Chapter 78

The next day, all the newspapers in Hong Kong were once again dominated by headlines about Oriental Electronics. "Hundred People Attack Factory, Donations for Education Spark Envy from Gangs?" This was the sensational headline given by the Oriental Daily, which exaggerated the number of young thugs who attacked the Oriental Electronics factory from forty to a hundred.

Moreover, the Oriental Daily made no mention of the fact that the police had previously shut down a counterfeit factory run by a gang leader, which was the real trigger for the incident. Instead, they speculated that the large donations Oriental Electronics made to the Chinese University of Hong Kong had sparked envy from the gangs, leading to demands for higher protection fees. When Oriental Electronics refused, they were retaliated against!

The entire article read more like a fabricated story than a factual report. However, neither the Sha Tin Police Station, which was involved in the investigation, nor the Oriental Daily, which was the victim, made any public statements, giving them an excuse to speculate. The report portrayed Oriental Electronics as a tragic victim of evil forces, questioning why the Hong Kong government remained indifferent to the deteriorating social order.

Such reporting was very much in line with Oriental Electronics' stance, and the company's public relations department had played a significant role behind the scenes. The large photo published on the front page, alongside the headline, was secretly provided by the company's PR department, posing as a whistleblower. It showed a group of thugs, armed with clubs and machetes, charging up the stairs with fierce expressions.

When the incident occurred, the company had specially assigned personnel to take numerous photos from various angles using several pre-prepared cameras. These photos were originally intended as evidence for the police to use in identifying and apprehending the suspects, as such gang-related incidents in Hong Kong often went unresolved due to lack of evidence.

This time, however, the PR department carefully selected a batch of photos and secretly provided them to various newspapers. The angles of these photos all highlighted the ferocity of the gang members, ensuring that the newspapers would take a stance favorable to Oriental Electronics when using these images.

Li Xuan arrived at the company early in the morning to oversee operations. He was sitting there reading the newspaper. A star company that had just been pursued by the media across Hong Kong, suddenly bursting with such a major news story, naturally sparked a great deal of enthusiasm among journalists. With the intentional guidance and cooperation of the company's PR department, Oriental Electronics was positioned as a victim in need of sympathy, while the Hong Kong Police Force became the primary target of criticism, blamed for their negligence and inaction, which had led to the deterioration of Hong Kong's social order.

A hint of a satisfied smile appeared on Li Xuan's face. On one side, there was intense public pressure, and on the other, there was a two million Hong Kong dollar reward from Oriental Electronics. The choice the Hong Kong Police Force would make was obvious.

"Xuan, this is the latest improved GameBoy. Do you have any suggestions?" Du Wenqiang walked into Li Xuan's office, proudly pulling out a palm-sized, orange GameBoy from his pocket and smiling as he handed it to Li Xuan. The chaos of the previous day had not affected the company's normal operations. Li Xuan took the new gadget from Du Wenqiang, and his smile grew even wider.

When Li Xuan first created the Hong Kong Blocks game, he knew it wasn't suitable for arcade machines. The sales of Hong Kong Blocks in recent months had proven this. The arcade version of Hong Kong Blocks was priced at only two-thirds the cost of Tank Battle, but it still received fewer orders.

While the arcade version of Hong Kong Blocks sold well in the U.S. and Japanese markets, even though it didn't match the sales of Tank Battle, it easily outperformed other arcade games released by companies like Sega and Taito at the same time.

However, this could be attributed to the lack of competition in the arcade market at the time. The graphics of arcade games in the early 1980s were not as vivid and rich as they would be a few years later, allowing a casual game like Hong Kong Blocks to dominate the market.

The most suitable platform for Hong Kong Blocks was a handheld game console, like the one Li Xuan was holding. In his previous life, the first time he played Tetris was on a borrowed handheld console.

For the post-90s and post-00s generations, the handheld game consoles they played were mostly Sony's PSP, Nintendo's DS, and Microsoft's Xbox. But for the post-70s and post-80s generations, the first thing that came to mind when thinking of handheld game consoles was the Nintendo GameBoy.

Few people in China had ever bought an authentic GameBoy, as the price, when converted to RMB, was several hundred yuan, which was equivalent to half a month's salary for an average worker in the 1990s.

Fortunately, the various small and large electronics factories in China produced a wide variety of counterfeit products, allowing Chinese children to enjoy a childhood filled with games and GameBoys, just like children in other countries.

Li Xuan carefully examined the new handheld console sample. It was almost identical to the GameBoy he remembered, with a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen on top and a directional pad and two function buttons on the bottom left and right, respectively.

Just last month, Oriental Electronics had submitted a global patent application for the cross-shaped directional pad design. This was one of the key patents that made Nintendo a dominant force in the gaming industry, and now it was in Li Xuan's possession. He was indeed taking steps further down the path of others, eventually leaving them with no way forward.

"There's a small switch here. If you flip it up, the entire game screen can be removed!" Du Wenqiang pointed out the clever design of the game console to Li Xuan.

According to Li Xuan's initial idea, the game console must be able to change game cartridges to maintain its longevity with a steady stream of new games. Selling game cartridges was also more profitable than selling the console itself.

The GameBoy was actually Nintendo's second handheld console, released in 1989. Before that, Nintendo had launched its first truly popular handheld console, the GameWatch, in 1980. However, the initial design of the GameWatch was a single game per console, with no ability to play other games on the same device.

Li Xuan had not understood why Nintendo made this design choice until he developed his own handheld console. The issue was the LCD screen. The GameBoy, which could play new games by changing cartridges, used a dot matrix LCD screen. However, in 1980, this technology was not yet mature.

The most widely used and inexpensive technology at the time was the printed LCD screen. As the name suggests, a printed LCD screen had patterns pre-printed on it. This type of screen was commonly used in electronic calculators.

If you carefully observe the display of an electronic calculator, even without any numbers showing, you can see a row of "8"s faintly printed on the screen.

Given this technological limitation, even Li Xuan could not find a solution. Therefore, the design of Oriental Electronics' first handheld console could only display one game per screen. However, following Li Xuan's requirements, the game screen and the ROM containing the game content were designed as a single, easily detachable module, essentially a large game cartridge with a screen.

The cost of this game cartridge accounted for about half of the total manufacturing cost of the console. This meant that when Oriental Electronics released new games, players could save half the cost by buying the game cartridge instead of a new console. Lower prices were the foundation for expanding the game market.

Li Xuan opened the GameBoy, which Oriental Electronics had named. He was indeed quite shameless, not only stealing the game but also the name of the console. From now on, the name "GameBoy" would have nothing to do with Nintendo.

The game cartridge inserted into the console was Snake, the simple yet addictive game that later became popular with Nokia phones. This game was undoubtedly very suitable for a handheld platform, easy to pick up and play, yet endlessly engaging.

Although Li Xuan loved games, his gaming skills were quite poor. After eating only four or five blocks, he accidentally failed to change direction in time, and the snake's head collided with the edge of the screen, resulting in a "Game Over." In contrast, the gaming experts in the development team could play the computer version of Snake and grow the snake to nearly fill the entire screen.

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