The Milestone Results of Recruiting Third-Party Developers
After returning from Bandai, Takuya wrote Bandai's name on the space previously reserved in the sales command center.
The various teams returned to headquarters one after another, bringing back the results of their negotiations with the third-party manufacturers.
"Manager Nakayama, this is the current summary." A capable subordinate placed the compiled documents on Takuya's desk. "It's pretty much as we expected. The most enthusiastic responses are mainly from small and medium-sized companies that primarily develop PC games."
The subordinate's tone carried a hint of excitement, "Our terms are incredibly favorable to them. Especially in the cartridge production stage, unlike Nintendo, they don't have to place a full order upfront and bear all the risks themselves. This alone is enough to make those small factory owners, who have been tormented to the point of exhaustion, extremely grateful. They say they'll never have to lose sleep over whether their first order is 30,000 or 50,000 again."
Another person nearby couldn't help but chime in, "That's right! The president of a small company just pulled our people together to book a kaiseki meal. As soon as he sat down at the table, he downed a glass of sake, saying that he was developing games for Nintendo, and before he even made any money, he was almost bankrupted by cartridge prepayments and inventory risks. He said our terms were a godsend."
"What about Falcom?" Takuya asked without looking up as he flipped through the documents.
"A letter of intent has already been signed. They've long wanted to port Ys and Dragon Slayer to home consoles, but the NES's capabilities were too limited. Our Mega Drive's 16-bit architecture is a godsend for them; the porting process won't require drastically reducing the game's quality due to hardware limitations."
Takuya nodded; this was within his expectations. Nintendo's imperial system was indeed powerful, but its strictness and exclusionary nature gave Sega an opportunity to squeeze in.
The subordinate paused for a moment, then continued, "However, President Kato said they don't have enough manpower and need Sega's support for their porting work."
Takuya waved his hand. "Well, that's not a problem. We've hired quite a few people during this graduation season, so we can have our senior employees train them on these relatively easy projects while they learn. It'll be a good opportunity for them to practice. Once they come back, we can summarize and improve our development experience from this year, and then we can start the second wave of our self-developed game boom."
"However—" the subordinate paused, "Several major companies, such as Capcom, are still maintaining a very ambiguous attitude."
"As expected." Takuya put down the documents and leaned back in his chair. "Tsujimoto Kenzo to power in the arcade world."
It would be a loss of face for us to cooperate with our old rival. Besides, Mega Man is selling like hotcakes on the Famicom, their arcade business is booming, and they seem to be developing new arcade boards – quite ambitious indeed. Their cash flow is very healthy.
We have the confidence to wait and see.
Takuya and asked, "What about Namco? They've had quite a bit of contact with us before."
"President Nakamura Masaya— " The subordinate's expression became even more troubled, "He was very polite, and he enjoyed the tea, but he just wouldn't budge. Our people feel that he's using our PCEngine and NEC's as leverage to raise the price, trying to see who offers more."
Takuya smiled knowingly. "Namco must be in the most dilemma right now. They originally wanted to jump on the PC Engine bandwagon and start from scratch, but they found that Hudson and NEC weren't doing so well. We've almost caught up with PC Engine's sales in just six months. Now they want to jump ship, but they're afraid of getting hurt. Let them struggle with this for a while longer."
1
Takuya closed the report and casually placed it on the table.
He looked around, noticing the expectant or worried looks on everyone's faces, and suddenly smiled.
"What's the rush? Rome wasn't built in a day, and Nintendo's dominance won't be overthrown overnight." His tone was as casual as if he were discussing the weather. "Big companies have their pride and calculations, that's normal. When our team expands to a certain size, they'll let go of their inhibitions. Everyone, let's get back to what we're doing."
After dismissing his subordinates to attend to their own work, Nakayama Takuya, seeing that there were no new situations requiring his attention, excused himself and headed towards the Hardware Development Department.
Unlike the bustling sales control room, it was much quieter here, with the scent of pine resin filling the air.
Nakamura was engrossed in a pile of blueprints and component samples when he saw Nakayama Takuya enter. He adjusted his glasses, and the seriousness on his face disappeared, replaced by the excitement typical of a technician.
"Mr. Nakayama, you've come at the perfect time. Our evaluation team just completed the preliminary testing and evaluation these past two days and has produced a preliminary research report."
"Oh? How did it go?" Nakayama Takuya walked over to his table with great interest.
Nakamura didn't answer directly. Instead, he picked up a green circuit board from the table, connected by several wires, components, and buttons, and handed it over. "This is the most simplified functional model we made based on your concept. Look at this." He pointed to the LCD screen in the center of the circuit board and then flipped a switch.
The screen instantly lit up with a soft white light. Although there was no image on it, the light made Nakayama Takuya's eyes light up as well.
"Sharp has just completed the development of a front-light solution that can replace the backlight requirement. The power consumption is even lower than we expected, and the cost is within a controllable range. The only downside is that the color performance might be slightly worse. However, our current solution is a monochrome screen with 4 levels of grayscale, so the color performance isn't significantly affected. Your insistence on providing a switchable light source for the screen is technically entirely feasible." Department Head Nakamura's tone carried a hint of emotion.
He put down what wasn't even a prototype and handed over a neatly bound report. "This is the core."
Nakayama Takuya took the report and quickly flipped through it. The hardware configuration and design framework were not much different from his initial proposal, only more detailed, filled with detailed data and supplier information. His heart beat slightly faster. When he saw the hardware configuration list that was strikingly similar to the Game Boy in his memory, a strong premonition surged into his heart—the trajectory of history was being deflected in his hands.
"The report's conclusion is clear." Nakamura's voice brought him back to reality, "All your requirements, including high integration, low power consumption, and reliability, can theoretically be achieved. But there's a core prerequisite, which is also the biggest challenge."
"CPU," Nakayama Takuya stated the answer directly.
Nakamura Head Nakamura nodded approvingly. "That's right, it's the CPU. We evaluated all the readily available Z80 chipsets and their derivatives on the market, and none of them could simultaneously meet our requirements for extreme low power consumption and high integration. If we were to use existing components to build it, the finished product would be large and heavy, and the battery life would be a joke. The only way out is for us to do it ourselves."
He paused, his tone turning serious. "We need to design a completely new, compatible chip based on the Z80 instruction set. We need to integrate as many functions as possible, including the memory controller, audio processing unit, and I/O control. Furthermore, we can change the I/O port operation to memory-mapped I/O control, verifying the cartridge's legitimacy via the built-in boot ROM at startup, thus increasing the difficulty of cracking. This is no longer a simple selection process; it's about designing a SoC (System-on-a-Chip) from scratch."
Nakayama Takuya closed the report, a smile spreading across his face. "Isn't this precisely the value of 'preliminary research'? To understand the problem and then find the direction towards the optimal solution." He patted the report, the soft rustling of the paper particularly clear in the quiet office.
"Minister Nakamura, you and your team have done an outstanding job. This report is more than just a feasibility assessment; it's a project blueprint that can be submitted to the board."
Nakayama Takuya's gaze sharpened. "Tomorrow, I will formally propose the handheld console project to the board of directors. Please bring this report with you then."