Pei Qian originally had no thoughts about gaming consoles, but after visiting the Morning Dew Gaming Platform, he suddenly had this idea.
Since they had already created a gaming platform, wouldn’t making a console also make perfect sense?
Comparatively, the probability of losing money by making a console should be much higher than making smart speakers, earphones, TVs, and similar products, right?
Gaming consoles were considered a money pit worldwide, with successful manufacturers definitely not exceeding the number of fingers on one hand.
And they barely made any profit.
So, Pei Qian thought that working on a console would be a good direction.
But after seeing Old Song’s excited expression, Pei Qian felt that Old Song’s reaction wasn’t what he wanted—the possibility of losing money clearly wasn’t high enough!
This reminded him of a classic scene.
Could a console lose money?
Yes, but not necessarily for Tenda.
Could a router lose money?
Yes, but only if the product was made strange enough.
Then could a console plus a router lose money?
May I ask who the master is?
I am Tenda’s Chief Designer, Pei Qian!
For making consoles, Tenda now had considerable accumulated experience. On one hand, they had many excellent game products that could be ported to their own console, and on the other hand, they had the Morning Dew Gaming Platform with enough players who recognized Tenda’s value.
If any company in China had the qualifications to make a gaming console, it would definitely be Tenda.
The risk of making money was too great for Pei Qian to bear.
At this point, Pei Qian thought of that famous joke about calling a gaming console a router.
Could making a router lose money? To be honest, it would be somewhat difficult.
Although routers were products with a certain technological threshold, they could poach existing technical teams or find contract manufacturers!
Even if the resulting product wasn’t particularly excellent, selling it a bit cheaper wouldn’t lead to losses.
Therefore, if the technology wasn’t extremely lacking, to lose money on routers, it would be necessary to make it sufficiently bizarre.
Thinking about it this way, Pei Qian immediately found the direction.
Combine a router with a gaming console! Make them into one device!
Wouldn’t that be bizarre enough?
Of course, Pei Qian had anticipated that Old Song would be confused, or even suspicious, so he added a few more sentences.
“Outu Technology’s products have always been dedicated to solving user pain points!”
“For example, the Fully Automatic Smart Debate Machine was created to solve the problem of debate machines not being smart enough.”
“The Smart Fitness Clothes Drying Rack was designed to solve the inconvenience of using fitness equipment to dry clothes.”
“Now, this router-console aims to solve the problem of gaming consoles being difficult to hide.”
“Many men forcibly claim their gaming consoles are routers. Isn’t that self-deception? How does something shaped like that resemble a router at all?”
“At the very least, you should add some antennas!”
“So, our product aims to solve this pain point, allowing men to openly place it in the living room and tell their wives, ‘It’s just a router! Although expensive, it’s definitely a router with excellent signal!'”
“Its appearance will look like a large router, a square octopus shape with antennas fully inserted—not one can be missing.”
“And even a lie detector wouldn’t help, because men would be telling the absolute truth—this really is a router!”
“It just happens to have a slight additional function: it can play games.”
“Besides this, combining a console and a router has other benefits.”
“Direct connection between the console and router can accelerate data transmission between them, directly avoiding potential network fluctuations that might occur when a console connects to a wireless network.”
“Furthermore, because its internal storage is large enough, it can also store resources, simultaneously functioning as a console, router, TV box, and more, providing consumers with an all-in-one living room solution!”
“Of course, since this gaming router has strong signal strength, I think it could also integrate a game streaming function. Whether it’s a computer, phone, console, TV, or other devices like VR glasses, they should all connect to this gaming router. This way, the router’s game images can be smoothly projected onto any display device!”
“Previously, streaming PC games to phones or phone games to TVs was quite troublesome and unstable, without a mature solution.”
“But with the gaming router, all this will change!”
“Create a dedicated wireless network in the gaming router, and any display device connected to this network can display the console’s game screen, achieving a cloud gaming effect at home in advance—play wherever you go.”
“Don’t you think this router has great potential?”
Old Song blinked, his face showing a shocked expression.
Wow, Mr. Pei’s words sounded very reasonable!
Could such an amazing product be conceived by someone with a normal thought process?
But thinking about it according to Mr. Pei’s ideas, it actually made sense.
What’s most important for a gaming console? First is obviously its excellent game content, and second is its hardware configuration.
Tenda wasn’t lacking in either of these aspects, or at least relatively not lacking.
Although they might not compare to those foreign gaming console giants, within China, Tenda was definitely the most qualified to make a gaming console.
But was that enough?
Perhaps not.
