Quick Question: Kong WalMart Options

[Wakshaani]

Just curious which Mega, is any, owns Kong WalMart? It sounds like it's a WalMart company with holdings in Hong Kong (obviously), but it also has vibes or a merger/aquisition that had WalMart folded into another company. Is it a free-standing AA, or is it a subsidiary of, say, Wuxing, that I've managed to overlook?

Much obliged!

[Saint Sithney]

I think the joke was that everything at Walmart is made in China and shipped out of Hong Kong.

Pretty sure they're a Single A corp.

[CanRay]

That, and it gets around copyrights: "See, it's a parody!"

Single-A if not AA, or owned by a AAA. Wuxing is possible, as is any of the JapanCorps or Evo back in it's Japan-Days. Hell, it might be Ares. Less likely S-K. Horizon is too late to the scene to have gotten it.

[MK Ultra]

Wasn´t it Aztech? I am sure it was listed as a subsidiary in one of the corp books (probably Download)!

[Wesley Street]

Just curious which Mega, is any, owns Kong WalMart? It sounds like it's a WalMart company with holdings in Hong Kong (obviously), but it also has vibes or a merger/aquisition that had WalMart folded into another company. Is it a free-standing AA, or is it a subsidiary of, say, Wuxing, that I've managed to overlook?

No details have been provided. If you want Kong WalMart to be a locally owned subsidiary, an A or AA multinational, or a subsidiary of an AAA, like Aztechnology, no one can provide evidence to argue with you. The power is your hands!

[CanRay]

*Sings in the key of off*: "You got the touch, You got the power!"

...

OK, that was so much cheese that I want a shower now. Using the showerhead with UV-Light Cleaning Action that I got at Kong-WalMart!

[Headshot_Joe]

*Sings in the key of off*: "You got the touch, You got the power!"

...

OK, that was so much cheese that I want a shower now. Using the showerhead with UV-Light Cleaning Action that I got at Kong-WalMart!

Funny, my mind immediately jumped to Captain Planet, not Transformers.

"Earth!"

"Fire!"

"Wind!"

"Water!"

...

...

"Fine, Heart! *sighs* Why did I get the lousiest ring?"

"By your powers combined, I am- What the HELL?!?! You guys haven't summoned me in nearly 80 years! What have you done to the environment? Where's Gaia? And what are these things?" *points to rampant insect and toxic spirits*

[nezumi]

No details have been provided. If you want Kong WalMart to be a locally owned subsidiary, an A or AA multinational, or a subsidiary of an AAA, like Aztechnology, no one can provide evidence to argue with you. The power is your hands!

Possibly intentionally. The name 'Aztech' has some bad PR floating around it despite their hard work. Wal-Mart is popular in a lot of places which are pretty agressively anti-Atzlan. Hiding that connection and leaving Kong WalMart to stand on its own feet is just good business sense. It's cheap and distributes assets in case of future PR fallout.

[Wakshaani]

Wal-Mart's general exclusion in the Shadowrun mythos is a tad odd. Admitedly, in '89, they weren't that big a deal and "Japan will buy us all!" was too strong of a scoietal influence to really care, but, as the 90's rolled on and we hopped over Y2K, it's overlooking has grown rather tangible.

Which is why "Kong WalMart" threw me off when I saw it.

Considering how huge the corporation is, it's weird to se eit just sorta ... vanish.

I have theories, mind you!

But nothing official.

[Wakshaani]

Oh, as a notation for just how big, in 2054, the Chromed Accountant mentioned that MCT had around 95 Billion in revenue (A number far larger than officially posted but a hair below what the real figure was. We can call the real number 100 billion and that's probably about right.) ... in 2007, WalMart pulled in $348 billion (In 2011, it's gone up to $421 billion. In 2002, the oldest I have data on hand for and before most of the Shadowrun timeline split off, it was a mere $204 billion) ... this means that WalMart, fifty years ago from the Shadowrun timeline, was making two to three times what one of the AAA corps was making. MCTwas the #3 corp at the time, behind Fuchi and S-K, and it was darn close between the three. It's entirely possible that Wal-Mart of 2001 was making what the three largest AAA corps were making *combined*.

That's not just big, that's Nestle big.

[CanRay]

Note that the money for MCT indicated is not US$ for how much MCT made, but Nuyen. *BIG* difference. If we say that the UCAS$ is on par with the US$ (Which is overvalued IRL), then MCT made UCAS$475 in revenue that they admitted to. Also, that probably does not include subsidiaries and secondary companies as well.

That makes Wal-Mart a modern-day AAA-Level Corp, certainly, but not as big. And Wal-Mart has a number of unfortunate vulnerabilities built into the company. The "Just On Time" delivery system it relies upon (Even for a Bulk Store) can be easily broken by... Oh... Say a bunch of Native Americans dancing up a storm and disrupting planes, trains, and automobiles with uncontrollable weather?

Merging with some big China-Corp would certainly be easily seen (Possibly with Wal-Mart doing the buying, or it being a mutual merger), and would let them keep a A-Level or AA-Level in the 2050s-2070s.

[Wakshaani]

Welllll, the dstruction of Wal-Mart's part of the history that I had in my head, but which isn't official.

I figure that it was taking some beatings as fuel costs jumped in the Shadowrun timeline post 2000, and, of course, by the time o fteh Great Ghost Dance, things are all kinds of off track. China's eventual warlordisms take the manufacturing base out (Mind you, having seen teh wirting on teh wall, they were bound to have moved their production facilities ahead o fthen, but ate some big costs.)

The biggie, in my head, was that WalMart had the second biggest computer network in the world, after NORAD. This seems like the ideal birthplace for the Crash Virus. It would give it maximum spreadosity, as the Walmart network (Which has several satellites) is worldwide, letting it reach all over when it grew big enough, and it's the only place that really had the raw processing power to breathe life into it.

"So where did the virus come from?"

I'd say one of the proto-megas, which was trying to find a way to knock Walmart off the perch and move up into a new business level. Not sure *which* one, but, taking out the computer network from the home node would have devastated the Walmart business plan even more ferociously than the growing fuel costs and loss of manufacturing would have. From there, it's a short tumble into irrelevancy.

I figure that the company's still around, having sold many assets off to stay afloat. Most of the actual Walton family sold out long ago, figuring it was dying off, but one's still around, keeping an iron grip on the corp as it struggles ahead. In addition to being the largest private employer in the US, Walmart's also the largest real estate owner, so, controlling land would give them an income stream for a while. They're also at the forefront of today's drone truck movement, so, I'd expect them to have perfected a drone trucking operation, which would have been sold off to other firms when times got dire. Most of their old product lines and business model is likely subsumed into Stuffer Shack, giving Aztechnology the entryway into North America that it needed for the actual legitimate business.

Probably an A, or AA, rated corp, still based out of Bentonville, Arkansas, but with a Hong Kong firm sharing ownership, since they needed the cash infusion.

(As for the finances above, true the US dollar and the Nuyen aren't the same, but, you can use them for a historical comparison. If you try to move them up to face one another with modification, you also would have to take 60+ years of inflation into account, which would blow the Wally numebrs even higher. It's safe to say that, had it been carried forward, they would have been one of the top MegaCorps, but the Crash and the years of chaos took them out of the running.)