The Day Before the Second E3

Hisao Oguchi digested the information.

He was only an executive in charge of the exhibition and project coordination; mergers and acquisitions at the corporate level were too far removed from him.

"There'll be a lot of resistance inside Bandai, right?" Hisao Oguchi voiced his concern. "Their employees are used to the slow-paced toy development process. They definitely won't adapt to Sega's high-intensity environment of technological iteration."

"There will definitely be resistance. But it won't be up to them." Nakayama Takuya pulled out a financial analysis report and tossed it onto the table. "Bandai's profit margins have been declining continuously these past few years. Their proud anime-IP products—if they don't have high-quality video games as a vehicle for secondary dissemination, their influence will gradually fade."

Nakayama Takuya stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window of the office.

"The game industry is moving from fringe entertainment toward mainstream culture. This transformation requires enormous capital and top-tier technological support. Capital, they might have. But with decision-making as terrible as theirs, it's impossible for them to complete the transformation before the money dries up. As for technology, there's no need to even mention it—the players have already said everything." Nakayama Takuya's tone was certain. "They're burying their heads in the sand now only because they haven't been forced to the edge of the cliff yet. When next year comes, and they discover they don't even qualify to sit at the card table, they'll understand just how precious the olive branch Sega once extended to them was."

Hisao Oguchi looked at the managing director's back and put the list into his briefcase.

"Don't think about those future matters." Nakayama Takuya turned around. "For this E3, treat Bandai as an ordinary third-party exhibitor. Give them whatever they want. As long as they pay the booth