章 23: PlayStation Inception

The meeting went as smoothly as I have half expected it to. The people from the console development team agree with whatever garbage I put forth for the PlayStation.

They are fucking yes-man.

It either that or they are so fearful of losing their job that they couldn't speak their mind.

While I demand respect from everyone working for me, directly or indirectly, I still prefer them to have some independent thoughts and opinions.

More than that, they should have the fucking courage to tell me when I am wrong.

I need goddamn leaders not mindless followers!

And I do not punish people for their brutal honesty.

Heck, I prefer the cold hard factual truth over shitty sweet lies. The latter is like a cancer that must be weeded out before it spreads.

Seeing it is pointless to continue with the meeting any further, I decide to just dismantle the hardware development team and move everyone into game development instead.

At least there, their technical knowledge and coding skills could be put to use.

Due to my high hiring standard – not so high when compare to the 21st century – I am in need of alot of professional game developers and coders.

I have plenty of graphic designers, storywriters and audio engineers working in the game development team, but programmers are necessary to make the actual game.

For that, I decide to bring in some Hydra personnel from their Research and Development division. I also request a meeting with the chairman from Crisis System.

Crisis System deals with the Electronic and Computing Sector.

The company is fairly new when compared to all the other companies under my control.

Despite that, Crisis System has make some significant progress in hardware engineering. It also have a massive manufacturing complex that I can put to good use.

Hundred of billions of dollars have been spend in the company and its complexes after all.

You got to spend money to make money, and putting money back into the economy makes the world go round.

This is why so much money is going and out of Chrono Holdings every single day. The company spends as much it makes in return.

I mean to say it makes a lot more than it spends. Even money in the its bank is making money because it is being lend to the American people at a very good interest rate.

The people I have requested arrive to the company by the afternoon. Some of them has to travel half way across America as well as the world. Hydra has a headquarter in Africa now.

Since everyone is part of the inner circle, we can speak our mind freely.

"It can be done with some adjustments to our manufacturing capabilities, but not in the timespan you have allotted. Perhaps, a few more weeks is in order, Mr. Maxwell. If time is a constrain then I suggest we forgoes the DVD medium in favour of the DLCD. It also brings down the cost."

Larry Norman speaks up. He is the chairman of Crisis System. He quickly explains what DLCD is for me to understand. Hydra personnel already knew since they designed the damn thing.

DLCD is an acronym for Dual Layer Compact Disc.

This effectively doubled the capacity of a standard CD from 700 MB to 1.4 GB. There is also Triple Layer version, but it is not worth the effort due to exponential manufacturing cost.

While DLCD is still far from standard capacity of DVD at 4.7GB, it is more than sufficient for most games of the 1990s to 2000s.

3D gaming is still in its infancy after all.

"Very well. That is acceptable. What else?"

I accept the changes since DVD technology is still very new. It shouldn't be marketable yet. The general public is not aware of its existence.

I am trying to kill two birds with on stone like the original PlayStation 2 back in the original timeline. It is a game console, but also a DVD Player. Why buy two separate devices when one can do both for a lot less.

However, having DLCD as a medium, I can still distribute home media such as movies and serial shows through it.

"Do we really need to have internal memory disk? Not to mention it is detachable as well."

One of the Hydra scientists asks.

"Yes. People are generally lazy, especially gamers and couch potatoes. If they don't have to switch disc between each play, it is all for the better. I would like to have wireless capability for the controllers as well, but doing so will reveal some of the cards we do not want to reveal yet."

I look at Larry.

"What is the maximum capacity of a hard disk that your company can produce?"

"About 256GB. 512GB if you wish. Although it is going to be difficult explaining how our hard drive far out pace all our competitors in term of speed and capacity."

I nod. Sometimes it is hard to keep the tech level to the minimum. I have to – for now.

2GB hard drive is the current limit right now. It still also cost an arm and a leg for the average consumer to buy such amount of storage.

"We don't need that high capacity on release. About 16GB should do. Make sure it is 3.5 inch standard and compatible with higher capcity such as 32GB and 64GB for gamers with deep pockets. Now, as for the cost for the PlayStation itself. I suggest $199.99 as starting price."

I point out.

"Almost 20 grand? Isn't that a bit too expensive, Mr. Maxwell? A CD player costs about about $200 on average. While the gaming console ummm PlayStation will play DLCD as well as CD, an average person wouldn't know the difference. We do have the manufacturing capability to produce anything cheaply, but it should at least cost reasonable."

Another Hydra scientist comments.

"20k? No. I said $199.99. $200 bucks!"

Everyone nearly spat out blood.