Preparing for the Next Generation
Mark Cerny's arrival immediately accelerated the entire Hardware Development Department.
He not only brought more divergent thinking, but more importantly, he was a genius who had a comprehensive understanding of everything from underlying hardware to upper-level code.
While Nakamura was still agonizing over the theoretical limits of bus bandwidth, Mark had already written a piece of test code that drove the prototype to a crash, and then pointed to the error log to tell you where the bottleneck was.
This simple, direct, yet extremely efficient "practical" approach opened the eyes of the otherwise somewhat rigid Japan engineers.
Tokyo was still chilly at the end of February, but the Sega underground Hardware Laboratory was as hot as a sauna.
"Nailed it."
As Mark pressed the last Enter key, the printer began spitting out paper at a frantic pace.
That was the finalized target design for the CPU instruction set architecture—a blueprint that pushed the brute-force aesthetics of the RISC architecture to its limits.
Nakayama Takuya took the stack of papers, still warm from the heat, and said without hesitation, "Send them to SGI immediately and tell them to expedite the development."
As the instruction set design was sent to SGI headquarters across the ocean, the development team quickly shifted its focus back to the Mode I2 prototype.
With the firmware developed under Mark's leadership, this machine is no longer just a piece of scrap metal that can only light up.
Although it's still just a skeleton with exposed wires and chips, and its operating efficiency is far from the full form after the custom chip arrives, it can already run code.
This is the signal.
Of course, the development team needs to develop a series of development tools for model2 and continuously optimize model2.
After all, Model 2 is already a 32-bit baseboard, which is far from being an 8-bit machine that can be developed using assembly language.
Nakayama Takuya didn't give the development teams a chance to catch their breath and immediately convened a meeting with all the development team leaders.
The meeting room was filled with smoke, and the atmosphere was somewhat tense. Everyone sensed that this young executive director was about to make another big move.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the era of a new generation of arcade and console games is about to begin."
Nakayama Takuya stood in front of the whiteboard, his Mark drawing a huge X over the words "MD" and "ModeI1".
"Starting today, Sega enters preparation mode for the next generation of gaming."
An uproar erupted from the audience.
"Executive Director, what about our MD project? We've already written half of the proposal!" A section chief from the First Development Department couldn't help but stand up.
"If it's not even halfway done, cut it immediately." Takuya's voice was as cold as ice. "Leave the remaining value of the Mega Drive to third parties to extract. Sega's frontline team can no longer cling to the old ways. As for the 2D projects on the System 32 Board, they can continue, but they must be high-quality."
He surveyed his surroundings, his gaze sharp as a knife. "All undeveloped plans for Model 1 and MD are suspended. Take these plans back and carefully consider how to revise them. I can't set a specific timeframe, but they must be creative and have enough appeal to players."
"But executive director, we haven't figured out how to play 3D games yet," someone muttered quietly.
"Still haven't figured it out?" Takuya fiddled with the Mark in his hand, then suddenly laughed, pointing towards his office. "Then come find me. My door is always open, a cure for all kinds of creative constipation." If you lack inspiration, I'll give you inspiration; if you're afraid to think, I'll help you think.
The tense atmosphere in the meeting room eased slightly because of Takuya's teasing tone. The section chiefs looked at each other, and finally one of them mustered up the courage to hand over the folder in his hand.
The first to speak was the head of the Super Robot Wars development team. This guy was a typical lolita fanatic, and his eyes would light up when he mentioned mecha.
"Executive Director, we'd like to request permission to retain development of the new game on the Mega Drive." He pushed up his thick glasses, speaking rapidly, "Last year, <Mobile Fighter G> just ended, and the scene of those hot-blooded idiots dismantling Gundams with their bare hands is perfect for a game! Domon Kasshu's Heaven-Shattering Fist —if we could recreate it on the Mega Drive, it would absolutely ignite those loli-lovers. Besides, there's been a year-long gap since the last release, so the resource library is readily available. Even just to differentiate between versions, some tweaking wouldn't be too much Kung Fu; we just need to add the new mobile suits and polish the script a bit—"
Takuya flipped through the character design illustrations in his hand; Domon Kashu's iconic King of Hearts design was indeed very eye-catching.
Although the Mega Drive (MD) was already inferior to the Super Famicom (SFC) in terms of hardware capabilities, it was still more than capable of handling 2D strategy games. In fact, due to the mature development environment, it could even squeeze out more of the hardware's capabilities to produce spectacular battle sequences.
"Approved." Takuya and signed the cover. "Make the battle animations even more exaggerated. Don't worry about frame drops. What I want is that kind of gorgeous battle performance and over-the-top, chuunibyou-esque special move lines. This is one of the few life-saving boosts we have in the late Mega Drive era."
After the first person passed the test, the atmosphere became noticeably more lively.
Next to stand up was the person in charge of the <Shinobi> project. He was holding a proposal based on the System32 arcade board.
"Executive, System32's scaling and rotation capabilities are incredibly powerful. We plan to make a hardcore action game that returns to the essence of ninjutsu." The person in charge sounded somewhat apprehensive. "Although it's still in the planning stage, if we cut it now—"
"Who said we were going to cut it?" Takuya interrupted him, tapping his fingers lightly on the table. "System32's 2D processing power is the benchmark for the new console's 2D performance. You not only have to do it, but you have to push this board's performance to its limits. This game will be seamlessly ported to the new console; treat it as a 2D performance demo for the new console."
The person in charge breathed a sigh of relief, nodded repeatedly, and sat down.
The next Kirby team was in a somewhat awkward position.
This pink sphere was originally intended to fill a genre gap on the GamePocket handheld console, but the response was unexpectedly positive.
"There isn't a single decent all-ages side-scrolling platformer on the Mega Drive yet." The project manager wiped the sweat from his brow. "We're already halfway through development, and the level design is 70% complete. Switching platforms now—"
"Stop messing around once you're halfway through, keep going." Takuya waved his hand. "The Mega Drive needs a pink devil like this to balance out the tough-guy style. If the quality is good, this could even be a long-selling game before the Mega Drive is discontinued."
As for the King of Fighters of Fighters development team, they were the most composed of everyone present.
Since it's a game designed for a 2D platform, we can continue developing it on System32 without needing to switch platforms. With the foundation laid by the first generation, the development of the second generation went smoothly.
Takuya simply glanced at the progress chart, added a word of advice, "Adjust the balance again, don't create things like infinite combos. Although it's not easy to pull off, it will ruin the experience for top players," and then let it pass.