Gerald couldn't give a definite answer.
The prosperity of the arcade market had nothing to do with the home console market.
If players still didn't buy into it, then Ethan's rash venture into a new field would likely end in complete disaster.
Ethan wasn't in a hurry to get an answer. After explaining the arcade standard, he left in a hurry.
...
A few days later, GAMENOVA.
After all three arcade machines had officially gone on sale, the customer traffic at their own arcade finally began to decline noticeably.
Many players had switched to larger arcades that were closer to home or had more beautiful interiors.
GAMENOVA's only remaining advantage was perhaps its consistent price of twenty five cents per game.
But that was fine as well. Ethan was happy to enjoy some peace and quiet, allowing him to make progress on his work during the daytime.
He emptied his mind, immersed his consciousness within it, and summoned the system interface.
[User]: Ethan Hayes
[Attributes]:
[Programming]: 51
[Scriptwriting]: 22
[Graphic Design]: 13
[Music Composition]: 11
[Hardware Technology]: 45
...
After such a long period of development work, all of his attributes had improved significantly.
Combined with the series of rewards brought by Contra, the current Ethan could be said to have achieved something in every field.
At the very bottom of the panel lay a skill gift pack quietly waiting.
He had suddenly received it on the way back not long ago. It was the cumulative player count reward for Contra.
"Hopefully it'll be a hardware or graphics related skill."
After thinking it over, Ethan realized there actually wasn't much left for him to improve on the software side.
Until the hardware underwent a complete upgrade, continuing to refine his programming skills would bring very little return.
[Ding!]
[Skill Acquired]:
[The Art of Language]: [You have mastered the essence of communicating with machines. When facing assembly language and machine code, you can read them with ease.]
"Hm?"
Ethan froze for a moment.
This skill wasn't exactly a hardware ability, nor could it really be considered software technology.
But it was exceptionally useful!
Unlike modern high-level languages such as C#, Java, C++, and Python, assembly language was anything but easy to learn.
The final game might look dazzling and flashy, but the development process itself was truly agonizing.
In this era, when the concept of game engines was still immature, Ethan's development process was actually much closer to directly manipulating the computer itself.
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He had to carefully write assembly instructions to control every single register.
Just making a single pixel move across the screen required writing an extremely long sequence of code.
But with this skill, the things he could accomplish would be completely different.
He could even create his own high-level programming language!
"Hey, sleeping in broad daylight? Did you pull an all nighter?"
Vivian's voice interrupted Ethan's thoughts.
He slowly opened his eyes and saw Vivian waving a neatly printed stack of blueprints in her hand.
"Here. Mr. Gerald asked me to bring these over."
A quick glance told him they were the replaceable motherboard standard design that he had entrusted to Gerald.
He hadn't expected results to come this quickly.
Ethan accepted the documents and carefully read through them from beginning to end, marveling at Gerald's craftsmanship.
"Sam, come take a look at this."
Sam had just finished taking care of miscellaneous tasks and stopped in front of the Contra arcade cabinet.
His movements froze, and he reluctantly slipped the coin back into his pocket before returning to the counter.
"So this is the modular production method you mentioned before?"
After giving the documents a rough read, he immediately realized the enormous profit potential they contained.
"Should we have the contract manufacturer adjust the production line right away?"
"Yeah. The sooner, the better. It'll take some time to adapt to the new model."
Watching Sam rush out the door in a whirlwind, Ethan finally turned to Vivian and nodded slightly.
"Thank you for making the trip."
Hearing that, Vivian deliberately put on an annoyed expression and teased him.
"You've got some nerve saying that. Mr. Gerald shut down VideoSoft. I'm unemployed now!"
Ethan chuckled awkwardly. To be fair, he really was the reason that had happened.
Still, he had always intended to recruit this highly promising talent anyway. Better to keep the talent in house than let someone else have her.
Just as he was about to speak, Ethan suddenly thought of the home console project he was planning with Gerald. His eyes lit up, and he immediately changed his mind.
"Vivian, you're pretty accomplished when it comes to display chips, aren't you?"
"Well... I guess so? Why?"
The corners of Ethan's mouth curled upward into a completely harmless smile.
"GAMENOVA is preparing to establish our own display chip subsidiary. Would you be interested in heading it?"
Vivian's eyes widened. She hadn't expected Ethan to say something like that.
"You're going to make your own graphics chips?"
"That's right. It'll cover both graphics coprocessors for arcade machines and display chips for home consoles. I believe this will be a major direction for future development."
If he wanted to build his own home console, graphics chips were an obstacle he absolutely couldn't avoid.
With the weak performance of an 8-bit processor, achieving impressive visual effects required the assistance of a graphics coprocessor.
And the next evolution of that technology would become one of the cornerstones of future information technology, the graphics card.
Whether it was graphic design, video games, or artificial intelligence, none of them could function without graphics cards today.
Both NVIDIA and AMD had earned enormous fortunes from their graphics card businesses.
"That's so cool! Of course I'm willing!"
Faced with such an unbelievable opportunity, Vivian agreed without a second thought.
"How many people are on the team now? I can start working immediately!"
"Well... strictly speaking, there's only you at the moment."
"...?"
It was as if Vivian had just been doused with a bucket of ice water, leaving her chilled from head to toe.
"Wait, you mean I'm supposed to do it by myself? Develop graphics chips?"
She had assumed that someone as capable as Ethan must have already made thorough preparations.
At the very least, there should have been several people on board.
After all that, it turned out the operation hadn't even been properly established yet.
"Although you're the only one for now, don't worry. I've already picked out a few excellent people to help you."
Watching Vivian leave with a smile, Ethan flipped open the telephone directory and found a particular number.
...
Toronto, Canada.
Kwok Yuen Ho had just finished yet another unsatisfying job and sat alone in his room.
As an immigrant, life here was full of obstacles, and his salary had been cut again and again.
He couldn't help but think back to his old days.
At least back then he had earned an annual salary of five hundred thousand dollars and had been considered a successful man of some standing.
"Sigh..."
He let out a long sigh and looked toward a draft lying on the table.
The top line bore a single name.
Array Technology Inc. (ATI).
If he couldn't find a satisfactory job soon, he would have to gamble everything by investing his own savings.
Just then, the telephone in his house suddenly rang.
"Could it be that the headhunter has some news?"
He hurriedly picked it up.
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