As a product, it needed unique highlights, reasons for people to remember it. If it was merely a poor imitation of foreign gaming consoles, why would players buy it? Why not buy a foreign console instead?
Domestic sentiment might be one reason, but if that was the only reason, it wouldn’t be enough support.
Although Tenda had many games, they were basically cross-platform. It wouldn’t be possible to remove games from the official platforms and make them exclusive to this console.
Even if they made exclusive games for the console, they would have to be new games developed later.
As for hardware, there probably wouldn’t be much advantage either.
Console hardware didn’t make much money in the first place. The strategy of all major foreign manufacturers was to sell consoles at the lowest possible price and then make profits from games.
High console prices hindered popularization. It was better to set a low price first to get the console into as many homes as possible, gradually cultivate players, and then make money with various excellent games.
Moreover, foreign console giants produced in large quantities and had no trouble selling, so they had stronger bargaining power with suppliers and could negotiate prices down.
Considering all this, even if Tenda subsidized their console, in terms of price, compared to those foreign consoles, they probably wouldn’t have any advantage in hardware configuration and price.
For players, a console was something that, even if they bought it, they would mostly buy just one. Those core players who owned all platforms were ultimately a minority.
Most players bought gaming consoles for fun. Having bought one, they might not even play through all the games, so why would they buy a second one?
This was also an important reason why the gaming console field was difficult to enter: emerging manufacturers simply couldn’t compete with those foreign console gaming giants.
Although Tenda seemed to have everything ready and only needed the final push, in reality, both in quality and quantity, they still had a relatively large gap compared to foreign console gaming giants.
To succeed in this situation, they needed to think of other methods.
And the concept proposed by Mr. Pei had, at the very least, created a hot topic and recognition. Once released, it would naturally attract players’ attention.
After combining a gaming console and router, some of its new functions, such as quickly, conveniently, and stably streaming game screens to all display devices connected to the wireless network in the room, would be advantages that other gaming consoles didn’t have!
Of course, to make the product reach this ideal state would require arduous efforts.
But at least Mr. Pei had pointed out a bright path for this product!
Old Song recalled those few proposals he had made earlier, like wireless earphones, smart speakers, TVs… and felt he was simply mediocre!
What was the most important quality for a product manager?
Imagination!
Priding himself as an excellent product manager, yet having such a lack of imagination, was truly shameful!
Looking at Mr. Pei, now that was the ideal form of an excellent product manager!
Thinking of this, Old Song firmly said: “Yes, Mr. Pei, I will work twice as hard to develop this gaming router well!”
Pei Qian nodded with satisfaction, then stood up: “Alright, the work here is arranged well enough. I should head back.”
Outu Technology shouldn’t be a concern in the short term.
Old Song saw Mr. Pei out, then went back to carefully contemplate these two proposals.
Just as Pei Qian got into the car, his phone rang again.
“Hmm? Why are so many people looking for me today?”
“Right, it’s already Friday. They probably have some lingering issues to consult about.”
“Qiao Laoshi is calling? If I remember correctly… he should be in charge of Rabbit Tail Live Streaming now?”
Pei Qian answered the phone: “Old Qiao, what’s the matter?”
From the other end came Qiao Liang’s somewhat anxious and worried voice: “Mr. Pei, I’ve discovered that Wolf Fang Live and YY Live are secretly poaching our streamers!”
“Although they’re not doing it openly, their actions are clearly larger than before, and the conditions they’re offering are more tempting. Some of our streamers have already jumped ship!”
Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling a bit excited.
Oh? Wolf Fang Live and YY Live are making their move?
Nice!
But… why are they still being “secretive” about it?
Just go all out and poach openly! I won’t stop you, really.
Pei Qian wasn’t entirely sure if this was directed by the Anti-Tenda Alliance. The poaching might have been instigated by the alliance, but since they weren’t daring to poach openly or burn bridges, it suggested these two live streaming platforms were still in a relatively wavering, hesitant state.
If that was the case, he’d give them a push!
Pei Qian said: “Let them poach, it doesn’t matter.”
Qiao Liang was stunned: “No reaction at all? Shouldn’t we at least expose their shameless behavior?”
Pei Qian smiled slightly: “There’s no need.”
“Streamers are free to go wherever they want. We can’t claim to be a free platform on one hand while trying to tie down streamers on the other, can we?”
“If the conditions offered by the other two platforms are truly tempting and they manage to poach our streamers, it just means we’re not doing well in some aspects.”
“To forge iron, one must be strong!”
On the other end of the phone, Qiao Liang was silent for a moment, then said: “Yes, I understand, Mr. Pei.”