Recaps

Nakayama Takuya used Jupiter’s strong launch sales to create urgency and draw attention away from PlayStation, while news of the console’s global success spread through the industry. Hands-on praise for Jupiter’s games strengthened Sega’s position as Sony prepared for its own launch.

• Nakayama Takuya told Sato to leak a report portraying Sega as facing a stockout crisis after underestimating demand for Jupiter.
• TV Tokyo reported that Jupiter sold 480,000 units worldwide in its first 24 hours, including 310,000 in North America, 120,000 in Japan, and 50,000 in Europe.
• Nakamura Masaya watched the sales report and decided Namco should shift some technical staff from the PlayStation project to study Sega’s development kits.
• Ken Kutaragi received the 480,000-unit sales figure and saw that it had already surpassed Sony’s planned PlayStation launch stock.
• Fami tsu editors tested Jupiter’s games, praised their performance and creative visuals, and magazines featured the console prominently in their coverage.
• Players and commentators praised Jupiter’s launch lineup, and many concluded that Sega had established a strong position regardless of PlayStation’s eventual success.

Sega’s rave reviews and scarcity rumors drove players to buy Jupiter and its launch games, while Nakayama Takuya’s abundant disc supply let customers postpone buying the second wave. At Sega headquarters, Nakayama explained to Sato Hideki why disc production made plentiful stock and flexible purchasing more valuable than engineered scarcity.

• Famitsu and other media praised Sonic 3D and Paper Pokémon Adventure, and Famitsu gave both games a score of 39.
• Rumors that Jupiter would sell out pushed hesitant players to buy the console and its launch games, leaving many short of money.
• Players who brought Jupiter home quickly forgot their spending regrets while playing Sonic 3D and Paper Pokémon Adventure.
• On November 26, Sega launched Virtua Fighter 2, Fast & Furious, Phantasy Star III, and Demon Samurai with enough stock to keep stores supplied.
• Matsumoto saw that Virtua Fighter 2 remained in stock and decided to wait until payday before buying it.
• Sato Hideki told Nakayama Takuya that players were buying fewer games than expected, and Nakayama explained that cheap, rapidly duplicated discs made abundant inventory practical.

Sato Hideki and Nakayama Takuya reviewed Jupiter’s strong first-week sales and the unusually high profits enabled by cheap discs. Sega used the figures to draw third-party developers toward Jupiter, while Sony’s Ken Kutaragi and Nobuyuki Idei recognized Nakayama’s aggressive release schedule as an attempt to drain PlayStation’s launch market.

• Sato Hideki presented Jupiter’s first-week report, showing 1.396 million consoles sold alongside strong sales for Sonic 3D and Paper Pokémon Adventure.
• Nakayama Takuya explained that low disc costs and retail rebates made Jupiter games highly profitable and helped stores promote Sega’s titles.
• Nakayama Takuya ordered Sega to circulate comparisons between disc and cartridge costs to partners and wavering third-party companies.
• Third-party developers quickly contacted Sega to demand Jupiter development kits after seeing the financial advantages of discs.
• Ken Kutaragi criticized Nakayama Takuya for crowding several major game releases into two weeks, while Nobuyuki Idei said the strategy aimed to leave PlayStation with no room to launch.

Sony's executives discussed how to counter Sega's powerful Jupiter launch, while Nintendo's leadership debated whether optical discs threatened its cartridge-based approach. Yamauchi Hiroshi rejected discs and reaffirmed Nintendo's focus on durable, immediately playable games, leaving the SFC-CD project and the company's hardware direction unresolved.

