Chapter Summaries

Fu Zan’s team turned Mercury’s Mega Drive-based learning machine into a successful export product by combining English lessons with parental progress monitoring. After Mercury earned more than two million US dollars, Fu Zan asked to make Sega games, and Nakayama Takuya invited the team to Tokyo for training.

• Fu Zan’s team fitted a 5MB ROM into a cartridge and built Mercury One, an English-learning machine with pronunciation, quizzes, and study records.
• Nakayama Takuya directed Sega to market Mercury One through bookstores and schools, and delayed the first batch’s distributor payments to encourage sales.
• Mercury One became popular in markets including Seoul, Mumbai, and Moscow, and Mercury Electronic Technology received a foreign-exchange payment exceeding two million US dollars.
• Fu Zan asked Nakayama Takuya to let his team develop Sega games, and Nakayama told them to come to Tokyo and see how Sega made games.
• Fu Zan and several core team members arrived at Sega Headquarters, where Shimizu gave them temporary staff badges for their training period.

Fu Zan and the Mercury programmers completed their training at Sega, where Shimizu’s team showed them how far next-generation development exceeded their experience. As they prepared to return to Fuzhou, Nakayama Takuya told them to hold off on coding and begin with a weeklong postmortem.

• Shimizu assigned Fu Zan and the Mercury programmers to help debug the port of Gundam Battle Operation, and they struggled to keep up with Sega’s development process.
• Fu Zan watched Sega port the arcade game to the Jupiter architecture and realized Nakayama Takuya had brought them to demonstrate the gap between their skills and Sega’s.
• On their final day, the programmers crowded around Nakayama Takuya, who signed their Gundam Battle Operation disc and joked about its future value.
• Fu Zan admitted the training had opened his eyes, and Nakayama Takuya praised his notebook of technical sketches before asking about Mercury’s plans.
• Nakayama Takuya advised Mercury not to rush into coding and required the team to shut down its computers and hold a postmortem during its first week back.

Nakayama Takuya warned Fu Zan and the Mercury Electronics team to digest their technical lessons and avoid relying on Chinese historical or cultural themes for their first international game. He left them with the need to prioritize a comprehensible, commercially viable debut before attempting cultural exports.

• Nakayama Takuya told Fu Zan to hold a week-long technical seminar after returning to China and warned that later Sega consulting would be costly.
• Nakayama Takuya cautioned the team against making their first game about Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Chinese wuxia.
• Fu Zan challenged the warning by pointing out that Sega was developing the Japanese-themed Demon Samurai.
• Nakayama Takuya explained that Sega's established reputation and home market gave it advantages Mercury Electronics lacked.
• Nakayama Takuya demonstrated the cultural barrier by asking Wang Jiang to explain the idiom “half a catty, eight taels” to the assistant.

Nakayama Takuya urged Fu Zan and Mercury to simplify their game and avoid copyright violations by hiring an international copyright supervisor. As the team left Sega, Fu Zan accepted the plan, but a colleague worried it would force them to create under constant legal scrutiny.

• Nakayama Takuya advised Fu Zan to focus on simpler gameplay and making Mercury financially successful before pursuing more complex ideas.
• Nakayama Takuya announced that a copyright supervisor would review every non-original asset used by Mercury and require written reasons for any veto.
• Nakayama Takuya explained that the review records would protect Mercury from lawsuits and help present it as a model enterprise to local officials.
• Fu Zan praised Nakayama Takuya’s plan and accepted his offer to resolve disputes with the supervisor through the Managing Director’s Office.
• On the way to Narita Airport, a technical backbone asked Fu Zan whether hiring a Taiwanese supervisor would mean creating games in shackles.

Fu Zan returned to China with Mercury’s team determined to adopt industrialized game-development standards and avoid copyright trouble. Meanwhile, Netscape’s browser release drove a surge of visitors to Silicon Valley Online’s Webdir, prompting Nakayama Takuya to accelerate plans for a new portal.

• Fu Zan told Mercury’s team to hire professionals and apply the industrial workflows they had learned in Japan, then flew back toward China with them.
• Nakayama Takuya received Frank’s report that Netscape had released Mosaic Netscape 0.9 Beta on October 13, 1994.
• Frank told Nakayama that Netscape’s launch had sharply increased Webdir traffic, and that Netscape had included Silicon Valley Online’s Blog in its recommended bookmarks.
• Nakayama urged Frank to ensure the company could handle the influx and asked for a simpler name for its planned portal.
• Frank said the portal demo was ready and proposed launching it before Thanksgiving, while Goldman Sachs raised its IPO valuation expectations by 20%.

