Turning Their Own Trick Against Them and Mark Cerny's Project (4,000 Words)

The atmosphere in the boardroom at Sega Headquarters was solemn.

The long conference table was filled with the company's directors, each with a serious expression.

Nakayama Hayao sat in the main seat, his gaze calm and unreadable.

Nakayama Takuya stood in front of the whiteboard, having just finished presenting his "anti-poaching" plan.

"Therefore, my suggestion is to let go of the big shots who want to leave and cultivate our own talents. Use Sony's money to do our own things and take the opportunity to expand our development team. What do you think, fellow directors?"

After he finished speaking, the conference room fell silent.

The board members exchanged bewildered glances, many with surprise and disbelief in their eyes.

This plan is too audacious; it sounds like cutting off one's own arm.

A senior director in charge of finance cleared his throat and spoke first, "Executive Director Takuya, your idea is very innovative. However, what kind of company is Sony? If we let them poach our talent like this, won't it be interpreted by outsiders as Sega showing weakness? Moreover, if they really enter the game industry, it will be tantamount to adding another formidable enemy to our ranks."

This question reflects the sentiments of most people present.

The shadow of Sony is too great for any Japan electronics company.

Upon hearing this, Nakayama Takuya not only didn't get nervous, but instead laughed.

"Director Tamagawa, you're absolutely right. Sony is indeed a behemoth, but precisely because it's so big, it's slow to turn around, and its target is very clear."

He picked up a marker and wrote "Nintendo" on the whiteboard, then wrote "Sony" next to it.

"Gentlemen, do you think Sony's scythe is only aimed at Sega? No, according to the intelligence we've gathered, almost all the large and medium-sized game developers in the industry have been poached by Sony."

He glanced around and lowered his voice. "According to the intelligence we currently have, Sony has a project under development, and its technological prototype is the SFC-CD project they are collaborating on with Nintendo."

"What?"

"Aren't they developing CD drives for Nintendo?"

A suppressed gasp rippled through the conference room.

Nakayama Takuya rested his hands on the conference table, leaned slightly forward, and scanned the faces of each director.

"That's right, they were developing CD drives for Nintendo, but at the same time, they were using Nintendo's money to build a more powerful console for themselves behind closed doors. They were poaching game developers from the gaming industry to build Sony's own Game Development Department for this console."

He paused, a hint of teasing in his voice.

"What's even more interesting is that Sony, despite making such a big fuss about poaching talent this time, has been very tactful in not touching Nintendo. Don't you guys find that interesting?"

One of the directors immediately realized, "They don't want to alert Nintendo right now!"

"Bingo!" Nakayama Takuya snapped his fingers. "Nintendo thought they'd found a powerful ally, little did they know, this ally is planning to steal the bride right at their wedding. This is going to be interesting."

The atmosphere in the conference room changed instantly.

The tense atmosphere from just moments ago is now filled with a subtle excitement, as if they're enjoying the drama.

Of course, some board members also expressed their concerns. "We also co-developed Sega-CD with Sony. Didn't Sony do anything to us?"

Nakayama Takuya shook his head. "No, our terms with Sony are very strict. Sony is just our CD-ROM drive supplier; they don't have any rights in game development or distribution. We've also obtained sufficient authorization to ensure that if Sony cuts off our supply, or even if it's just a matter of delayed delivery, we have the right to find another supplier or produce it ourselves. Furthermore, Sony has put a lot of effort into the development of Sega-CD; it's probably Kung Fu for their own consoles."

Nakayama Takuya took a sip of coffee and continued, "Nintendo and Sony, one is the gaming industry's hegemon, the other a giant in the home appliance industry, neither willing to concede to the other. Their cooperation has been fraught with distrust from the very beginning, and now they're even more like sleeping in the same bed but dreaming different dreams. The day Nintendo discovers the truth will be the day they completely tear off their mask. Once these two giants go to war, it will be a war that engulfs the entire industry."

