Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 226 New Record!
“Is this really the latest game developed by Ethan Jones?”

"Oh - this effect is really -"

"too exaggerated!"

When Ethan Jones was interviewed by a radio and television network and announced his plan to the public, attracting the attention of people all over the United States like autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, in the screening room of Nintendo in Kyoto, Yamauchi Hiroshi had already finished watching the videotape that his son-in-law Arakawa Minoru brought urgently from North America.

Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to transmit information in the form of images without alerting the parties involved. However, since Philips invented the tape recorder, directly copying the radio signals received by the TV to the disk has become the fastest way to copy information.

Because of this, even though he was in Asia, Yamauchi Hiroshi could clearly see the live broadcast on December 1st. After he saw the content, the beautiful pictures on the TV made him frown, and the smooth movements and refreshing gameplay made him clench his fists, and he couldn't help but ask in amazement.

Arakawa Minoru, who witnessed history in North America, sighed helplessly and said sadly: "You are right. When a beast finds itself surrounded, it will definitely suppress the enemy with the force of thunder."

"We had always thought that getting in touch with the 6502 production team and obtaining the patent rights for the cheap chips through them was Ethan Jones's counterattack against the enemy, but we didn't expect..."

"That was just a feint?"

"The real back-up turned out to be their newly developed home console, and - "Starry Sky"? "

Although Arakawa's answer was irrelevant to the question, his emotional words proved everything.

This answer also made Yamauchi Hiroshi slowly turn his head. When he cast his gaze on his chief of staff, Hirofumi Imanishi, who was staring at the TV screen, also had his mouth slightly open and a dull expression.

The heavy breathing sounded extremely clear in the dark screening room.

The slight shiver perfectly expressed the inner panic and surprise.

As if he felt someone was staring at him, but it was also more like he was used to his boss's behavior. After Yamauchi stared at Hiroshi Imanishi for a few seconds, the general affairs director of Nintendo also turned his head away.

then……

Both of them saw shock and helplessness in each other's pupils.

Although they never underestimated Ethan Jones in the past few years, they never thought that Ethan Jones could come up with a game like "Starfield"!
In their view, games like Snake, Pac-Man, and Star Wars are already classics that are hard to come by. If they are inspired once, it is a gift from God. If they are inspired twice or three times, it is even more like a gift from God. But now, Ethan Jones has abandoned the top-down games that he is best at and made a horizontal scrolling game? What the hell! Is this God rushing to feed him?

"What do you think?" Yamauchi Hiroshi asked softly.

"I--" Hiroshi Imanishi pursed his lips, smiled bitterly and shook his head, "I think... Yokoi and Uemura can stop their dismantling activities, and Miyamoto's research can also be declared over..."

Yamauchi nodded in agreement at these words, but the incoherent conversation made Arakawa Minoru a little puzzled. "Imanishi, what are you talking about? Is there something I don't know?"

This question made Hiroshi Imanishi glance at his boss. Seeing that he had no intention of hiding anything, he looked at Arakawa Minoru with a wry smile and said, "Arakawa, to be honest, in the past year, we at Nintendo have been independently developing home consoles and video games. We want to make a big splash and we want to get rid of Ethan Jones, but from the current situation, this behavior seems to be meaningless..."

Although Arakawa is the eldest son-in-law of Yamauchi Hiroshi, and there are no male descendants in the entire Yamauchi family, if nothing unexpected happens, Nintendo will definitely be passed on to him in the future. However, when Arakawa did not officially join the Yamauchi family and still retained external work and family relationships, in the eyes of Yamauchi Hiroshi, he was still an outsider. Therefore, Arakawa knew nothing about the development direction of Nintendo.

Because when a plan concerns the future of a company, confidentiality is the most important thing, but when the person at the helm finds out that the plan has failed, telling the truth becomes insignificant. Under Hiroshi Imanishi's narration, Arakawa Minoru finally understood what his father-in-law was planning.

When COLOR TV GAME, a crude imitation of MILOVA Odyssey, was selling well in notebooks, selling home consoles, occupying players' living rooms, and making money from players by selling games directly to them became what Yamauchi Hiroshi wanted to do most.

Therefore, the only two tasks of Nintendo's R&D department are to develop higher-level home consoles that can replace games and to develop electronic games that can attract players to buy them crazily.

Since there are already home consoles on the market that can replace games, the Magnova Apollo and Atari New Generation are the best examples. Therefore, purchasing them and cracking them became the task assigned by Yamauchi Hiroshi to Gunpei Yokoi and Masayuki Uemura.

As for the game...

Although Nintendo did not have an engineer who could make games, they had an artist who liked art. Therefore, Yamauchi Hiroshi handed the game production over to Shigeru Miyamoto, a guy who entered Nintendo through the backdoor, and asked him to carefully study Ethan Jones's works, draw on the design ideas in them, and try to make some fun games that could be logged in to their future home consoles.