• Ken Kutaragi and Ryoji Chubachi acknowledged the appeal of Sega's games, and Ken admitted Mark Cerny's Sonic 3D was impressive.
• Nobuyuki Idei urged Sony to outlast Sega's launch surge, approach Namco's Nakamura Masaya again, and develop a rival game or demo.
• Nintendo executives reviewed Sega's document comparing optical-disc and cartridge costs, while Masayuki Uemura warned that optical discs' cost advantage was swaying third parties.
• Shigeru Miyamoto said Sega's graphics were impressive but argued that loading interrupted the flow of action games.
• Yamauchi Hiroshi rejected optical discs over loading, durability, and piracy concerns, and defended cartridges as central to Nintendo's gaming philosophy.

Yamauchi Hiroshi rejected disc technology and ordered Nintendo’s next console to use cartridges, while Blizzard launched Warcraft: Orcs & Humans with Sega’s backing. The chapter left David and other PC players discovering the game’s fast-paced real-time strategy and detailed world.

• Yamauchi Hiroshi ordered Nintendo to keep its new console cartridge-based and dismissed concerns about losing third-party developers.
• Yamauchi Hiroshi directed Nintendo’s legal department to prolong the Philips SFC-CD project to undermine Sony’s PlayStation reputation.
• Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans on November 23 with support from Silicon Valley Online and Sega.
• David bought Warcraft after reading BBS rumors about Sega’s investment in Blizzard and became absorbed in its real-time battles.
• PC players encountered the game’s extensive Azeroth lore and built-in tutorial as David’s roommate questioned its performance.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans won over players and critics with its smooth controls, clever unit behavior, humor, and epic campaign. Its first week sales reached 70,000 copies, easing Blizzard’s fears that Sega’s Jupiter launch would overshadow the game.

• David became absorbed in Warcraft and persuaded his roommate to try a two-player game, hooking him as well.
• Players on the BBS praised Sega’s investment in Blizzard after seeing the game’s quality.
• Computer Gaming World editor Johnny Wilson tried Warcraft, was impressed by its controls and pathfinding, and drew his colleagues’ attention to its humorous voice lines.
• Major PC gaming magazines praised Warcraft, with PC Gamer calling it a new RTS benchmark.
• Mike Morhaime saw that Warcraft had sold 70,000 copies in its first week, while Allen Adham and Frank Pearce felt relieved by Sega’s publicity support.

Blizzard’s successful partnership with Sega convinced its founders to move the Burning Legion and Azeroth project toward development. As Sony’s PlayStation launched in Japan, Ken Kutaragi sought ways to turn its popularity as a CD player into a stronger position against Sega Jupiter.

• Frank Pearce and Mike Morhaime celebrated Warcraft: Orcs & Humans’ growing sales through Sega and planned to advance the Burning Legion and Azeroth project.
• On December 3, office workers and game fans lined up in Akihabara to buy Sony’s PlayStation, with many citing its CD-player features as their reason.
• Nobuyuki Idei reported that the first 100,000 PlayStation units were likely to sell out, while Ken Kutaragi worried buyers might not use the console to play games.
• Ken Kutaragi judged the launch lineup inadequate against Sega’s games and directed Sony’s publicity team to promote PlayStation as a CD player and arrange music bundle deals.

Sony's PlayStation sold only 27,200 units on launch day, far below Sega's Jupiter, and many buyers treated it as a CD player rather than buying games. Ken Kutaragi pushed Sony to support third-party developers and conceal the sales figure, while newspaper editors agreed to repeat Sony's claim that the console had sold out.

• Ken Kutaragi confronted Sony executives with PlayStation's 27,200 launch sales and weak software purchases, including more than two thousand consoles sold without a game disc.
• Nobuyuki Idei and the executives recognized that Sony's home-appliance strategy had attracted buyers seeking a cheap CD player, leaving the company with hardware losses and little royalty income.
• Ken Kutaragi ordered Sony's technical teams to help third-party companies develop PlayStation games for free, including by sharing low-level code and teaching them to use the GTE engine.
• Ken Kutaragi told Sony's publicity staff to claim PlayStation had sold out while withholding its launch figure until its installed base grew.
• Newspaper editors inferred that PlayStation's sales trailed Sega's Jupiter, but one chief editor told staff to omit numbers and Sega and focus on Sony's sold-out claim.

