Kozuki Kagemasa issued his instructions. "We haven't touched this genre much before. There aren't many games like this on the market lately, so the competition isn't too fierce, but player loyalty is incredibly high. I remember Vandal Hearts brought in pretty good returns last year. Keep it going this year, and dig a few more pits in this area."
After the briefing ended, Kozuki Kagemasa did the unprecedented and left the top floor, heading down to the audio development studio on the second basement level.
This had once been the core stronghold of Konami's proudest "Square Wave Club."
The moment he pushed open the door, intensely rhythmic electronic music made everyone's eardrums buzz.
Several programmers were gathered around a strangely shaped arcade cabinet, sweating profusely as they calibrated its buttons.
"President!" The development supervisor jumped when he saw Kozuki Kagemasa and hurried over.
"What was that secretly developed music rhythm game called again?" Kozuki Kagemasa ignored the supervisor's nervousness, his eyes fixed tightly on the notes continuously falling across the screen.
"beatmania," the supervisor answered at once.
"Speed up the progress." Kozuki Kagemasa slapped the arcade cabinet hard, his eyes blazing with fervor. "Since we have the best game soundtrack team in all of Japan, and the compositional foundation passed down from the Famicom era is still here, then let's make music itself into a game! We don't need to compete with Square over their bullshit graphics and storylines. As long as the music sounds good and the rhythm feels exhilarating, young people in arcades will line up to feed us coins! This is a track that belongs to us alone!"
Sapporo, Hudson Headquarters.
Hudson president Kudo Hiroshi stared at the summer release schedule for Sega's Jupiter platform on his desk, sucking anxiously at his teeth.
"Too crowded. There's practically