In Yamauchi's view, his approach is the fastest way to success, because once they can bring interesting games into players' homes, they will definitely make a lot of money.

There's nothing wrong with his idea.

But unfortunately, Ethan Jones's pace was even faster.

Oh no, Ethan Jones's pace was not fast, because Magnova and Atari had released more advanced home consoles before him, but the problem was...

Even if the machine does a good job, what can it do?

When the game isn't fun, players vote with their feet.

“So… we still need to innovate…”

Yamauchi Hiroshi laughed at himself, sighed, and told Imanishi Hiroshi, "Communicate with Yokoi, Uemura, and Miyamoto. From today on, they can play freely."

"If you follow in Ethan Jones' footsteps, you will only starve to death."

"Okay." Hiroshi Imanishi nodded.

At the same time, Yamauchi Hiroshi also turned his attention to his son-in-law, "Arakawa, you also have a heavy task. Since Ethan Jones has shown us a new world, we still need his games."

"After the New Year, please visit him. Tell Ethan Jones that we at Nintendo still want to continue to be the product agent for the Destiny game..."

Such words made Arakawa Minoru force a smile and nodded.

As if he felt that his words were a bit discouraging, but more like he saw his son-in-law's frustration, Yamauchi Hiroshi raised his hand and patted it, saying: "Oh - Arakawa - you don't have to worry about our future."

“Because the field of art cannot be monopolized.”

Having said that, Yamauchi Hiroshi was still a little annoyed at the moment.

He wanted to know where Ethan Jones got his inspiration from!
He wanted to open Ethan Jones's head and see how much was inside!

Why is it like Doraemon’s pocket, it can never be emptied!

If Ethan knew what Yamauchi was thinking, he would definitely laugh and reply, "The only thing on my mind now is money!" Because when he left New York and returned to Palo Alto, California, he was greeted by a flood of purchase orders.

In fact, after the live broadcast ended, major merchants in North America had already begun placing orders for Ms. Pac-Man arcade machines. Even though they had already seen Disney's McDuck's Journey to the Vault and Warner Communications' Superman, they believed in the influence of the Pac-Man IP and decided to give it a try. After all, the Destiny arcade machines had never let them down.

When Ethan Jones said he wanted to hold a video game competition in North America, and the game was Ms. Pac-Man, merchants who thought they could not lose money by purchasing Ms. Pac-Man went crazy! Almost overnight, the marketing department of Destiny Games received thousands of calls! Merchants who had already placed orders asked for more, and merchants who had not placed orders were frantically increasing their orders!
There was no other way. The merchants knew that holding a competition would stimulate a large number of players to come and spend money. When Ethan Jones decided to give out home consoles and the game "Starfield" as prizes, those players who wanted to get the consoles and the game would definitely familiarize themselves with the game in advance!
Although the competition system of selecting the top ten in each state is very cruel, it doesn't matter, right? Because competitions can bring people not only honor, but also competition. For most people, winning the championship may be a pipe dream, but what if you are the best player in the circle around you? Then the pursuit of everyone and the satisfaction of vanity will make them feel ecstatic!

and so--

"Boss, after you released the news of the game through NBC, the North American theaters that originally ordered only 15,000 units placed another order. They purchased an additional 8,000 units at once."

"Ordinary retail orders are also growing rapidly. In the three days after the press conference, we received a total of 21,000 orders. After the NBC news broadcast, this number instantly increased by 1.3 times to 48,300 units."

"That is to say, as of last night, the Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine has sold a total of 71,300 units. At the current growth rate, its sales will exceed 100,000 units in a month at most, around Christmas or the New Year."

"This is not only because other games on the market do not have the same level of attention as Ms. Pac-Man, but also because all merchants believe that there are countless people in the continent of America who want to become masters of our Destiny game, or in other words, masters of the game certified by you personally."

The marketing manager of Destiny Game, a middle-aged woman who graduated from Stanford, once worked in the marketing department of HP and joined the company during the reorganization last year, finished reading the report in her hand.

This fact also made everyone in the conference room smile.

Seventy-one thousand three hundred arcade machines sold in one week?

This is simply a myth in the gaming industry!
Although this achievement is the result of increased marketing, what products in this world do not need marketing? The saying that good wine needs no bush is just self-consolation in the wasted years!
"Break the record again?" "Very good, very good!"

Ethan laughed and nodded, then turned his gaze to the company's financial director.

