many the entire company used, he was not clear.
"It doesn't matter if you don't know. Later, everyone can ask your board of directors, and you will know that what I said is not false!" Huang He said. Everyone nodded involuntarily and largely believed Boss Huang's words.
After all, there was no point in fabricating such a thing. They could easily check the information with their headquarters once they returned. Fabricating here would only make them look incredibly foolish.
"11 million chips, 300 million US dollars. Isn't this a substantial amount? If I were to cut 200 million US dollars from it, giving Sony Group a 40% discount, and in the future, Sony only needed to spend 100 million US dollars to purchase these 11 million chips, would this business be discussable then?"
"Are you saying you want to use discounts on storage chip purchases in exchange for Sony Group's IP authorization?" Ken Kutaragi said solemnly. He quickly understood Huang Hesheng's intention.
And if it were to purchase these IP authorizations for 200 million US dollars, it sounded less unacceptable.
Especially after Boss Huang explained in detail his company's requirements for IP authorization and guaranteed that this authorization would not be spread or used for commercial competition with Sony Group, it became even more enticing.
After all, Sony Group's annual IP authorization business was only around 400 million US dollars, but this was based on purchases from tens of thousands of companies worldwide.
If Jiangnan Group alone could offer 200 million US dollars, increasing the IP authorization business by 25% instantly, it seemed acceptable.
After all, the IPs were just sitting there and not generating any extra money, but 200 million US dollars was very appealing!
And this was only half a year's data. The entire electronics product industry was becoming increasingly popular. The demand for storage chips in the second half of the year would only increase, meaning at least another 200 million US dollars could be saved in the second half, totaling 400 million US dollars for the year, which was even more profitable!
After that, the two parties did not discuss any business matters at the banquet. Boss Huang went back to his hotel to rest after dinner. However, the Sony Group's board of directors held an emergency meeting overnight to discuss the news brought by Ken Kutaragi.
As soon as the board meeting began, it quickly became a completely one-sided affair, with everyone supporting the signing of this cooperation agreement.
The reason was simple: 22 million chips were not all the chips Sony needed in a year.
According to Sony Group's estimates, in the entire year of 2004, Sony would need a total of 320 million storage chips. After all, Sony had more than just the gaming industry. They also had MP4 production lines, MP3 production lines, digital camera production lines, computer-related production lines, semiconductor-related production lines, and many other production lines related to electronic products. Sony even produced storage chips themselves, and all these products required storage chips to store data.
So why did they only purchase 11 million in the first half of the year? Less than 1/10 of the total?
This was naturally because Sony also produced storage chips themselves. They could not possibly use their own storage chips and purchase storage chips from other companies, as that would be suicidal.
However, Sony had indeed purchased 11 million Jiangnan Optoelectronics chips. But this was unavoidable, as Sony's high-end products, in order to maintain their brand competitiveness, had to use high-end storage chips. But such chips were beyond Sony's production capabilities. Moreover, the purchase price of Jiangnan chips was similar to the cost of producing their own chips. Therefore, for the sake of profit, Sony did not hesitate to purchase 11 million Jiangnan Optoelectronics chips.
In fact, they had planned to purchase 26 million, but Jiangnan Optoelectronics' production capacity was still insufficient. They could only secure 11 million US dollars worth of goods in the first half of the year. The rest were snatched up by other competitors.