Saturday, December 21, 1996.
Exactly one full week had passed since the release dates of Final Fantasy VII and Mario Kart 64.
Tokyo, Ota Ward, Sega Headquarters building.
The door to the Managing Director's Office was shoved open.
Hisao Oguchi strode in, several fax sheets clutched in his hand, the edges of the paper crumpled from his grip.
Nakayama Takuya sat behind his desk, holding a freshly brewed cup of black coffee.
He looked up and glanced at Hisao Oguchi.
"Managing Director, the numbers are in." Hisao Oguchi slapped the fax sheets onto the desktop and pointed at the figures on them. "Global first-week sales."
Nakayama Takuya set down his coffee cup and picked up the report.
"Square called just now. Sakaguchi Hironobu cried on the phone." Hisao Oguchi pulled out a chair and sat down, his chest rising and falling violently. "Three million. Just over three million copies!"
Nakayama Takuya looked at the numbers on the report.
1.18 million in the North American market, 1.51 million in Japan, and 320,000 in Europe and other regions.
And this was only the first week.
"The disc-pressing plants everywhere are already running at full capacity." Hisao Oguchi rubbed his hands together. "Distributors are blocking the sales department every day, pressing us for stock. They're even willing to pay the freight themselves, as long as we can ship the goods out. The cost of four CDs is extremely high, but Square has made a killing this time. The installed base of our Jupiter console has also surged along with it."
Nakayama Takuya pushed the report aside.
"As expected." He leaned back in his chair. "This is an unreasonable game. It has raised players' threshold for visuals to a height even they themselves never imagined. After experiencing the shock of Midgar, asking them to