Sato Hideki celebrated Sony's weak PlayStation launch while Nakayama Takuya focused on Jupiter's surging sales and the danger of running out of stock. Nakayama ordered Hisao Oguchi to keep production moving through China's approaching New Year, even if that meant paying workers to stay and keeping Oguchi from returning to Japan.

• Sato Hideki mocked Sony's launch coverage and said the PlayStation had lost the first round against Jupiter.
• Nakayama Takuya reviewed Jupiter's two-week sales of nearly 1.5 million units and warned that its remaining stock could soon run out.
• Sato Hideki reported that Jupiter had less than 500,000 units left from its first batch of two million.
• Nakayama Takuya called Hisao Oguchi, who described rushing production across Pearl River Delta factories and shipping new units from near Guangzhou Baiyun Airport.
• Hisao Oguchi warned that workers might leave for China's Lunar New Year, threatening January production.
• Nakayama Takuya ordered Oguchi to pay workers enough to keep some on the job and told Oguchi to stay in China instead of returning to Japan for the New Year.

Nakayama Takuya secured continued production for Sega Jupiter while SCE assessed PlayStation’s first-week sales and decided to focus on recruiting and supporting third-party developers. Sega shifted promotional resources to third parties as the console war intensified, leaving the game market on the verge of a boom.

• Nakayama Takuya promised Hisao Oguchi paid leave and a top-tier bonus if he kept production running through the New Year, and Hisao agreed to coordinate with the factories.
• SCE reviewed PlayStation’s first-week sales of 132,400 units and recognized that weak software sales left the console vulnerable despite its survival.
• Ken Kutaragi ordered technical staff to work directly with third-party developers and help them create a blockbuster game for PlayStation.
• Nobuyuki Idei approved prioritizing technical support for third-party software development over worrying about PlayStation’s sales.
• Nakayama Takuya’s Sega redirected Jupiter promotional resources to third-party manufacturers, which received the promised support as Jupiter faced a supply shortage.

In December 1994, a flood of major games for the Super Famicom and Mega Drive overwhelmed the market as developers pushed the 16-bit consoles to their limits. Sony's PlayStation was overshadowed by the crowded release season, which left the industry recognizing video games as mainstream entertainment.

• Developers released a wave of games for both 16-bit consoles, including sports, action, and animated adaptations.
• Major publishers launched a crowded slate of RPGs, while Square released Final Fantasy VI on Mega Drive cartridges.
• Nintendo drew attention with Rare Studio's Super Donkey Kong, which used pre-rendered graphics to create striking visuals on the Super Famicom.
• Players faced a glut of competing games, and the season's promotions made the PlayStation feel overshadowed.
• Ken Kutaragi watched third-party game advertisements dominate the streets after Sega shifted promotional resources away from its own consoles.
• The December release rush established video games as a widely accepted mainstream form of entertainment.

Sega’s promotional push overwhelmed gaming magazines and advertising spaces, while TV Tokyo’s World Business Satellite presented the video game industry as a rare source of growth in Japan’s struggling economy. The segment ended with a Game Gear company director describing the flood of orders and money.

• Hirokazu Hamamura ordered a separate year-end RPG special issue after Capcom sent more Breath of Fire II artwork and the magazine ran out of space.
• Two students bought the expensive special issue and planned to play Final Fantasy VI, showing how Sega’s campaign filled magazines with game coverage.
• Nakagawa Jun recalled Nakayama Takuya’s prediction that Game Gear posters would cover the streets and watched TV Tokyo’s ratings during the broadcast.
• World Business Satellite compared the shrinking traditional manufacturing sector with the rapidly growing video game industry and showed crowded stores, printing presses, and busy Sega factories.
• A director at a 4A Game Gear company told the camera that software companies were lining up with cash and orders after Sega gave up Jupiter’s advertising spots.