Nakayama Takuya told Frank to focus Silicon Valley Online on social interaction and push Netscape to improve SSL security rather than chase browser market share. Ken Kutaragi secured Sony’s approval for PlayStation’s 39,800-yen price, but the one-year financial deadline left him weighing how to respond to Sega’s publicity.

• Nakayama Takuya told Frank that social interaction was Silicon Valley Online’s core and urged him to pressure Netscape to upgrade SSL 2.0.
• Ken Kutaragi won support from Sony’s audiovisual executives by promising to back MMCD and use DVD technology in future consoles.
• Norio Ohga tacitly approved Sony’s special financial proposal, and the group board authorized PlayStation’s 39,800-yen price for one year.
• Nobuyuki Idei warned Ken Kutaragi that Sony would cut support or consider restructuring if PlayStation failed to show strong growth and improving cash flow within twelve months.
• Nobuyuki Idei asked Ken Kutaragi how he planned to handle the press conference, and Ken examined the game lineup before tossing it aside without answering.

Ken Kutaragi and Nobuyuki Idei decided to present the PlayStation as a home entertainment device to offset its weak launch game lineup and compete with Sega. At Sony’s press conference, Kutaragi emphasized Sony’s history in the industry and began revealing the PlayStation’s powerful hardware specifications.

• Nobuyuki Idei warned Ken Kutaragi that the PlayStation’s sparse lineup could not match Sega’s, despite its low price.
• Ken Kutaragi proposed marketing the PlayStation as a Sony home entertainment terminal with CD playback, rather than focusing on it as a game console.
• Nobuyuki Idei approved the strategy, and the two agreed to get the machine into households before its software lineup caught up.
• On October 27 at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, Ken Kutaragi opened Sony’s press conference by claiming Sony had long supported the game industry with its technology.
• Ken Kutaragi revealed that the PlayStation used a 32-bit MIPS R3000A processor and a GTE capable of processing 360,000 fully texture-mapped polygons per second.

Ken Kutaragi promoted PlayStation as both a game console and a premium CD player, then revealed its 39,800-yen price and December 3, 1994 release date. The press hailed Sony’s price match and CD-player strategy, while Sato Hideki worried that coverage was making Sega’s Jupiter look like poor value.

• Ken Kutaragi presented PlayStation’s CD playback capabilities and demonstrated its games, led by Namco’s Ridge Racer.
• Ken Kutaragi announced a price of 39,800 yen and a December 3, 1994 release date.
• Nobuyuki Idei relaxed as Sony’s press conference gave the company a strong story for the next day’s headlines.
• Tokyo newspapers reported that Sony had matched Sega’s price, and shoppers debated PlayStation’s CD-player features against Jupiter’s arcade pedigree.
• Sato Hideki complained that the press had portrayed PlayStation as a game console bundled with a CD player.

Nakayama Takuya undermined Sony’s PlayStation campaign by exposing its launch lineup and questioning the value of its CD-player feature, then promoted Sega’s games and announced Jupiter’s worldwide release. The chapter left Famitsu editor Hirokazu Hamamura hinting that the date November 19 had a special advantage over Sony’s December 3 launch.

• Nakayama Takuya told Sato Hideki to seed neutral-looking criticism of Sony’s launch titles, patent fees, and supply chain through influential tech writers.
• Articles questioning the value of Sony’s CD playback feature spread through gaming media, and a store clerk used one to dissuade an office worker from buying a PlayStation.
• Sega bought advertising space for Game Gear and filled it with images of its games, while Ken Kutaragi found Sony’s mahjong-heavy launch lineup gave him little to counter with.
• Sega’s campaign shifted some purchase intentions back toward Sega, and on November 4 it announced Jupiter’s November 19 simultaneous worldwide release in a minimalist newspaper ad.
• Hirokazu Hamamura studied the announcement and asked a new editor what day came after November 19, hinting that the date held significance.

Sega prepared a globally synchronized November 19 launch to drain players’ money before Sony’s December 3 PlayStation release. Nakayama Takuya canceled Sega’s New Year promotion and reserved the holiday window for third-party games, setting up a pincer attack on Sony.

• Hirokazu Hamamura explained that Sega planned to launch worldwide on Thanksgiving week, using Black Friday to promote Jupiter in American homes.
• Ken Kutaragi learned that Sega’s China factories had built a stockpile more than five times Sony’s and ordered Sony to move up its commercials and hold large-scale trial-play events.
• Nakayama Takuya told Sato Hideki to notify third-party manufacturers that Sega’s New Year mega-promotion was canceled and that Sega would suspend major first-party releases after December 10.
• Nakayama Takuya explained that Sega’s November 19 launch would spend core players’ money before Sony’s launch, while third-party holiday releases would further squeeze PlayStation sales.