He pointed to the military expansion plan he had just proposed.

"What we need to do is stand by and watch. While they're busy fighting amongst themselves and have no time to spare, we need to buy our newly formed development teams the most valuable time to develop. Let them have no external pressure and fill our arsenal in peace. If Sony's poaching goes too far, we can simply pass their console project to Nintendo to divert their attention."

"When those two were exhausted from fighting, they turned around and found that Sega had already dug trenches right up to their doorstep!"

After he finished speaking, the entire conference room fell silent.

Director Tamagawa, who had previously raised questions, leaned back in his chair, let out a long sigh of relief, and smiled knowingly.

Nakayama Takuya had previously laid a solid foundation for the development of Sega-CD, and Sega's competitive strategy of taking the lead in the face of the sudden emergence of Sony allowed Sega to remain invincible.

Nakayama Hayao, who had been silent all along, picked up the teacup in front of him, took a small sip, and a faint smile appeared on his lips.

He put down his teacup, his gaze sweeping across the room. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the decisive power of a hammer blow.

"I agree with Takuya's plan. Let's do it this way."

The president had spoken, and there were no further objections.

"Agree."

"Agree."

The proposal was approved unanimously.

A week later, the head of the Human Resources Department knocked on Nakayama Takuya's office door again, his face looking as if he had just won the lottery.

"Executive! Our response was very effective!" He handed over a report, his voice trembling. "Of our core development team members, fewer than five ultimately chose to leave! And none of them were the project leaders!"

"Oh?" Nakayama Takuya took the report; the result was even better than he had expected.

"And this is even more important!" The HR manager excitedly pointed to another part of the report, "According to your plan, we received a full seventeen applications to form independent teams from the deputies and core members of each team! These seventeen teams almost encompass the best talent from all our star production teams!"

Sony waved his banknotes, intending to dig up Sega's roots with a hoe. However, instead of damaging the main root, the hoe loosened the surrounding soil, causing seventeen new shoots to sprout from the ground!

"I heard—" the HR manager lowered his voice, a hint of gossipy excitement in it, "Sonic"

One of the team's core graphics programmers received a personal call from Sony's HR manager, who offered him a threefold salary increase and promised him a future position as head of Sony's console graphics department.

"And guess what he said?"

"He said the money was tempting, but does Sony have a senior executive like him? Can you conjure up an entire world like Pokémon out of thin air and then build a game around it that sells tens of millions of copies? If not, then I'd rather stay here and work with Legends."

After listening, Nakayama Takuya couldn't help but shake his head. "It makes me sound like some kind of mascot."

Even so, he knew very well what was going on in his heart.

This is not only because of his personal fame, but also because Sega's profound foundation and successful experience accumulated over the past ten years have given all employees an irreplaceable sense of belonging and security.

At Sega, they knew their efforts could translate into real games loved by millions of players.

Going to Sony, however, is entirely uncertain.

If the PlayStation project fails, these "traitors" who were poached with high salaries will find it difficult to return to the industry and find good jobs, especially given the current economic downturn in Japan.

Stability is sometimes more attractive than a high salary.

"Well done." Nakayama Takuya closed the report. "Tell the heads of those seventeen new teams to prepare their project proposals."

While the Japan gaming industry was in turmoil due to Sony's actions, Mark Cerny's team at Sega of America Headquarters across the ocean was steadily advancing their game development work.

"Mark! Good news!"

Bernard Stolar practically burst through the door to Mark Cearney's team's office, his face beaming with the excitement typical of a businessman.

The office was a hive of activity, with programmers battling over code on their screens and artists debugging the animations of a bunch of objects on the other side.

"We've got word from Universal Pictures," Bernard said, ignoring the mess in the office and walking straight to Mark. "That film, * John Wick *, is almost finished filming. Post-production will begin soon, and the release date is tentatively set for early July, during the summer season!"

