“Are you still being tortured by your driving test?”

“Are you still afraid to practice because you fear being scolded by your instructor?”

“Are you still troubled by long waiting times for practice and inability to master better reverse parking techniques?”

“Are you still worried about accidentally damaging the instructor’s car and having to pay compensation?”

“Outu Technology’s new product, the Safe and Civilized Driving Simulator, will solve all your troubles!”

After the promotional video finished playing, the screen switched back to Chang You.

Chang You explained: “After our Smart Fitness Clothes Rack launch event last time, everyone left comments saying that while they enjoyed seeing us do something outrageous, beyond the entertainment, they still wanted to see something truly useful.”

“So we reflected deeply and have brought you our intelligent new product: the Safe and Civilized Driving Simulator set!”

“This Safe and Civilized Driving Simulator adopts the highest-end direct drive motor steering wheel, all-metal micro-motion pedals that fully simulate real foot feel, with extremely rich features!”

Chang You began introducing each component of this package.

Direct drive steering wheel, mount, seat, hydraulic handbrake, foot pedals, operation panel, G-force seat, and so on.

He also provided detailed explanations about the differences between the three package options.

“The Safe and Civilized Driving Simulator set allows you to master proficient driving skills without leaving home! Whether you’re someone who has never touched a car before, someone working hard to get a driver’s license, someone who just passed their test but doesn’t dare drive on the road, or someone who has been driving for many years but still wants to further improve their driving skills—it’s your perfect choice!”

“Next, we’ll work hard to collaborate with major driving schools across the country, striving to fill all national driving schools with Safe and Civilized Driving Simulators, thoroughly eliminating everyone’s difficulties in learning to drive!”

Although the audience below still politely applauded and showed support, once this product was revealed, it was obvious that everyone’s enthusiasm wasn’t very high.

Especially after hearing Chang You say that driving schools were considered an important target customer group for this simulator set, even more people in the venue lost interest.

The launch event hadn’t even finished, but people were already whispering and murmuring to each other.

“Today’s launch event isn’t that great. The first half was interesting, especially seeing Director Chang appear on a deserted island, but the second half feels rather bland.”

“Yeah, in terms of outrageousness, the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack already reached the peak, and it’s indeed difficult to surpass that. Moreover, this product itself is a bit too serious and doesn’t have that same feeling as the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack.”

“Then what if we look at this product from a normal perspective?”

“The promotional video at the beginning was quite interesting. I never thought learning to drive would be so difficult for many people.”

“But no matter what, a simulator still has huge differences from a real car. Can this thing really help with getting a driver’s license? It would be unfair to say it has no help at all, but I think having it or not probably makes little difference.”

“I think it doesn’t work well even from a normal product perspective. The price is too expensive, it takes up so much space—ordinary people probably can’t afford it.”

“Those who like driving simulators will definitely buy it. Foreign direct drive steering wheels are at least 40% more expensive than this, and some big brands have even doubled their prices. With Outu Technology having the Tenda ecosystem, this steering wheel will definitely sell out.”

“But the problem is that this package plan isn’t great. What’s the use of this operation panel? For most simulation driving games nowadays, the buttons on the wheel face are sufficient—spending money on this operation panel is pointless.”

“It feels a bit neither here nor there. For casual players, buying a force feedback steering wheel from a major manufacturer is enough—two or three thousand yuan and it’s compatible with console games. For real enthusiasts, they definitely already have their own direct drive steering wheels—they wouldn’t sell theirs to buy this one. It’s only attractive to some new driving simulator players, but this group seems way too small.”

“Indeed, among racing games, so many people use controllers or keyboards. Those who actually use steering wheels are a minority, let alone such a complete set of equipment.”

“Aren’t there also driving schools?”

“That’s even less likely to count on! Indeed, some driving schools have simulators, but at most, a driving school would purchase just a few units, right? And driving school simulators are all rip-offs—such small display screens, and the operation has huge differences from real cars.”

“Simply put, those simulators at driving schools exist purely because they recruit too many students and don’t have enough real cars for practice. Many students wait too long for practice time, so driving schools came up with this idea on a whim, letting new students practice on simulators first. On the surface, they say it helps you better handle real cars, but in reality, it’s all just a compromise—it’s just to disperse the flow of people, so that even if it’s not your turn to practice on a real car after enrolling, you still have something to do.”

“Selling to driving schools will definitely move some units, as long as this simulator is better than other simulators on the market at a good price.”

