Chapter 186: Hardware and Software
Azem immediately frowned at Zek’s answer and growled. Of course, they would have to make a sequel someday, but at this point, when they had only just escaped hell, he did not even want to think about it. Azem glared at Zek for quite a while, barely managed to calm his anger, then spoke again.
“No, I mean what we talked about before. The thing about trying to make something independently.”
“Ah. That?”
Only then did Zek look as if he understood what Azem meant, and he scratched the side of his head.
It had been a few days earlier. After releasing the game, sleeping as if he had passed out, and then resting, he had recovered his senses to some extent. Then, after receiving word that the response to their new work was not bad and seeing the reactions on Spirit Space, Zek felt that they had succeeded again this time.
For now, he was happy. Then his thoughts naturally shifted toward money, and he suddenly remembered the profits that had to be distributed to Meta Soft.
He did not particularly feel wronged. Of course, since Zek was also human, it was not that he felt no regret at all, but this was a fair calculation. And in truth, he had received help beyond investment funds, including advice and promotion, so Zek comforted himself by telling himself that he should not feel that this was a waste.
But the story would be different if they made something independently without receiving investment.
And it was not only because of money.
It had been when he ran the officially released Myth and Adventure the other day. The Meta Soft logo that appeared together with his own Imiz Soft logo had stood out sharply to him.
At first, he had felt nothing but reassurance from being able to borrow Meta Soft’s name recognition, but now that he looked at it, it felt as though his company was being overshadowed.
He was not talking about something like pride.
Even from a business perspective, it would be troublesome if Imiz Soft did not have its own independent brand power.
It was not scheduled at the moment, but no one knew what might happen later, so there was a chance they might split from Meta Soft someday. He had already made a hit game called Myth Wars, and since he expected this Myth and Adventure to sell decently as well, he thought that even if they became a game company with as many as two hits, they might still be treated like nobodies if Meta Soft overshadowed them.
So he had quietly brought this up to Azem and Truban.
At the time, the two of them could not give a clear answer. It was not a topic they had deeply considered before, and it was an important issue that could not be discussed lightly.
But after throwing out such an important topic, Zek had said nothing more for several days, so Azem grew both worried and curious, which was why he brought it up now. Zek answered with an awkward smile.
“I think we need to think about it more.”
When they had just released their new game and the response began exploding, his confidence had swelled, so he had thought that way. But after some time passed and he thought about it more carefully, the risks began to come into view.
In the first place, the reason they had been able to make a hit was because Meta Soft’s investment funds allowed them to raise the quality. No matter how he thought about it, he did not think they could produce another successful work without their current Graphics Team.
Of course, since they had succeeded twice in a row, even after paying the settlement amount to Meta Soft, a considerable amount of funding would remain. With that, they could probably maintain the Graphics Team independently for some time.
But having a Graphics Team did not guarantee success.
If game development were that simple, there would not be only a few companies among the countless developers that managed to seize success.
So Zek agonized between ideals and reality. It would likely take quite a long time before he reached a conclusion.
Ras sat at the chairman’s office desk, lost in thought as he looked at the documents on it.
This was a report from Meta Hardware, and just as the title stated, it announced the completion of the new computer’s design. When a new CPU suddenly appeared and disrupted the existing plan, Ras had wondered what they were going to do, but they had succeeded in redesigning it faster than expected.
Well, considering how much I invested, they should at least do this much.
He was grateful that Karkov had worked hard, but he did not feel especially moved. The funds poured into this design had been considerable.
Since the new CPU had appeared, existing manufacturers were obviously going to develop new computers as well. Ras wanted to surpass them while also achieving excellent performance, so increasing the investment had been an unavoidable choice.
Honestly, the intelligence he had heard from various parts of the industry had made his blood run dry. He had desperately wanted to call Karkov in and hound him.
But given Karkov’s personality, doing that would only have the opposite effect, so Ras held back, poured in support instead, and finally got results like this.
Of course, there was still no actual product, only the design and expected specifications. No, it was not that there was no prototype, but it was literally just a prototype, so its stability was lacking.
Because of that, they could only run test programs on it, making it difficult to actually feel its performance. Thinking about it, there had been quite a lot of prototypes too. They had made up to the fifth version.
He did not know how things were on Earth, but since magical assistance entered from the CPU onward, and the Magic Team had also cooperated and inserted many parts into the design, there were too many side effects and a lot of trial and error.
Still, in the fifth version, there were only slight points of instability, and it was nearly complete, which was why a report titled “design complete” had come up like this.
Ras recalled the prototypes he had seen so far. They really looked like Frankenstein, with chips, circuits, and wires stuck all over them.
Karkov and the engineers had looked at the numbers on the monitor and jumped in joy, saying it was a success, but honestly, Ras could not sympathize and simply forced himself to smile.
But since Karkov himself had submitted the report calling it the final design, it was certain that completion was not far off.
What Ras was thinking about was not the completion of the new computer, but his next game.
Since the new computer was scheduled to come out, he wondered whether they should make a game suited for it. It was not only because he wanted to make and play the latest kind of game.
If he considered only the game itself, making it with specifications similar to what they had used so far was likely to produce better sales. But if he considered promoting the new computer, developing a game that matched the new computer’s specifications also had business meaning.
And if the new computer sold well according to plan, those games would also keep selling more over time, even if their initial sales were low, so in the long run, it would not exactly be a loss.
As expected, we should make it for the new computer’s specs.
