Chapter 97

But Li Xuan's investment steps in the mainland were very cautious. Apart from the nominal investment in his roommate Lin Yuhao's real estate company, he had not taken any substantial actions. He had many concerns. On one hand, the main market for Oriental Electronics was in the United States. Although Sino-U.S. relations were beginning to thaw and formal diplomatic relations had been established, the mutual distrust was still deep. If Oriental Electronics were too proactive, it might be labeled as "pro-Communist," which could have a fatal impact on the company's expansion in the U.S. market.

On the other hand, the reform and opening-up policy in the mainland had not yet become clear. The development of the special economic zones was rapid, but it also sparked significant controversy. The conservatives denounced the special zones as "new concessions."

At this time, if Oriental Electronics were to invest, it could easily get caught in the vortex of the struggle between the reform and conservative forces. In his previous life, Li Xuan was just a technician, not as well-connected and adept as old businessmen like Li Ka-shing and Ho Ying-chow.

Therefore, Li Xuan had been waiting, but this reception gave him a glimpse of the opportunity for cooperation. Compared to large-scale industrial investment, academic research collaboration was more significant for Oriental Electronics. Given the company's limited strength and its foreign enterprise status, it was impossible for it to compete comfortably with the major American electronics giants in U.S. universities.

However, the situation was different in the mainland. This was a virgin land. The quality of the Chinese people was no less than that of any Westerners. Due to special historical reasons, Chinese universities had become seriously disconnected from the rapidly evolving international research directions over the past decade.

Moreover, the relatively backward economy in the mainland meant that the government's funding for scientific research was limited. This made it difficult for Chinese universities to catch up, even if they had the intention, due to the lack of funds and equipment. They could only look on in despair.

Li Xuan suddenly had an idea. He could use the semi-academic, semi-commercial platforms of the Oriental Electronics Laboratory and the Oriental Semiconductor Laboratory to provide financial support under the guise of Hong Kong University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, building a bridge for cooperation and exchange with mainland universities.

With the international academic exchange as a cover, Oriental Electronics would face fewer institutional constraints when collaborating with domestic universities. Otherwise, if every project collaboration led to debates about whether it was capitalist or socialist, scientific research would be impossible to conduct.

Wang Jiagang relayed Li Xuan's invitation at the reception to the leading officials of the inspection team. The leader of this Hong Kong visit was a deputy minister of the Ministry of Education surnamed Wang. Minister Wang readily agreed, and the next day, he sent someone to call Oriental Electronics to discuss the details of the visit.

"Minister Wang, distinguished principals, please look this way! Earlier, you visited our production department. Now, we are entering the R&D department of Oriental Electronics!" Li Xuan pointed to an arcade machine that had been placed in the exhibition area. "Oriental Electronics started with arcade games, and this is a new game we are currently developing!"

As soon as Li Xuan finished speaking, a technician immediately walked up to the arcade machine and began demonstrating how to operate it. This was a semi-finished version of the "Super Mario Bros." arcade machine. The game's background framework was already in place, but when the technician made the main character jump, move forward, and backward, there were occasional minor lags.

"The cartoon background on the screen is actually the result of extensive data processing by the CPU inside the game machine. As you can see, there are still occasional lags that affect the game's smooth operation. This requires our technicians to further improve the game's data algorithms!" Li Xuan said with a smile.

This was the first time "Super Mario Bros." was being shown to people outside the company. Li Xuan believed that the principals in the inspection team had no idea about intellectual property theft. If it were a game company's peers visiting, these things would be kept as company secrets.

"One of the visitors asked, "Is there really a market for such game machines? What price can they be sold for?" For the principals from the mainland, game machines were still a very new and unfamiliar thing.

In the mainland delegation, people like Principal Wang Jiagang, who had studied in Guangzhou and could speak fluent Cantonese, were in the minority. Most of the others did not understand Cantonese. Among the senior executives of Oriental Electronics, only Li Xuan and He Guoyuan, who had studied in Taiwan, could speak fluent Mandarin, so they were responsible for the entire reception and explanation process.

Li Xuan nodded to He Guoyuan, who then took over the conversation: "As you saw when visiting our arcade factory, all the workers are very busy. Even though our factory has maximized its production capacity, it still cannot meet the large number of orders, and we have to outsource some orders to other factories! Currently, our company sells about 20,000 game machines per month, with monthly sales revenue exceeding 30 million U.S. dollars!"

The figures He Guoyuan reported made everyone gasp. Monthly sales revenue of 100 million RMB! Everyone's gaze toward the arcade machine changed instantly. It was as if the machine's frame was not made of plastic but encrusted with gold.

He Guoyuan then took a GameBoy handheld game machine from an assistant and began to introduce it: "This is another type of game machine developed by our company. It is small and portable, and we call it the GameBoy!"

"This game machine was recently launched in Japan and Hong Kong. It is priced at 5,000 yen in Japan and 100 Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong. The sales momentum is very good, with over 10,000 units sold daily in Japan alone!"

Oriental Electronics had prepared a small gift for each of the visiting principals: a beautifully packaged GameBoy game machine and a complete set of game cartridges.

Afterward, Li Xuan guided everyone to visit other R&D departments.

"Our company's future development cannot be limited to the game industry alone! Please look at this computer. It is a workstation computer we have just developed for internal use!"

Li Xuan pointed to a computer on a desk in the office. "This computer is more powerful than ordinary personal computers, using the latest 6 MHz MC68000 processor from Motorola! It also comes with CAD development software designed by our company to assist engineers in circuit design and other tasks!"

In fact, the workstation computer developed by Oriental Electronics was still immature in design, with suboptimal computational performance and high costs. The accompanying UNIX operating system ran poorly, far from being ready for the market. As a result, Oriental Electronics still needed to purchase a large number of DEC's VAX series minicomputers for technical development.

However, Li Xuan was not discouraged. At least Oriental Electronics had taken the first step in independent research and development. With continuous funding and the overcoming of one challenge after another, new products would eventually reach technological maturity.

The entire visit went very smoothly. After learning that this was a company with monthly sales exceeding 100 million RMB, the entire inspection team's view of Oriental Electronics changed dramatically. Previously, everyone thought that game machines were just toys for children and not a significant industry, but now no one dared to look down on them.

How many electronic companies in the mainland could match Oriental Electronics in terms of production scale? Moreover, the company was earning substantial profits from Western countries.