Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 405: 389: Playing VR Games with Mirage?

Translator: 549690339

Just as Lincoln sat down in the office, he received an unexpected phone call.

The “missing person” Liang Tian suddenly contacted him.

Lincoln thought for a moment when this person last contacted him.

This was not because he didn’t care about his employees. It was just that after Liang Tian had taken leave a month ago to return to his hometown and embark on his dream for the second time, he almost went off the grid.

It couldn’t be helped, as going back to his hometown was his second startup in a sense, opening a game experience store for himself rather than a branch for Cloud Dream.

Naturally, there was no reason to report his work in Cloud Dream’s office software.

“Hello??” Lincoln answered the phone.

“Boss, I’m sorry!” Liang Tian apologized as soon as he opened his mouth.

“Huh?” Lincoln was bewildered, “How did you let me down?”

“My game experience store is open now.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Lincoln wondered, “Could it be that you think you’ve realized your dream and don’t want to come back to work?”

“No, of course not.” Liang Tian quickly clarified, “I’m more than happy to work at Cloud Dream! I don’t have any thoughts of leaving!”

“Then why are you apologizing?”

“My experience store, the price of playing Mirage, is higher than the experience store’s.” Liang Tian’s tone was filled with guilt.

“Because there are various consoles in the store, ranging from portable consoles, arcade machines, home gaming consoles, VR to Mirage. It has been proven that the one-size-fits-all time charge during the trial operation is not feasible, and there are many disputes among customers.”

“But if we charge separately for different consoles, there are too many devices in the store, occupying considerable space, and the operation pressure is enormous. Mirage has no choice but to charge more than the experience store’s charge of 10 dollars an hour. Otherwise, the more outdated VR equipment won’t have the right to charge over 30 dollars an hour, not to mention the even more outdated game equipment compared to VR. The pricing disputes are too significant.”

“In order to keep the store running, I had to set the price of Mirage at 45 dollars an hour.”

As the head of Cloud Dream Experience Store, Liang Tian was well aware that Lincoln’s intention to set such a surprisingly low price was to benefit more people.

But he couldn’t bear the price, as the store wouldn’t survive at that rate.

However, Lincoln comforted Liang Tian, “It’s your store, and you can decide on your own, no need to care about the Cloud Dream Experience Store’s prices.”

He understood that the thing about morality and ideals is that it is meant to restrain oneself.

You cannot use it to restrain others; it is simply meddling and minding other people’s affairs.

So, he just took care of what he thought was right, without demanding others to be the same as him.

After all, he was also aware that he accidentally received a blessing, which gave him the right to be willful.

“Don’t feel burdened, just keep going!” Lincoln comforted Liang Tian a few more words before hanging up the phone.

Meanwhile, he wanted to see if it was possible to play VR games in the virtual world.

And because of Liang Tian’s call, he couldn’t help but think, “Perhaps we could move all those other game consoles into the virtual world?”

In this case, Liang Tian’s experience store only needs to install one kind of Mirage equipment, and customers can play games of all kinds.

The pricing issue will be resolved directly.

Of course, the impact of Liang Tian’s small store is just the smallest impact. The more critical effect lies in the fact that it seems like an opportunity to build a unified game platform across the country or even the whole world.

After all, to create a unified platform, the barriers between different devices need to be broken down first, right?

Cloud Dream’s technology seems to be capable of doing this.

However, upon further thought, Lincoln found the challenge a bit too difficult –

If they were to replicate the hardware of handheld consoles, cell phones, computers, and home gaming consoles, not to mention VR devices, in the virtual world, it would not be challenging, and it could even be said to be simple.

But to have this hardware run gaming and software from the real world would be more difficult.

The Mirage 2.0 host uses hardware that is nothing more than mature products on the market and does not have performance that far exceeds its peers.

In terms of performance alone, it’s on par with the latest generation VR consoles from NetDragon, Flying Fox, and Wild Island.

It’s just because the virtual world’s construction technology is advanced enough, plus the player’s brain is involved, that the Mirage seems to have no limits.

But Lincoln was well aware that the Mirage did have limits.

If you were to convert the entire Night City into a format supported by a VR console and let the most advanced Flying Dragon 3rd Generation download it, the VR equipment’s console wouldn’t be able to store it.

Even if you tried your best to upgrade the storage and cut down Night City’s details, it would be paralyzed instantly when running.

But when the positions are reversed, the gap is not so obvious –

Using Mirage to store the main body of “Blaze 3” can hold at most a few dozen copies, and if you really want to run it, it’s not even possible to run two instances at the same time.

That’s because Mirage needs to first simulate a VR game’s runtime environment and then use the simulated “virtual VR console” to run the game.

It’s a bit like building a computer in “My World” and then using that computer to play Snake.

The computational power required to do that is far greater than playing Snake directly on a computer.

This is why players in the virtual world must jump through personal panels to access the Internet and cannot find a computer in the game that connects directly to the external Internet.

As for working directly with game companies to develop games and even retool old games in the virtual world based on virtual environment construction technology so they can run without pressure,:

Lincoln gave up on the idea after just a brief thought.

Because this involves the underlying technology of virtual world construction, it’s very difficult!

– The few times Lincoln played games in the virtual world with Mavis, he would buy the game, hand it to Mavis to crack, and then she would reset it in the virtual world.

If he had to do it himself, he wouldn’t want to waste the time.

Even now among Cloud Dream staff, maybe only Randall could do it, and it would take a lot of time.

Most Cloud Dream staff still use the simplified development tools provided by Lincoln.

Subsequent learning and improvement mostly revolve around these development tools, figuring out how to make them more efficient and easier to use.

So compared to teaching people how to start from scratch, learning the underlying technology, it’s quicker and simpler to develop a “virtual environment upgrade version” of a game for them directly.

Moreover, if you have the energy, why not use it to cultivate your staff?

Of course, having said that, Lincoln was also someone who knew how to make do.

If the Deluxe version is not available for now, we can start with the Youth version (crossed out)!

If you can’t run the game directly, just put the equipment aside and connect a wireless panel.

Then connect the Mirage and the equipment, and use the Mirage to control the console to play the game, isn’t that enough?

In this way, the original equipment is still running the game, and Mirage just acts as an “input” and “output,” substituting the keyboard, controller, omnidirectional treadmill, and terminal display.

What is this?

This is cloud gaming!

The technical difficulty is greatly reduced!

Lincoln immediately began to ponder what hardware and software licenses this technology would require, and whether or not to obtain licenses and collaborate with console manufacturers or game companies.

He was genuinely interested in it.

But soon, Mavis interrupted his reverie, “Master~ NetDragon has announced that the real machine is coming soon!”

“It’s coming at last.” Lincoln shook his head, thinking he’d first look at NetDragon’s moves.

As for using Mirage to play VR games?

He can practice with NetDragon’s equipment tomorrow!