Chapter 21: Selling the Patent to Nintendo

  Returning to Beijing with a light load, Yang Yun this time openly and honestly found Alexei.

  Negotiations for licensing Tetris have entered their final tense stage.

  Yang Yun finds Shijia to recite books and deliberately lets Shijia's Yongye and Alexei come into contact, startling the intelligence personnel of the Heavenly Kingdom with a cold sweat.

  Sega came over to talk about what, specifically what content, all of this can be easily found out, no need for Nintendo's commercial spy bribery Nagao's translation, Alexey himself would occasionally mention a few sentences to Takeuchi.

  "Oh dear, Sega has contacted us and expressed great interest in Tetris!"

  "Sega is very sincere, with sales of over 10 million sets, they can come out with $2, haha..."

  "No way, no way. Nintendo is our first priority, how could we possibly collaborate with Sega? Mr. Nishiyama, you're too sensitive. I just enjoy watching Sega's frantic behavior!"

  True and false are the same, only Yang Yun and Alexei themselves know in their hearts. The two of them turned over their hands to make clouds and covered their hands to make rain, playing Nintendo and Sega, two super companies, to death.

  But poor Sega kids, they never knew that they were just the third-party chips in this business negotiation. In fact, Yang Yun didn't have any intention to cooperate with them on the patent of Tetris. They were just a smokescreen released by Yang Yun to force Nintendo to make concessions!

  After Nintendo found out about Sega's interest in Tetris and entered the bidding phase, Inayama represented Nintendo in signing an agreement with Alexey and Yang after emergency consultations with headquarters.

  The rights to Tetris were licensed to Nintendo of Japan for use in their products, with a fee paid per copy sold. Nintendo agreed to pay 1.5 USD per copy, with no limit on the type of console or platform used (including Game Boy and Famicom), as well as arcade machines. The contract was set for twenty years (the maximum term for software patents at the time). Every two years, the price could be renegotiated, but it could not exceed a 10% increase (meaning that the highest price during the contract period would not exceed 4 USD per copy). Additionally, Nintendo had the right of first refusal to buy out all rights to Tetris.

  In return, Alexey had to pay the price of exclusively licensing Tetris to Nintendo for home console systems, and could not authorize any other company to do so, with the exception of personal computer PC software derivatives.

  Nintendo had no intention of expanding to personal computers, and Yang Yun would not allow Nintendo to take away the authorization of computer software either. After haggling with Aleksey, they happily signed a licensing agreement.

  Tatsumi Kimishima, with typical Japanese humility, bowed to Alexey and shook hands, saying sincerely: "Mr. Pajitnov, from now on you will be our most important partner at Nintendo, I hope we can work together in good faith and open up new territories for the gaming industry!"

  "Alec is calm and collected: "Nintendo is an extremely powerful, rare and best partner, we will continue to release new game software, looking forward to our future cooperation. Nintendo will always be our first priority partner!"

  Official words and deeds are handled with precision, speaking without revealing any secrets, grasping the essence of diplomacy.

  Behind his back, who knows what kind of insults he'll be subjected to!

  Nintendo is a publicly traded company that values contracts and transparency, so they are not afraid of the two making small moves.

  Seeing off Nintendo's negotiating team, Aleksey's tense face suddenly burst into a sunflower-like smile, and he excitedly hugged Yang Yun, this tall Russian polar bear, almost choking him to death.

  "Yang! I finally understand why you insisted on being reasonable!"

  After signing the authorization contract, Nintendo's first procurement contract followed, with an order for 1 million copies of the game cartridge, and a patent authorization fee of $1.5 million, which almost made Alexei lose his composure on the spot.

  Although this number was within Yang's expectations, the first shipment of Game Boy orders had 1 million copies, which was a must-have for Nintendo in the North American handheld market, and also scared Yang.

  Yang Yun couldn't help but admire, no wonder Nintendo can achieve a market share of over 90% globally, it's really a big move!

  Although the fixed price of $1.5 is lower than $5 by three-quarters, compared to the tiered pricing of 10 million units at $1, 100 million units at $2, and over 100 million units at $3, Nintendo has confidence in selling over 100 million units, making the fixed price of $1.5 per unit still a great deal for them.

  As for Nintendo's own profit, there are many ways to leave their own profits, and a card may have more than $5.

  It's a win-win situation!

