Targeting Casual Players

Achieving a visual breakthrough in such a tiny memory space relied on engineering optimization at the software level, not brute-force piling-on at the hardware level.

The value of that message spreading was far greater than any sales forecast.

It was sending a signal to the entire industry: though PlayStation's hardware was roughly on par with Jupiter in terms of specs, with top-tier software optimization, it could even produce games whose visual impact exceeded expectations.

After the trailer for Crash Bandicoot finished playing, Kazuo Hirai changed his rhythm.

He took two steps back and stood to the right of the big screen.

"For the next few games, I'd like to sum them up with one word."

He raised one finger.

"Fun."

Three short trailers popped up on the big screen.

The three trailers played in rotation, each no longer than a minute.

The first one. PaRappa the Rapper.

A dog as flat as a sheet of paper—or rather, a dog that looked as if it had been drawn—stood on the street, moving to the beat of the music. The visuals were pure flat cartoon style, with the color saturation cranked all the way up. Rhythm button prompts appeared at the bottom of the screen, and the player had to press the corresponding buttons in time with the beat.

A music rhythm game. In 1996, this category almost didn't exist.

Several Japanese reporters whispered among themselves.

An American reporter turned to ask the colleague beside him what type of game this was, and the other person shrugged.

The second one. Everybody's Golf.

Chibi-style characters, exaggerated golf swings, and a smiley-face-shaped golf ball bouncing across the lawn.

The control interface was so simple it had only a power bar and a direction indicator.

The third one. 1.Q.~Intelligent Qube~.

A three-dimensional array of pure