Arrangements for the Christmas and New Year Slot

After the development team meeting, Nakayama Takuya sat alone in his office, his fingertips lightly tracing the open Mega Drive game release schedule.

The table shows only one project that is about to be released, highlighted in red: <The Shining Force: The Legacy of the Gods>.

As a high-quality SRPG, it can indeed be promoted as Sega's flagship SRPG.

As for the <Golden Sun> trilogy, it's still being produced by Rieko Kodama's team. The progress reports don't show much substantial output. His assistant has already submitted two progress budget comparison sheets to him based on financial feedback, but Nakayama Takuya intercepted them and they didn't reach the development team. Takuya can even imagine the worried and speechless look on the faces of the Finance Department when they present this comparison sheet.

But that's exactly what he wanted; slow and steady wins the race.

What he wanted was a game development team capable of creating top-tier RPGs for Sega.

So Takuya picked up the internal phone and called his assistant in.

The assistant quickly pushed the door open and entered.

"Send out this MD year-end release plan through the team responsible for third-party communications." Takuya pushed the thin schedule to the center of the table.

The assistant peeked over and almost thought he was seeing things. On the huge spreadsheet, from November to the New Year, Sega's main company had only released one game, <Shining Force: Legacy of the Gods>, with large blank spaces below.

The assistant paused, his gaze shifting back and forth between the red circle marking late November and the vast blank space leading up to the New Year.

"You mean we didn't release any new works throughout the entire Christmas and New Year holidays?"

"Yes, make room." Takuya leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his stomach.

"For example, Sega, in order to boost the market and strengthen the third-party game lineup for the Mega Drive, proactively reserved the year-end sales peak season for its partners, hoping everyone could seize the opportunity."

The assistant's mouth gaped slightly, unable to fully process the information for a moment.

Giving up the busiest sales season of the year doesn't sound like Sega's style.

Takuya noticed his hesitation and added, "By the way, I'd like to remind them that to avoid cutthroat competition, we hope each company can compile their projects and submit them to Sega. Sega will try its best to help our partners coordinate and avoid overlapping games of the same genre."

Third-party developers who received Sega's year-end release plan for the Sega Drive are all reviewing their own game projects to see if they can release their games during the peak year-end shopping season.

In Square's president's office, Miyamoto Masashi was reviewing documents.

There was a knock on the office door, and the secretary handed in a fax from Sega.

"Sega?" Miyamoto Masashi took it and glanced at it.

He hesitated for a moment, then picked up the phone and dialed the internal line. "Sakaguchi-kun, come to my office."

Not long after, Sakaguchi Hironobu pushed open the door and came in. His hair was messy and he had faint dark circles under his eyes.

Since the huge success of Final Fantasy, he has thrown himself into the development of the sequel. The recent news that the total sales are close to one million copies has excited the entire team, making them burn with passion like a tightly wound toy.

"President, what's up? Development is going very smoothly; Uematsu has already produced a demo of the theme melody, it's very..."

"Take a look at this first." Miyamoto Masashi pushed the fax over.

Sakaguchi Hironobu picked it up with a puzzled look, and his eyebrows twitched twice after just one glance.

Sega only has Shining Force at the end of the year? And the rest of the list is empty?

"They said it was to boost the market and leave opportunities for third-party partners." Miyamoto Masashi leaned back in his chair.

He said slowly.

They even "kindly" reminded us that it would be best to report our projects to them so they could help coordinate and avoid conflicts.

Sakaguchi Hironobu put down the fax and looked at Miyamoto Masashi: "What is Nakayama Takuya up to?"

Miyamoto Masashi tapped his fingers lightly on the table. "Who knows? But since they said so, we'll submit Final Fantasy II to them. How's your progress?"

"All materials have been finalized and integrated. After two more weeks of testing, we'll be able to produce the master disc and begin production," Sakaguchi Hironobu replied without hesitation, his tone brimming with confidence.

"Alright!" Miyamoto Masashi stood up, walked over to Sakaguchi Hironobu, and patted him on the shoulder. "Then tell everyone to set the release date for late December. Maximize all promotional resources. Since Sega has cleared the stage, we have no reason not to take center stage."

Sakaguchi Hironobu grinned, all traces of weariness vanishing from his eyes.

"I'll go tell those kids right now!"

At Bandai's headquarters, President Yamashina stared intently at the screen.

On screen, young Goku rides his Nimbus Cloud through towering mountains. Then the camera shifts, and a dynamic, comic-style cutscene smoothly narrates his encounter with Bulma.

The demonstrator pushed the controller, and the screen seamlessly transitioned to the battle, with Goku's every move carrying the unique charm of Akira Toriyama's original work.

"Hmm... well done."

President Yamashina shifted his gaze from the screen to the development manager in front of him.

He didn't speak, but everyone else in the conference room sensed the change in his mood. It wasn't just simple satisfaction, but a sense of relief.

The release of <SD Gundam G Generation> in early July this year was a huge success, bringing great benefits to the entire Bandai.

At the time, Nakayama Takuya only provided a development plan, which enabled Bandai to obtain a masterpiece that achieved both high sales and critical acclaim and could be serialized.

Therefore, when Bandai's self-developed Dragon Ball: World Martial Arts Tournament failed to receive positive reviews from ordinary players, the first thing Bandai employees generally thought of was not internal reflection, but rather to seek help from Sega again.

When the Game Development Department retrieved the development plan from Sega based on Takuya's previous life in <Dragon Ball Z 3: Relentless Battle of the Androids>, many people still had doubts.

But now that the game, which is basically complete, is in front of them, the Bandai team is amazed that they made the right choice in seeking help.

"President," the development manager said cautiously when he saw that the game had been silent for a long time, "The storyline of the game has been planned to only go up to defeating the Red Ribbon Army, leaving room for a sequel."

"Very good." President Yamashina nodded.

Just as he was about to say something, his secretary walked in with a newly received fax. "President, a new fax from Sega."

Yamashina took it, and his eyes lit up after just one glance at the title—<Notice Regarding the Year-End Sales Plan for the MD Platform>.

When he saw the vast blank space at Sega's headquarters from November to the New Year, with only the "Shining Force" logo, he couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Ha ha ha ha!"

The crowd looked at each other, puzzled.

"Nakayama Sang is truly our benefactor!" Yamashina slammed the fax on the table. "He not only gave us the best solution, but now he's paved the way for us!"

He pointed to the blank area on the fax and said to everyone, "See that? Sega left the stage empty for the entire Christmas and New Year season! They said they wanted to reserve it for their partners, and this is what they left for us!"

He saw the "well-intentioned" reminder to "avoid a collision" again, and understood it perfectly.

This is clearly telling us "core partners" to submit our projects quickly so he can give us the best possible time slot!

"Pass the word!" President Yamashina stood up, full of energy. "The release date for * Dragon Ball: Goku's Great Adventure* is set for mid-December! Tell the PR department to use all available resources! Sega is practically feeding us!"

Anyone who can't eat can get out!