  Yang Yun was very satisfied with this price, he wasn't unclear about Nintendo's terrible sales in the future, but he still signed the contract.

  Because he is now racing against time, and competing in speed rather than caring about the tens of millions of dollars, for him, just a small amount of start-up capital is needed, $10 million and $50 million are the same.

  Moreover, if he insists on a high price, Nintendo might really give up, and then he will have no way out, can only go to seek Sega's cooperation, not to mention that the patent fee cannot be obtained at a high price, but also has to be hostile to Nintendo, it's not worth it.

  He doesn't have the capital to compete with Nintendo at all now.

  A licensing order worth $10 million, Nintendo had to pay Alexei $15 million in patent usage fees, and after splitting 3:7, Yang Yun could get $1.05 million, immediately becoming a millionaire, or a multimillionaire, which was already tens of millions of yuan at the black market exchange rate at that time.

  The two of them stared at the contract, both extremely excited.

  After the celebration, Yang Yun said: "Aleksey, want to listen to my suggestion?"

  "Aleksey exclaimed: "Yang! It's so lucky to know you! I seem to have seen the beautiful and plump Russian girls waving at me, saw the big barrels of vodka, tons of caviar, and the beautiful red poppy flowers blooming for me! Stalin is above, oh, damn it, you say, I'm listening!"

  Yang Yun smiled: "According to our agreement, you will get a share of $450,000. Although this amount seems like a lot, it is far from enough, and we are not in a position to enjoy ourselves yet. I suggest that you go to the United States to register a company specifically for this matter, because over the next twenty years, we will all be dealing with Nintendo. I want you to keep a close eye on Nintendo - the more they sell, the more we make! Aleksey, don't you want to enter the game industry? If you go to America, perhaps you'll get even more. Trust my judgment, it's absolutely correct!"

  Alexei nodded: "Yang, I understand what you mean. Still the same sentence, long live the friendship between the Chinese and Soviet peoples! This matter, leave it to me."

  Yang Yun nodded: "I also believe you. Alexei, first stabilize your footing in the United States, immigrate over, and who knows, maybe after a few years I'll follow you over too!"

  Yang Yun is sincerely good for Alexei, now not much time away from the collapse of the Soviet Union, advance to the United States to avoid the wind, all assets into hard currency dollars, absolutely stronger than he took 450,000 US dollars exchanged for rubles, back to Russia as his rich and powerful, two years later, the ruble will depreciate almost worthless!

  Alexey arrived in New York, USA alone as agreed and registered a computer software company called Karinka-Tetris-Teology-Co.Ltd, abbreviated as KTT, with the Chinese name being Red Berry Block, specializing in the development of computer game software. The company had only two shareholders, with Alexey handling coordination and external operations.

  Yang Yun became a hidden investor, almost no one knew he was the largest boss of KTT. He stayed in the country and now had money, finally able to show off his wealth.

  Yang Yun signed a simple agreement when he left Kingsoft, promising not to use the source code of Greedy Snake, Russian Blocks, Eat Beans and Tank Battle for personal gain within one year after leaving Kingsoft.

  In other words, although Little King Company did not prohibit Yang Yun from engaging in the same industry, the ownership of these four games should belong to Little King Company. Yang Yun cannot give them to others for use, otherwise it will violate the agreement and be taken to court by Little King Company. Moreover, Director Feng of the Group's Personnel Department warned that if Yang Yun violates the agreement, Little King Company will also investigate the responsibility for the first leak.

  Such restrictive agreements are common, and even Zhao Yongping was forced to sign a three-year non-compete agreement when he left Little Tyrant Company to start his own company, Step High. For three years, Zhao could not produce game consoles or else he would have to pay a huge penalty to Little Tyrant Company.

  The source code of the four games is restricted, and it is mandatory to give up all rights to these four games. All this is okay, but after breaching the contract, they will still be held accountable for the mysterious leak last time. It can only be said that Little King Company is too ruthless and has no human touch at all!

  In exchange for his freedom, Yang Yun no longer owed Xiaobao anything. He had no psychological pressure at all. With the classic games worth billions, a year would pass quickly as long as he stood firm. The output value of 10 billion was nothing to be afraid of for Yang Yun.

  Of course, before creating his own company, Yang Yun had one more thing to do, very important and necessary - visit Sega again!

  If I don't cheat you, who will I cheat?