After agonizing with his arms crossed for quite a while, Ras made that decision. He had been getting tired of simple 8-bit games anyway. Once a decent excuse came to mind, his heart immediately settled on that direction.
Ras grinned as he wondered what kind of game he should make, then checked the next document. Originally, he had planned to make an FPS somehow, but recently, a game he wanted to make had appeared, so he was slightly torn.
However, the title of the next report blew away those idle thoughts and made him focus on the document before his eyes.
It was about the development of the OS that would be installed in the next-generation computer. Some might ask why an OS had suddenly appeared, but this was absolutely necessary.
The new computer’s performance was one reason, but above all, there was the difference between 8-bit and 16-bit, so the existing OS could not run properly on it. No, beyond that, there were many processors to manage, including the graphics card, sound card, and network, so an OS optimized for them was needed.
But in truth, Ras had concerns about developing it directly.
Of course, since he knew very well what kind of success Microsoft had achieved on Earth, emotionally, he leaned toward direct development. Things were different these days, but until a little over a decade ago, Microsoft’s Bill Gates had been the richest person in the world for years. No, even apart from Bill Gates, just looking at Google’s Android showed that an OS was an extremely tempting item.
But there were realistic problems.
It would require tremendous effort and funding, yet success could not be guaranteed.
Ras was indeed a programmer, but games and operating systems were very different things. And the same was true of the other developers at Meta Soft. It meant that they currently did not possess that development capability.
And in the first place, first-mover advantage was important for an OS, and this world already had companies that made and sold operating systems. Of course, since independent standards ran rampant in each country, there was no company monopolizing the market to the extent Microsoft did.
To overcome these problems, an enormous amount of money would obviously be required. If they failed, the loss would be huge, and Ras worried that it might pointlessly hinder the spread of the Meta Computer.
Even on Earth, as Ras remembered, companies like Nokia and Samsung had developed independent operating systems but ultimately failed and hurriedly adopted Android. Looking at that, it was clear that even large corporations with plenty of money and technology did not necessarily succeed.
However, these worries were resolved when MTC became a huge success and raked in an enormous amount of money.
Since they were raking in money with a rake, the risk of failure was no longer much of a risk. In fact, even though they had gathered a large number of highly paid developers to form a massive development team for OS development and were pouring in performance bonuses to carry out the project, it was not much of a burden.
Well, if we just keep selling cards like this, even if I can’t reach Bill Gates, becoming a chaebol shouldn’t be a problem.
Ras chuckled as he recalled the sales generated by MTC.
The OS currently being developed by his company was based on a graphical interface. There had not been any deep deliberation behind this. He was simply using the successful method he had seen on Earth. Of course, he did understand that an intuitive and easy interface was necessary for a high adoption rate.
In truth, this world already had GUI-based operating systems. Perhaps unlike Earth, mice had existed for a long time here, and as games became popular, interest in graphical interfaces had grown.
No, thinking about it, even on Earth, GUI-based operating systems already existed in the 16-bit processor era, long before Windows took off, so perhaps it was not that strange.
This OS was not from the Republic of Smite, but from a company called Zbe in the Republic of Tonidu, and it was named Click. And to start with the conclusion, it was a failure.
Ras had been curious, so he obtained it as a set with a computer from Tonidu and tried using it. First of all, the OS itself functioned properly. The design was decent, and though it was slightly different, it had a feeling similar to Windows.
The problem was that it was too much for an 8-bit computer. Tonidu’s computers performed better than those of other countries, and this OS was also quite well optimized.
Even so, the OS was too heavy for the computer. Moreover, perhaps because of Ras, many released games used every last bit of system performance, so Click, which consumed excessive resources, inevitably ended up being ignored by users.
But the new computer Ras was making was different. Thanks to magic, the CPU itself performed well, and Karkov’s design was excellent, so it was expected to deliver performance close to the 386, which could be called the final boss among 16-bit systems.
Ras looked over the report while holding onto the hope that he could become Microsoft.
He did not know much about operating systems, but he had studied them in his own way, so he could at least understand the report.
No, in the first place, when they first designed the concept, Ras had also joined in and offered various ideas. After all, he had used many GUI-based operating systems and application programs on Earth, which could be called the future by this world’s standards.
In any case, development seemed to be progressing smoothly. If things continued like this, it seemed they would not need Plan B.
Plan B was a plan prepared in case OS development was delayed. It involved cutting out all parts that would take time to develop, including the GUI, first creating and releasing a DOS-like OS, then later releasing a proper OS again.
Footnotes
Translator’s Notes
GUI — Graphical User Interface; a computer interface that lets users interact through visual elements such as windows, icons, menus, and pointers instead of only typed commands.
Microsoft — American technology company founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen; best known for Windows, one of the world’s most widely used operating systems.
Bill Gates — American businessman and programmer, co-founder of Microsoft, and one of the world’s wealthiest individuals for many years.
Google Android — Mobile operating system based on Linux and developed by Google; first commercially released in 2008 and widely adopted by smartphone manufacturers.
Nokia — Finnish telecommunications and mobile phone company; historically dominant in mobile phones, later struggled during the smartphone transition.
Samsung — South Korean multinational conglomerate; its electronics division became one of the world’s major smartphone manufacturers and adopted Android as its main mobile operating system.
DOS — Disk Operating System; command-line operating system family used on many early personal computers, especially before graphical interfaces became mainstream.
386 — Common shorthand for Intel’s 80386 microprocessor, released in 1985; a major 32-bit x86 CPU that became influential in personal computer development.