A TV Tokyo broadcast cast Sega and the game industry as a major growth sector, prompting a surge of public interest and a scramble by other media and politicians to embrace games. The chapter ended with Japan’s political world treating the industry as a national economic and cultural priority.

• Tanaka and other viewers watched a financial expert describe the game industry as one of Japan’s few sunrise industries.
• Nakagawa Jun learned that viewers were calling to ask about jobs, training, Sega stock, and reruns, then ordered more broadcasts and a follow-up report on Sega’s strategy.
• TV Tokyo’s coverage helped recast Sega and the game industry as economic role models, while NHK and Yomiuri Shimbun promoted games as cultural exports and an economic lifeline.
• Hagiuda Koichi called games a national strategic industry and urged support for the Content Promotion Act.
• Yamada Taro advocated game and esports support, Kobayashi Fumiaki promoted Japanese games overseas, and Hirai Takuya endorsed the content industry as a digital-economy engine.

As Japan’s sudden interest in games brought a wave of unfamiliar customers into stores, Nakayama Takuya pushed Sega to study how games affected different players. The chapter left Sega’s joint university research group beginning to investigate the boundary between beneficial engagement and addiction.

• Miyazawa Yoichi sold Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball and a console to an office worker by connecting the game to golf, baseball, and company presidents.
• Electronics stores replaced technical specifications with simple signs aimed at families and first-time customers.
• Nakayama Takuya directed Sega’s Sales Department to seek research from Tokyo Institute of Technology to guide marketing for new customers.
• Professor Akinori Yonezawa helped bring Tokyo Institute of Technology and Teikyo University together to form a joint research group on video games and psychopathology.
• Nakayama Takuya asked the researchers to identify how games could ease anxiety, what caused compulsive play, and where the boundary between flow and addiction lay.

Nakayama Takuya secured a research partnership to develop anti-addiction standards and used its findings to reshape Sega’s sales strategy. The marketing sparked a wave of console buying across Japan, leaving stores short of stock for systems from multiple manufacturers.

• Nakayama Takuya persuaded Professor Yonezawa and the medical experts to sign a Sega-funded research agreement aimed at establishing industry-wide anti-addiction standards.
• Sega’s sales team distributed psychological sales guidelines to Akihabara electronics stores, where shop owners initially dismissed them.
• A Sega specialist used the guidelines to sell a tired middle-aged man a Sega Jupiter and two games by presenting them as ways to relieve stress and connect with his child.
• Akihabara clerks adopted the new approach, pitching consoles as solutions to customers’ everyday needs rather than focusing on hardware specifications.
• As gaming became a topic of social conversation, customers rushed to buy consoles, exhausting stocks of the Sega Jupiter, PlayStation, Super Famicom, Mega Drive, and even discontinued Famicom FC units.

Sega’s Jupiter sales surged as media interviews helped normalize adults buying consoles, while Nakayama Takuya relaxed at a villa as company staff struggled to keep stores stocked. Eri noted that his decision to give third parties the holiday sales window had also driven small studios to spend heavily on game advertising.

• News crews interviewed adult shoppers in Akihabara, who justified buying consoles as a way to keep up with the times, ease stress, and connect with family.
• The evening news aired the interviews, dissolving many adults’ remaining embarrassment about buying game consoles.
• Sega’s logistics teams worked through the Christmas rush to distribute Jupiter consoles as stock ran low across Japan.
• Nakayama Takuya ignored Sato Hideki’s inventory warning and stayed at a Karuizawa villa, claiming he was researching parent-child interaction while playing with Kazuki.
• Eri told Takuya that his holiday strategy had encouraged small studios to pour money into game advertising after seeing Sega make room for third-party titles.

Nakayama Takuya celebrated Sega’s strategy of letting third-party games compete with Sony while spending New Year’s with his family. After NHK showed a digitally composited Hibari Misora performance, he described future voice-synthesis idols, catching Nakagawa Jun’s professional interest.

