Memory Management Program

Watching the taillights of the cars belonging to Director Terauchi and Director Hatano merge into the traffic and disappear completely from sight, Nakayama Takuya finally looked away and walked back to the headquarters building.

Their mission was arduous. They not only had to travel to Hong Kong to conduct in-depth investigations of electronics factories that had already had preliminary cooperation with Sega, but also to carefully assess their production capacity, cost control level, and, crucially, yield rate, in order to finalize the outsourcing plan for the production of peripheral components for the new console.

Afterwards, they will travel to Taiwan to try to contact those semiconductor companies that Nakayama Takuya mentioned could become Sega's "plan B," planting a seed for Sega that could potentially change the industry landscape.

This undoubtedly bought Nakayama Takuya the Japan headquarters.

After seeing off the two directors, Nakayama Takuya barely paused for a moment before turning back to the Hardware Development Department.

He convened a meeting of several core game development team leaders in the Hardware Development Department's conference room.

"Thank you for your hard work, everyone."

Nakayama Takuya's gaze swept over each of the slightly tired team leaders present.

"The development of the launch game for the new console is progressing well, thanks to everyone's hard work and wisdom."

After a brief moment of affirmation, he subtly changed the subject.

"The powerful performance of our new mainframe is already evident to all."

"The MC68000 gives it unprecedented processing power, while the Z80 ensures rich and delicate sound effects."

This hardware architecture, directly accessible to developers, allows top teams to fully utilize every inch of the hardware and create truly amazing works.

He paused, observing the group leaders' reactions.

"But,"

He emphasized his words.

"This extreme degree of freedom may pose a significant technical hurdle for some third-party developers, especially those with limited programming skills, small team sizes, or those who are new to our platform."

"Direct memory access means that developers need to handle complex memory allocation, reclamation, and protection themselves. A slight misstep can lead to an endless debugging nightmare, or even project delays and a drop in quality."

The scene described by Nakayama Takuya resonated with the senior developers present, causing their brows to furrow slightly involuntarily.

They knew all too well how difficult it was.

"So, I have a suggestion."

Nakayama Takuya leaned forward slightly.

"I hope to select a few of the top programmers from various development teams who have the deepest understanding of our new host hardware architecture to form a temporary special task force."

"The goal is to design a low-resource-consumption, highly reliable memory management program for our new host, capable of timely reclaiming fragmented memory."

The air in the conference room seemed to freeze for a moment.

"This program,"

Nakayama Takuya continued to explain, his voice clear and unwavering.

"It will be offered as an optional tool, or rather, a 'development aid kit,' to third-party developers."

"It's not mandatory; teams pursuing ultimate performance can still choose to directly modify the hardware."

"However, for developers who want to get started quickly, or whose game genres don't demand extreme performance, this memory management program will significantly reduce their development difficulty, shorten the development cycle, and help them turn their ideas into reality faster, which also reduces overall development costs."

Ultimately, the goal is to enrich the gaming ecosystem of our new console and attract more excellent third-party titles.

The team leaders fell into a brief moment of contemplation.

Nakayama Takuya's proposal was undoubtedly well-thought-out.

They are all veterans in the industry. The vivid example of the FC has already clearly demonstrated to everyone that a thriving and diverse third-party game ecosystem is just as important to the success or failure of a console as the performance of the console itself.

The success of the Nintendo (FC) was largely due to its large third-party support base.

Nakayama Takuya's plan paved the way for building such an ecosystem for Sega's new console.

"I agree with Takuya- kun's opinion."

Yu Suzuki, from the Second Development Group, was the first to speak. He had worked with all sorts of complex hardware assemblies and was most familiar with the complexity of directly managing memory. He also understood how much convenience a convenient development tool could provide to a development team.

"A good memory management tool can indeed make it easier for many small and medium-sized teams to join us."

"Our First Development Group also supports this."

"This solution is very necessary; it can effectively lower the barrier to entry for porting games."

"Later, we can also integrate programs and interfaces into the development kit to help developers effectively monitor and manage memory. This will allow more manufacturers to fully utilize the host's capabilities."

Yuji Naka also added.

The other group leaders also nodded in agreement, expressing their understanding and support.

They trusted Nakayama Takuya's judgment and understood the long-term significance of this work.

"Very good."

A relieved smile appeared on Nakayama Takuya's face.

"Then, I ask all group leaders to coordinate as soon as possible after the meeting and select the most suitable candidates. I hope this special task force can be established within a week and begin preliminary design work."

He set an initial timeframe, demonstrating the high importance he placed on this matter.

We will fully cooperate.

The group leaders responded in unison.

After the meeting, Nakayama Takuya did not leave the Hardware Development Department immediately, but went straight to the office of the department head, Manager Nakamura.

Department Head Nakamura was a seasoned veteran, currently engrossed in a pile of technical documents, a pair of glasses with a strong prescription perched on his nose.

Hearing the knock on the door, he looked up and saw it was Nakayama Takuya. A slight smile appeared on his tired face.

"Special Secretary Nakayama, please come in quickly."

He stood up, gestured for Takuya to sit on the sofa opposite him, and personally poured him a cup of hot tea.

The atmosphere in the office was much more relaxed than in the meeting room, filled with a faint aroma of tea.

"Minister Nakamura, excuse me for disturbing you."

Nakayama Takuya took the teacup and said with a smile.

You heard about the meeting just now, right?

Minister Nakamura took a sip of tea and asked.

"Yes, I already know about the memory management program."

Nakayama Takuya nodded.

"This is a great idea; it's definitely a boon for third-party developers."

Minister Nakamura expressed his agreement.

"However, I came to see you today to discuss another idea."

Nakayama Takuya put down his teacup, leaned forward slightly, and spoke with a hint of barely perceptible excitement in his voice.

Nakamura Head Nakamura looked at him with interest. "Oh? Takuya- kun has another new idea?"

"Yes, a vision for the future of the portable gaming market."

Nakayama Takuya began to sketch out the blueprint in his mind.

"I envision developing a completely new handheld game console."

Nakamura raised an eyebrow slightly, and his pen unconsciously stopped moving.