A Third-Party Christmas

Konami Corporation, President's Office.

Kozuki Kagemasa stood in front of the huge floor-to-ceiling window, holding a cup of freshly brewed coffee, overlooking the winter street scene of Osaka.

His mood was as clear and cloudless as the sky outside the window.

On the desk, there were spread out summaries of the Christmas and New Year sales season from the Japan game market.

This year is a bumper harvest year for Konami.

Contra, the Gradius series, Jackal, Castlevania, and that hodgepodge ARPG Konami World.

Each game, under the direction of Kozuki Kagemasa, was split into three independent development teams after the game plan was finalized, and was simultaneously ported to the FC, MD and PCEngine platforms.

What appears to outsiders as an extremely wasteful and risky practice has, at this moment, transformed into those captivating sales figures on the report.

Each number on the report was like a glittering gold coin, making his smile grow even wider.

With multiple blockbuster titles simultaneously released on the three major platforms, Konami has undoubtedly become the most dazzling presence among all manufacturers in this year-end sales battle.

The title of "King of Third Parties" has been quietly bestowed upon him by major media outlets.

Other third-party vendors are also employing various methods and strategies.

This Christmas and New Year period has become an unprecedented carnival extravaganza.

The most amazing thing is that the main players in this grand event were all third-party manufacturers.

Because the old tycoon, Nintendo, had piled up all its big titles at the beginning of the year to counter the Mega Drive, and was thrown into disarray by the collapse of the third-party system in April and May, it had no new first-party titles to support it during the entire release period, and was completely relying on its huge installed base to passively defend itself.

Sega, a rising Sega, made a surprising move by voluntarily canceling the release plans for all its new titles, thus relinquishing the entire prime time slot.

As for the highly anticipated PCEngine, its CD-ROM expansion kit delivered a disastrous performance, becoming a laughing stock of the year and completely relegated to the background.

It is precisely this strange market vacuum that provides a stage for all third parties to perform to their heart's content.

When game sales data from different platforms are aggregated, a silent storm truly reveals its power.

Kozuki Kagemasa shifted his focus from Konami's own impressive performance to a comparison of total software sales across the three major platforms.

With over 30 million units installed worldwide, the Nintendo (FC) remains the platform with the highest software sales.

Even if this aging lion does nothing, it can still devour the largest piece of cake simply by relying on its momentum.

This was within Kozuki Kagemasa.

However, when he saw the data for the MD platform, his pupils suddenly dilated. The total global sales of MD had exceeded five million units by the end of this year.

This number, while seemingly insignificant compared to FC (Functional Team), is still considerable.

However, the ratio of the total number of third-party software sold on this platform to the total number of servers is alarmingly high!

This shows that every Mega Drive player is an extremely eager core user with very strong purchasing power!

They buy consoles solely to play the latest, coolest, and most powerful games!

In contrast, PCEngine's data appears extremely dismal.

Even with the support of porting flagship titles from Konami, Capcom, and Namco, its global sales, which just barely crossed the critical two million unit mark, still appear to be struggling, and its decline in the market is already unstoppable.

Kozuki Kagemasa put down his coffee cup and sank deeply into the soft Genuine Leather sofa.

He suddenly felt a chill.

A chilling sense of being plotted against crept up from the end of my spine, little by little.

On the surface, Konami is the biggest winner this winter, making a fortune.

But Kozuki Kagemasa was acutely aware that this carnival, in which Sega voluntarily relinquished its stage, Nintendo was forced to withdraw, and all third parties participated, was overshadowed by one person from beginning to end.

Nakayama Takuya.

That excessively young executive director of Sega.

He learned from his informant at Sega that no games for the Mega Drive would actually be completed by the end of the year.

This is how they plan to make a fortune during the year-end shopping season.

By leveraging the summer blockbuster movie "Mewtwo Strikes Back" and the Olympic Games' reach to broaden public entertainment, they effectively curried favor with all third parties.

Therefore, we borrowed the mindset of a third party regarding Sega.

He turned all the third parties into his pawns.

He used games from third-party developers to demonstrate the immense potential and powerful appeal of the Mega Drive platform.

The money that Konami made was just a tiny bit of scraps that slipped through Nakayama Takuya's fingers when he was shaking up the entire industry landscape.

As for him, Kozuki Kagemasa, this so-called "King of the Third Party," at best, was merely the one who was handed over.

The sharpest knife used to stab Nintendo in the heart.

Thinking of this, instead of being angry, Kozuki Kagemasa's eyes gleamed with excitement.

The heating was on full blast in the Operations Managing Director's Office at Sega Headquarters.

Nakayama Takuya leaned back in his chair, holding a steaming cup of coffee, but his gaze wasn't focused on any of the documents.

He was waiting for good news.

The assistant pushed open the door, his steps light and quick, his face filled with barely suppressed excitement and admiration, and respectfully handed over a stack of market reports.

"Chief, here's the report you requested."

Nakayama Takuya put down his coffee cup and picked up the stack of reports, which wasn't particularly thick.

He flipped through the report slowly, and almost every number on it was within his expectations.

Bandai's * Dragon Ball *, Square's * Final Fantasy II *, and Konami's * Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse *.

One after another, these well-known names achieved excellent sales on the MD platform, and all began additional production early on.

Throughout the Christmas and New Year period, the total sales of third-party games on the Mega Drive platform reached a staggering and terrifying figure.

Sega's own section, apart from a single "Shining Force" title serving as its signature, was completely bare.

Sega simply didn't have enough first-party blockbusters to fill this prime-time slot.

Sega's solution was simple: give up the stage and invite everyone to perform.

Also brought in was a statistical report on this year's game sales.

In the report, he circled the most crucial data point in red: the average number of software purchases per Mega Drive player this year.

This ratio has reached a very high level, far surpassing FC and PCEngine.

This is what he truly wants!

Despite having a much lower installation base than the FC, the MD still achieved extremely high software sales.

This announced to the entire industry that the Mega Drive (MD) had a large following of true "believers" who were genuinely there for the games.

This also proves that the quality of Sega Mega Drive's game lineup this year surpasses that of the other two platforms.

As for the report's mention of a few stubborn third parties still holding their ground in FC, Nakayama Takuya simply smiled faintly.

He wouldn't care too much; as long as Sega continues to move forward, they will eventually join Sega's ranks.

Nakayama Takuya put down the report, sank back into the soft chair, and closed his eyes.

In its first year, Sega delivered an exceptionally good performance with the Mega Drive.

The following year will also see a business war that cuts off Nintendo's escape route.