Nakayama Takuya used Sega’s Jupiter plans to draw third-party companies away from Sony before the PlayStation launch, while Sega North America prepared a $299 Game Gear campaign. The chapter left a child in Queens captivated by the ad.

• Nakayama Takuya ordered Sega to delay new Jupiter games, promote the move as a sacrifice for the industry, and send the notice to manufacturers including Namco.
• Namco, Konami, and Capcom recognized the strategy but prepared to clear their Sega-platform inventory, while other manufacturers reconsidered allocating resources to the PlayStation.
• Ken Kutaragi angrily assessed the threat to the PlayStation’s software lineup, and Nobuyuki Idei urged him to promote its CD-player features.
• Tom Kalinske and Al Nelson watched Sega’s $299 Game Gear advertisement and discussed its aggressive appeal to American buyers.
• The Game Gear ad aired across major U.S. television networks, and ten-year-old Michael Brown jumped up when it caught his attention.

Sega’s Jupiter launch at $299 drove American families toward the console and alarmed Sony, which traced its low price to production in Mexico and China. Nakayama Takuya then reviewed Silicon Valley Online’s rapid growth, ending with the internet’s chaotic ecosystem full of future opportunities.

• Michael spotted Virtua Fighter 2 advertised for $299, and Old Brown agreed to take him to look at the console.
• American parents rushed to order Jupiter after its price aired, while Ken Kutaragi and Sony executives examined Sega’s production costs and supply chain.
• Norio Ohga ordered Sony to prepare its Mexican factories and investigate production in China to reduce costs.
• Frank showed Nakayama Takuya that Netscape had reached 18% market share in two weeks and reported that Webdir needed more reviewers.
• Nakayama Takuya searched the growing directory for familiar future companies and found none, but welcomed the internet’s disorder as a sign of vitality.

Nakayama Takuya pushed Webdir to accelerate development of a full-content search engine while Sega launched a direct, game-focused campaign for Jupiter. At Sony’s PlayStation preview, Ken Kutaragi watched visitors admire the hardware but show little desire to buy it because its games felt unexciting.

• Nakayama Takuya told Frank to fast-track a web crawler and search index that would connect Webdir’s directory with a search box.
• Nakayama Takuya directed Sega’s Jupiter advertising to show real gameplay and emphasize the console’s price and next-generation games.
• Sega’s practical commercials and broad distribution helped retailers attract orders for Jupiter.
• Ken Kutaragi attended Sony’s PlayStation preview and watched visitors praise Ridge Racer’s graphics but question buying a home version of an arcade game.
• A game magazine editor mocked the PlayStation’s powerful hardware being used for Mahjong Goku: India, while the preview crowd showed little eagerness to purchase the console.

Ken Kutaragi saw that Sony's demo event had failed to persuade players to choose its console over Sega's Jupiter, while Sega struggled to meet overwhelming demand for Jupiter in North America. On November 19, Jupiter launched to crowded stores in Japan and North America, where buyers rushed to purchase the console and choose games.

• Players at Sony's demo event praised the hardware but said they would wait to compare it with Sega's Jupiter and its more appealing launch games, leaving Ken Kutaragi discouraged.
• Tom Kalinske fielded requests from retailers for more Jupiter consoles, while Al Nelson described shortages across North America and reported that Toys"R"Us had given Jupiter the display space reserved for rival consoles.
• On November 19, Japanese shoppers crowded Akihabara stores to buy Jupiter as clerks processed purchases at a frantic pace.
• North American shoppers filled carts with Jupiter consoles and groceries while waiting for new stock at Walmart and Best Buy.
• Two high school boys debated whether to buy King of Fighters 2 or Gundam Battle Operation.

Jupiter’s launch impressed players with Sonic 3D’s speed and Paper Pokémon Adventure’s inventive gameplay, while Sega’s first-day sales reached 480,000 units worldwide. Nakayama Takuya ordered factories to keep producing and rush consoles by air as supplies dwindled.

• Players split the cost of four launch games, then rushed home with their new Jupiter consoles.
• Harada Kenjiro and other players were amazed by Sonic 3D’s depth and speed, while Ogasawara Eiji’s Paper Pokémon Adventure impressed players with its paper-based mechanics.
• Sato Hideki reported first-day sales of 310,000 units in North America, 120,000 in Japan, and just over 50,000 in the United Kingdom and France.
• Sato warned Nakayama Takuya that the remaining stock would not last until Christmas at the current sales rate.
• Nakayama ordered the Mexico and Pearl River Delta factories to keep production running with triple overtime pay and air shipments.

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.