• Nakayama Takuya explained to Eri that Sega was letting third-party releases crowd Sony for attention because its production lines could not handle another first-party blockbuster.
• Nakayama Takuya helped Kazuki build with Lego after Kazuki threw a brick at him.
• On December 31, Nakayama Takuya’s family celebrated New Year’s with Nakagawa Jun and Nakagawa Takako, and Nakagawa Jun praised the growing interest in Sega and games coverage.
• During NHK’s Red and White Song Contest, the family watched a digitally composited performance by the deceased Hibari Misora.
• Nakayama Takuya predicted that computers could eventually synthesize a singer’s voice and appearance from data, and Nakagawa Jun recognized the idea’s potential for television stations and record companies.

Nakayama Takuya reviewed Jupiter’s strong holiday sales and the supply-chain effort that kept Sega stocked, while deciding to reward Hisao Oguchi and let him rest. A financial TV program had also boosted sales of older games across the industry, prompting rival manufacturers to send gifts that hinted at their gratitude to Sega.

• Nakagawa Jun stopped discussing business when his grandson Nakayama Kazuki demanded that he play robots.
• Nakayama Takuya reviewed Jupiter’s sales, which had exceeded 2.1 million units worldwide, and noted that the remaining stock was below 400,000.
• Nakayama Takuya ordered that Hisao Oguchi be picked up at the airport, given two days off, and awarded a board commendation and special allowance.
• Sato Hideki reported that several third-party games had nearly sold out after a financial program sparked interest in video games among adults.
• Sato Hideki showed Nakayama Takuya New Year’s gifts from Namco’s President Nakamura and Hudson’s Kudo Brothers, who had alluded to Sega’s WBS program.

Nakayama Takuya dismissed the thank-you letters from business partners and reviewed Hisao Oguchi’s report on stabilizing Jupiter’s supply chain. Oguchi also briefed him on Mercury Technology’s planned game and a legal hire for Fuzhou before Nakayama sent him on vacation.

• Nakayama Takuya told Sato to file the congratulatory letters and focus on upcoming development-kit applications and logistics.
• Hisao Oguchi returned from his trip and reported that he had raised supply and scheduling gaps with Director Terauchi and Director Hatano without accusing anyone of manipulating logistics.
• Hisao Oguchi showed Nakayama a proposal from Fu Zan and Mercury Technology for the ARPG Investiture of the Gods: Yang Jian's Tale.
• Hisao Oguchi presented a Waseda law graduate as a candidate for legal supervision, and Nakayama planned to train him at Sega and Sega Galaxy before sending him to Fuzhou.
• Nakayama granted Hisao Oguchi half a month of vacation and told him to collect his hardship allowance and spend time with his family.

Nakayama Takuya authorized Sega to license a flood of new developers, hoping their games would enrich the market and make use of older hardware. The next morning, a breaking report of a devastating earthquake in Hyogo jolted Takuya as he recognized the disaster from his memories.

• Sato Hideki showed Nakayama Takuya the surge of third-party development applications from aspiring studios and teams.
• Nakayama Takuya ordered Sega to license applicants who followed review rules and paid royalties, while simplifying procedures and preparing development documentation.
• On Tuesday, January 17, 1995, Nakayama Takuya woke at home and turned on the television as Eri prepared breakfast.
• The broadcast reported that a magnitude 7.2 earthquake had struck northern Awaji Island at 5:46 a.m., and Nakayama Takuya froze as memories of the disaster returned.

After the Great Hanshin Earthquake devastated Kobe, Nakayama Takuya learned that Eri’s grandparents were in Osaka and went to Sega Headquarters to assess the crisis. He proposed sending handheld consoles and games to shelters, where they could help children cope and ease tension.

