Chapter 409 – Sony’s outraged
The VCD factory was still under construction and was scheduled to be completed last this year. The factory’s production would reach 500,000 units monthly.
After the success of the VCD, Feng Yu reminded Fu Guangzheng to quickly apply for the patent. This time, they must take the anti-trust laws into consideration.
Feng Yu had also told Fu Guangzheng that Wind and Rain, and Aiwa will work together. Wind and Rain will give the VCD technology to Aiwa. Aiwa brand was also a force not to be reckoned with.
This VCD was not only for movies. It can also be used to revolutionize the Karaoke industry. Aiwa was a prominent brand in music players. This will also increase the sales of music VCDs sales.
Currently, Fu Guangzheng had the rights to several records companies’ songs. These songs were not only in Chinese but also in English, Japanese, French and many other languages.
Feng Yu told them that once the factory was completed, they will manufacture the VCD disc first. It was because VCD disc sales will be several times more than the players!
This was the best opportunity. When the VCD players are launched, there will not be any pirated discs. But when the pirated VCDs start to appear in the market, the original discs will have a significant impact.
In Feng Yu’s past life, pirated VCDs sales were more than 10 times of those original discs. China’s piracy was one of the tops in the world. For example, when a Hong Kong singer launches a music VCD, the original version might be able to sell over 100,000 copies. But in reality, over a million people had bought this VCD. People were listening to this singer’s songs, but the singer did not earn a single cent from them. All the money were made by the piracy businessman!
But without a doubt, the appearance of VCD will stimulate the records industry again. Music videos allowed the fans to watch their favorite singers performing. Many songs got famous because of their music videos.
Feng Yu wished for this to happen as soon as possible. The more music videos were produced, the more people will buy VCD players, and the more he will earn!
Exchanging technologies with Aiwa would also mean that Wind and Rain will introduce its own Walkman or CD/
Heitaro Nakajima had been following Feng Yu’s instruction to continue to develop Walkman and CD players. CD and VCD had some common technologies. After these two companies exchanged technologies, both companies will benefit greatly.
Actually, Aiwa could start to produce CD players now. But their technologies were still behind Sony. If Aiwa were to introduce CD players into the market now, they will not earn many profits but will also suffer reputation losses.
Aiwa was now the best Walkman manufacture. Even when Sony had used BEE technology in their Walkman and had quality sounds, they were labeled as imitations.
Sony felt wronged. They had this technology for a long time. But they just had not introduced it. Norio Ohga was frustrated. After all, he was in-charge of Aiwa in the past.
Norio Ohga was tricked by Heitaro Nakajima. If Norio Ohga had known that Aiwa’s technology was so advanced, he would never sell off Aiwa’s shares. With Sony’s scale, they were still able to help Aiwa with their debts.
After Sony had bought Columbia Pictures, they were losing money every year. The losses they incurred could buy several Aiwa.
Aiwa would surely be able to repay their debts to Sony this year. After Aiwa had repaid their debts, they will have no relationships with Sony! Sony will also not want to see their former little brother becoming bigger than them.
But Sony was really unlucky. They had introduced better Walkman, but they were still losing to Aiwa. If this carries on, this year, Aiwa will overtake Sony and become the world’s leader in the Walkman industry!
How did Sony got labeled as imitations? It was all because of Feng Yu. Feng Yu had spent money to get the media in the Western countries to write articles about Sony copying Aiwa. He even provides the media with proofs.
For instance, one of Sony’s latest model had the most advanced technologies and also the best-looking design. Aiwa immediately pointed out the areas, like colors, technologies, where Sony had copied them.
Sony felt innocent. These technologies were almost the same. How could a Walkman function without a magnetic head? Colors were the most ridiculous. How many colors were there in this world? Aiwa had shamelessly introduced almost all sort of colors. No matter what color Sony uses, there will be similarities.
Similar does not mean imitating!
The exterior design was also nonsensical. All the Walkman were rectangular. Does Sony need to produce round Walkman just like CD players? If being rectangular shaped was imitating Aiwa, then all Walkman brands in this world were copying them!
But no matter what, Sony’s reputation was affected. Even their other products’ sales had dropped.
A Walkman had affected Sony’s brand value!
Once again, Norio Ohga was reprimanded at the board of directors by the Chairman. But luckily for him, his rival was also not spared.
This was because Nintendo had broken their partnership with Sony!
The video game industry had been Sony’s focus all this while. As people lives became better, they faced more stress. Video games were an excellent way to relieve stress. This will be a striving industry.
Sony had wanted to venture into this industry but was suddenly kicked aside by Nintendo. It was just like the way Sony had treated Aiwa in the past.
Sony had finally experienced the feeling of being betrayed.
They had invested lots of manpower, resources, and energy in the video game industry. But when they finally beat SEGA, they were kicked aside by Nintendo.
That’s right. Nintendo was the market leader in the video game industry. Without Sony, Nintendo will still be the number one video game company in the world.
Because of this incident, Sony made a critical decision. They will develop their own video game console. They have the technology and will surely take back the market share.
But at this time, Nintendo made an announcement. They will be working with Aiwa to continue to develop a video game console!
Sony was going crazy. How could Aiwa capabilities be compared with them? Nintendo had decided to stop working with them and chose Aiwa?
Sony discovered that this was the reason why there was no room for negotiations with Nintendo. They had been backstabbed by Aiwa!
Why did Nintendo choose to cooperate with Aiwa? It was because of China! Nintendo had wanted to enter the Chinese market. The Chinese market was a huge market due to the population. Their spending power was also increasing rapidly. This would increase their profits in the future.
Aiwa’s Chinese brand meant “love China,” and it was extremely popular in China now. It had occupied over 90% of the market share in the Walkman industry.
Also, there was already many video game consoles in China. There was no way for Nintendo to enter the Chinese market. They need Aiwa’s distribution channels and connections to open up the Chinese market. This was critical to Nintendo.
Furthermore, Aiwa had good engineers and diversified sales channels. Aiwa could make up for the losses incurred by Nintendo for breaking their agreement with Sony.
Aiwa had entered the video game industry!