“Not necessarily, because although other simulators on the market may be lower quality, their procurement price is low! This direct drive steering wheel solution is much more luxurious. If driving schools just want to give students something to do, is it worth spending so much? Small driving schools definitely wouldn’t be willing—only large ones with money to spare would do this.”

Not only were the audience at the venue discussing this, but viewers in the livestream were also talking about it.

The result of everyone’s discussion was roughly consistent: except for a small number of players who had been following the driving simulator field and had strong needs in this area, who were ecstatic about this, most ordinary players felt that this thing didn’t have much to do with them.

Most people thought that while this product could sell a certain amount, the main target audience was simulator players and driving schools, which didn’t have much to do with ordinary players, and sales wouldn’t be very high.

Of course, some people also mentioned that Tenda might employ its traditional art—equipping this device with a new game.

After all, the success of the Smart Fitness Clothes Rack owed much to “Fitness Battle.”

But could a racing game really make a steering wheel with a top package price of nearly ten thousand yuan popular?

No one could guarantee that, as there had never been such a precedent.

Many national racing games are quite popular, right? But that’s just the popularity of the games, with no obvious boost to peripheral equipment. Many people who used keyboards or controllers would continue using keyboards or controllers, and wouldn’t specifically buy a space-occupying steering wheel.

So, although this launch event received a lot of attention, it didn’t generate a very enthusiastic response in the end. People were more concerned about how Chang You was suffering on the uninhabited island.

Even many tech media outlets who came to the scene, when writing articles and planning videos, all focused on “Chang You suffering while remotely hosting a launch event,” and didn’t put much emphasis on the specific products launched at the event.

……

……

January 10, Thursday.

Pei Qian was eating breakfast at Slackin’ Internet Café while browsing his phone, checking if there was any news recently.

“Huh? Outu Technology’s new product launch event was held yesterday?”

“Chang You hosted the launch event remotely with a gimmick?”

“The peripheral product seems to have received an average response?”

“Great!”

Pei Qian was simply overjoyed.

These past few days, he had been worrying about next month’s settlement and hadn’t been paying much attention to the situation with the two game departments and Outu Technology.

Because GOG’s revenue had increased again after the World Championship, and the success of the Real Estate Agent Simulator and roller coaster projects had given Tenda more ways to make money, Pei Qian felt pressured.

Fortunately, Pei Qian had learned his lesson, and in this cycle, he had at least three or four different emergency money-spending methods available.

However, how to use these methods specifically still required careful consideration.

“Previously, I watched every Outu Technology launch event, and they all became hits afterward. This time I happened to miss it, and then the response was flat.”

“Could it be… really my problem? Things go wrong whenever I watch?”

“Watch in person, big problems; watch the livestream, small problems; don’t watch, no problems?”

“No, no, no, that’s impossible. Superstitious thinking is unacceptable.”

Pei Qian quickly dismissed this idea and carefully looked at netizens’ evaluations of Outu Technology’s new products.

Some players who were keen on playing simulators were indeed ecstatic. After all, a direct drive steering wheel at this price was too attractive. The prices of other accessories were also greatly reduced compared to foreign brands. Considering that Outu Technology is backed by Tenda, quality control, after-sales service, and supporting software wouldn’t be inferior. Just as the launch event ended and the product hadn’t officially gone on sale, it had already become the most attractive product in the steering wheel field.

But the problem was that this group of players was still relatively niche within the entire player community.

Outu Technology must have followed Mr. Pei’s consistent instructions: stock up vigorously!

The more stock, all piled up in the warehouse, the slower they’d sell—wouldn’t this tie up a large sum of capital?

Pei Qian was very happy; it looked like there was finally some good news.

He scrolled through the AiLiDao website again and saw the exclusive promotional page for “Delegate Academy” in the anime section.

Fei Huang Studio had already negotiated with the AiLiDao website. Unlike “The Inheritor,” this time the revenue share mainly looked at factors like views and viewing duration.

Although “The Inheritor” currently had quite poor reviews, Fei Huang Studio had a long-term cooperative relationship with the AiLiDao website. Plus, “Delegate Academy” could ride on GOG’s popularity and naturally had good attention, so the AiLiDao website still gave a good revenue share.

But the premise of the revenue share was that this anime not only had to have passable reviews, but also high view counts and long viewing duration, which was obviously unlikely.

Tomorrow night, the first episode of “Delegate Academy” would air, but the next episode… who knows when it would come.

After all, given the efficiency of Fei Huang Studio’s animation team, and considering the word count of the original “Delegate Academy” novel, it was definitely a “see you in another lifetime” series.

Pei Qian could even imagine the bullet comments after the first episode aired—the screen would definitely be full of “too short and weak”!