• Nakayama Takuya and Eri watched news coverage of the earthquake’s destruction across Kobe and the Kansai region.
• Eri worried about her grandparents in Osaka, but the phone lines were overwhelmed and she could not reach them.
• Nakayama Takuya left home for Sega Headquarters to ask about the situation in Osaka.
• Nakayama Takuya asked Nakayama Hayao to approve sending 5,000 GamePockets and 30,000 cartridges from the Yokohama warehouse to disaster shelters.
• Nakayama Takuya recommended supplying puzzle games and RPGs with earphones so children could play quietly in crowded shelters.

After the earthquake, Nakayama Takuya organized Sega’s relief and public-service efforts while checking on the safety of the Osaka branch and Eri’s family. The chapter leaves Nakagawa Jun at TV Tokyo, struggling to cover the disaster without enough footage.

• Nakayama Hayao approved Sega’s relief plan and ordered another three hundred million yen donated to the Red Cross without publicity.
• Nakayama Takuya asked Kunihiko Yuyama to make a no-dialogue Pokémon short called “Pokémon Are with You” for free broadcast as a public-service insert.
• Nakayama Takuya learned that Sega’s Osaka branch and its accounted-for employees were safe, then ordered the branch to shelter employees and prepare as a relief transfer point.
• Nakayama Takuya reassured Eri about Osaka and suggested that her father ask TV Tokyo reporter Ryota to check on her grandfather’s house using a satellite phone.
• Nakayama Eri called TV Tokyo’s president’s office, while Nakagawa Jun watched the monitors and considered how to cover the disaster without enough on-site footage.

As the earthquake’s death toll climbed, Nakayama Takuya watched anger mount over the government’s delayed response while trying to reassure Eri that Ryota and her grandparents were safe. The family waited for news in Osaka, holding on to the comfort of home.

• Nakagawa Jun told his daughter that Ryota and the film crew had left at dawn, and he had ordered Ryota to check on her grandparents before pursuing footage.
• Nakayama Takuya watched Kobe residents, businesses, and yakuza distribute supplies while criticizing the government’s lack of visible rescue efforts.
• That evening, Takuya and Eri watched reports revealing that the Prime Minister’s Office had initially misidentified the earthquake’s epicenter as Kyoto, as survivors demanded help.
• Takuya reassured Eri that Ryota’s vehicle and the roads into Osaka made it likely he had reached the city and would contact the station if the grandparents were in danger.
• Takuya woke Kazuki and carried him out to join Eri for dinner.

Nakayama Takuya learned that Eri’s grandparents were safe and that Sega’s relief convoy had reached Kobe. He ordered employees to support local responders without entering the ruins, then returned to watching events from Tokyo.

• Eri received word from Ryota that her grandparents’ home in Osaka was intact and they had supplies.
• Nakayama Takuya heard that Sega’s convoy had reached Kobe and delivered relief supplies and GamePocket units to local mutual aid groups.
• Nakayama Takuya ordered Sega’s staff to follow local professionals’ instructions and forbade untrained employees from entering the ruins for rescue work.
• Nakayama Takuya told his assistant that Sega’s role was to comfort survivors and help within its abilities, not burden rescue teams.

Nakayama Takuya watched the response to the Kobe earthquake and condemned the government’s delays and refusal of foreign aid. He saw private businesses and ordinary residents mobilizing to rescue and supply victims while official help lagged.

• Nakayama Takuya watched reports showing that fewer than two thousand Self-Defense Forces personnel had reached the disaster area more than twenty hours after the earthquake.
• Nakayama Takuya learned that Japan had rejected the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s offer to help and blocked Swiss and French rescue teams over quarantine rules.
• Nakayama Takuya saw Daiei employees distribute food and water without fixed prices, while a Yamaguchi-gumi member helped maintain order.
• Nakayama Takuya watched Asahi, Kirin, and Suntory switch production to drinking water and oolong tea and send supplies into the disaster area.
• Nakayama Takuya saw residents rescue neighbors, cook porridge, and wait quietly at an NTT temporary communications point.