Translator: _Min_ Editor: Caron_
The last piece of good news was about Phantom helt from Future Technology.
In early April, Future Technology held a special VR ga industry summit in the Silicon Valley subsidiary. Future Technology invited hundreds of renowned ga companies and studios worldwide and signed a VR technology sharing agreent.
As early as the beginning of last year, Future Technology responded to the demands of parties to open up VR software developnt tools. However, because there were no supporting training sessions, major ga companies and studios were extrely slow when transplanting their gas to the VR platform. In addition, aside from the large vendors such as Microsoft, Sony, Sega, and Ubisoft, almost no one had the financial resources to rent a supercomputer as their own ga server.
It was precisely because of this that until April this year, there was still no large-scale VR ga other than “Godly Land” on the market.
But now this situation would soon change.
According to the signed VR technology sharing agreent, Future Group would send technical consultants to major ga companies to train groups of developers who could skillfully use basic VR developnt tools. Future Group would hold 5% of the shares of the participating ga companies. This 5% stake would enable Future Technology to acquire a seat on the board of directors in these companies.
However, Future Group promised to exercise only limited voting rights on the board of directors.
At the sa ti, in the latest update of Phantom Helt, the icon of VRga was added to the nu interface, although it was only a black fra with the words “stayed tuned” at the mont.
The positioning of VRga was similar to Steam on PC; users could purchase gas through VRga. All companies that joined the technology sharing agreent would be eligible to join VRga. For gas sold by other companies, Future Technology only charged 20% of the total sales as channel fees as well as a relatively low server renting cost based on server resource demands.
For technical reasons, Future Group completely sealed the possibility of piracy on the channel, and VR gas were the future of gas for the next era. Therefore, once the VRga application was launched, it imdiately attracted the attention of countless developers.
What’s more, so shareholders even directly announced at the shareholders’ eting that they would devote all their energy to the developnt of VR gas and completely abandon the piracy-rampant PC field.
At the sa ti, the launch of VRga also allowed Chinese ga makers to be hopeful. At the beginning of 2000, China had a lot of outstanding stand-alone gas, including Butterfly teor Sword and Chinese Paladins. However, these masterpieces that once hoped to compete with Japanese ga companies were, without exception, dead in their own hands. They didn’t even make it out of the country before being bankrupted by piracy.
The only Chinese Paladin series that barely survived today began to sell gas based on people’s nostalgia.
But now this situation could finally end.
All VR gas would be run on Future Group servers, and any server rental applications without copyright would be rejected. In addition, the genre issues that so countries’ ga makers worried about could also be perfectly resolved in VRga.
The platform’s own translation system would eliminate the problem of language barriers. Even if you made a ga that couldn’t be published in the country due to censorship, you could sell it in Xin and conquer the global market. The “backdoors” in Phantom Helt also made it possible for players in other regions to jump over the walls to purchase gas for sale in Xin. In other words, as long as your ga was good enough, even if it was sold in Xin with a population less than 100,000 people, the sales volu would still be able to break 100 million.
Could the people in the governnt go to Xin and burn their servers?
According to the relevant provisions of the WTO on virtual product services, there were no tariffs when selling gas in different countries, therefore this wouldn’t be classified as a tax-avoidance move.
It was foreseeable that in the next few years, there would be a wave of outstanding quality VR gas on Phantom, which would cent Future Technology’s dominance and develop VR into a flourishing market.
Microsoft Ga Studios, or MGS for short, was a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft that developed and distributed gas for Windows-based personal computers, Xbox and Xbox 360 ga consoles. Its developnt ga involved various fields from RTS to RPG. Classic titles included Age of Empires, Fable, and Halo. The consideration of MGS as the richest console ga company wasn’t an exaggeration.
At the summit, Future Technology invited MGS, and MGS CEO Aiden Nelson also personally attended the summit.
After attending the VR ga industry summit in Silicon Valley, Aiden stepped out of the venue and imdiately flew back to Redmond, Washington, and took his suitcase directly to Microsoft headquarters.
He handed the suitcase to his assistant and stood at the door of the CEO’s office. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.
As he expected, CEO Satya Nadera was working. When he saw Aiden entering through the door, Satya put the pen down and looked at him.
“How did it go?”
Aiden opened his hands and didn’t know how to answer the question. He rely took out a docunt from his briefcase.
“This is a VR technology sharing agreent provided by Future Technology. The fruit they gave is very sweet, but the conditions...”
Aiden spat out so words after a long pause.
“Are very harsh.”
Satya didn’t seem to hear any of his words. She took a look at the docunts and flipped through them.
Half an hour later, Satya laid down her docunts, picked up a pen resting on the side, and signed her na at the end.
“Not bad.”
Satya looked at the na and swallowed.
“Do we really want to let them control the MGS? Although it’s only 5% of the shares...”
“Think about it from another perspective – paying 5% of the shares will allow MGS to live. This isn’t a bad ending at all.” Satya grunted and shook her head with a smile.
Deducting 5% of the shares of MGS was equivalent to using 500 million US Dollar to join this agreent. With only 500 million in exchange for the possibility of entering the field of virtual reality, this deal didn’t seem bad at all. What’s more, Microsoft didn’t have much choice.
The introduction of VR equipnt was like an industry reshuffle. In this shuffle, even a small workshop with a market value of one dollar might beco the market-leading company with a market value of ten billion in the future. What was certain was that those small indie companies must’ve signed without hesitation. If Microsoft hesitated this ti, MGS may be surpassed by these indie companies in the field of VR.
Ignore the agreent, Future Technology also promised compensation for companies with high market value. This compensation was mainly reflected in the distribution of training resources. Large companies possessed more abundant talent pools, and Future Technology would also send more technical consultants to “help” them beco familiar with developnt tools.
Anyway, they were now a family.
“The next strategic goal of MGS is to port Minecraft to VRga. The only requirent is to occupy the sandbox ga market before everyone else!”
Minecraft, which Microsoft bought for 2.5 billion US Dollar, originally was prepared to be ported to HoloLens. However, sales of HoloLens was their first defeat in the VR field.
Porting Minecraft to a competitor’s platform was, in a sense, equivalent to a defeat. But from another perspective, it was also a choice. After all, it wouldn’t be wise to fight to the death in VR devices against Future Group, who had an absolute advantage.
[But... is this really okay?]
After picking up the agreent and looking at the expressionless CEO, Aiden finally stopped himself from asking the question that lingered in his head.
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