He paused, then emphasized, "During that period, no other action blockbusters were competing with us for market share."

They saw the crossover effect with "Hook" and were incredibly envious. They hope our game can be released simultaneously with the movie so we can have another great mutual traffic boost.

Mark Cearney looked up from the screen, glanced at the group of energetic guys behind him, and nodded.

"No problem, tell them we'll make it."

His answer was concise and to the point.

"Our development is nearing completion, and we only need a maximum of two months before final testing. With subsequent fixes, we should have more than enough time to complete it within six months."

"Great!" Bernard clapped his hands excitedly. "I knew I'd come to the right person! I'll go tell Universal Pictures the good news."

After seeing off the excited Bernard, Mark turned around and cleared his throat.

"Guys, did you all hear that?"

The office fell silent instantly, and everyone turned to look at him.

"Our game will launch alongside Hollywood blockbusters this summer! Are you ready to fill arcades across United States with our blood?"

After a brief silence, the entire office erupted in deafening cheers.

"Yay! We're going to be on the big screen!"

"Mark! You are God!"

A tall, Black programmer even excitedly grabbed an M1911 model gun from the table and, imitating what he did in the movies, fired a series of "rat-a-tat-tat" shots at his computer screen, accompanied by sound effects, which made everyone burst into laughter.

Mark watched all of this with a smile.

He personally assembled this team after returning to the United States. At the time, Nakayama Takuya gave him a "blank check" and told him to go for it.

But groundbreaking ideas aren't easy to come up with. To help the team gel as quickly as possible, he took on the arcade light gun game project, which shares the same name as the movie "John Wick," as a practice run.

But he wasn't content with just playing a traditional "Duck Hunt" game.

"Let's optimize the recoil feedback module a bit more," Mark walked over to an engineer in charge of hardware and picked up a modified light gun prototype. "Weight and reliability are paramount, but the feedback can't be too weak. The player needs to clearly feel each shot, not like pressing a vibrating controller."

His core selling point was adding recoil to the light gun.

Of course, due to the limitations of arcade machines in terms of durability and cost, this recoil is very slight, and its main function is to provide shooting feedback. The real "recoil" is manifested in the violent jumping of the crosshair and the shaking of the screen after shooting.

All of this jitter data comes from real shooting data provided by firearms companies such as Colt and Remington.

The design of the light gun directly replicates the star products of various companies.

The more "GG fee" a vendor pays, the higher the percentage of their gun models will be in the first batch of 20,000 arcade machines.

Ten US dollar a machine isn't much, but for gun companies, it's a perfect entry point into the youth market.

However, what truly drove the entire development team crazy was another system.

"Go through the QTE section again!" Mark shouted. "Emergency dodge, disarming and counter-killing, execution—every action must be seamlessly connected, making the player feel like they are the god of death!"

The inspiration for this system came from a suggestion by Nakayama Takuya and the close-quarters fighting technique known as "gun-fu" in the movie synopsis.

Mark Cerny's team visited the set several times to observe Universal's team filming gunfight action scenes.

It's obviously unrealistic to expect players to perform complex actions like those in movies using only a light gun.

But Mark took a different approach, adding several auxiliary buttons to the light gun.

When an enemy gets close, a QTE command will pop up on the screen instantly. Players only need to press the corresponding button according to the prompts, and the game character will automatically perform a gorgeous combo attack - using the gun to block close-range attacks, using the enemy's body as a human shield, and even grabbing a gun and killing back when running out of ammo!

When the idea was first proposed, the entire team was so excited that they stayed up all night. A group of tech geeks huddled around the whiteboard, discussing it all night long, and managed to finalize this complex yet efficient system framework.

Now, watching the well-dressed character on the screen, effortlessly taking down one enemy after another with his gun, Mark Cearney could feel something in his blood being ignited.

He took on this project to practice his skills.

But now it seems they've inadvertently created a unique game.