As he watched, Alan Massey also said, "Although our sales method this time is the same as before, with a deposit for the order and the final payment, Disney held a new product launch conference at the end of November and Warner Communications held a new product introduction conference on the afternoon of December 1. Their actions caused most of the business owners to gather in California. So, after we released the live broadcast, many bosses flew directly from Los Angeles and placed orders on the spot at our company."

"This transaction has saved us a lot of financial fees. In addition, 15,000 units have been delivered to North American theaters, so so far, 71,300 video arcade machines have brought us back 70 million in cash. The remaining 70 million will be recovered after the transaction is completed."

Having said that, Alan Massey also closed the folder in his hand.

He looked at everyone present with a smile and said, "Even if the sales of this game stop here, our net profit this year will still exceed 100 million..."

"cash."

“Wow!!!”

"cool!!!"

"Ha ha ha ha--"

The moment Alan Massey finished his report, cheers suddenly broke out in the meeting room of the Game of Destiny!
Although Destiny Game achieved a net profit of 100 million yuan last year, at that time, the vast majority of cash came from the ridiculously developed gaming market.

If we only count their local income, they won't make that much money.

But now, the North American market alone has brought them a net profit of 100 million US dollars?

This is really——

"boss!"

Some people started to make a fuss.

"boss!!"

Someone started banging on the table.

"boss!!!"

Someone had already jumped up and was looking at Ethan with big, glowing eyes.

"Okay, Okay, Okay..."

How could Ethan not understand what they meant?
With a wave of his hand, he said, "Send!"

"We were paid thirteen times a year before, right? We'll get two more this year!"

"I previously promised the production team of Ms. Pac-Man that I would take out 5 percent of the sales as a bonus for the entire team. Now, I am taking out 5 percent, half of which will be used as the year-end benefits for the entire company, and the remaining half will be rewarded to the production company."

"I have only one request. At this rate, we may all be busy during the Christmas period, so this year we may have to take up some of your rest time."

"Of course, I will pay overtime wages on statutory holidays."

“Oh oh oh oh——” Ethan’s generosity made ghosts howl in the conference room.

"Boss, you're so nice--" I don't know who the bastard shouted.

"Boss, give me a kiss—" Ethan quickly rejected this attempt to take advantage of others.

Although working overtime on Christmas is very cruel, because on this day, almost all companies in the United States will have holidays, and only profit-seeking companies such as transportation companies, security departments, and cinemas will send people to work, the guys in the Destiny Game don’t care about all this at all now!
If Ms. Pac-Man really sells 100,000 units, at $2,000 per unit, that would be $200 million in sales revenue! A 10% bonus would be $20 million!
When a boss gives out 20 million in cash as a year-end bonus...

Working overtime on Christmas?
What is overtime?

This is obviously a festival, right?

The company is my home, and going to work is like a vacation!
Hehe ~
After a burst of laughter, Ethan also turned his gaze to Michael Blanco.

He wants to know the current status of the manufacturing company.

Although the manufacturing company has been split off, Destiny Game is still the absolute controlling shareholder, right? So everyone is still a family. Under Ethan's questioning, Michael Blanco also told him what he wanted to know - so far, the number of people in the manufacturing plant has exceeded 300, and the current assembly line production capacity is 900 electronic arcade machines per day. Since they have already prepared 30,000 units in the early stage, even if the order volume increases, they can easily cope with it.

Of course, because we are all people despised by society, so...

If they really have to work overtime on Christmas, they can do it.

This fact made Ethan look at his uncle with a smile, "Are all of them family members?"

"Yes, everyone is one of us." Michael Blanco did not try to hide the fact and said directly, "It's not that I don't want to recruit other people, but many ordinary people don't dare to come."

"But it doesn't matter, right?"

“We are a large enough group to meet the factory’s expansion needs.”

"At the same time, the salary in the factory is far higher than that of any other job in society. Under such circumstances, we are not worried about not being able to recruit people. We are only worried about too many people coming."

Ethan thought what his uncle said was correct.

Now that the factory is on the right track and can take all orders for the Destiny game, it means that the entire company has no problems with the four aspects related to arcade sales, manufacturing, collection, and transportation.

This fact made Ethan breathe a sigh of relief. Just when he announced the adjournment of the meeting and wanted to enjoy the current success in peace, and by the way, think about how to deal with video game competitions and how to expand the sales channels of home consoles, Michael Blanco followed behind him and showed no intention of leaving.

"Michael, do you want to tell me something?"

After inviting the other person into the office and having him sit down, Ethan asked curiously.

"Yes." Michael Blanco nodded.

"Oh - then just tell me straight - there's no need for this between us, right?" Ethan spread his hands and said with a smile: "I'm not a demon, we can talk about anything!"

Ethan's straightforwardness made Michael Blanco shake his head and said, "Ethan, I have no intention of hiding anything, and I don't find it difficult to talk about what is coming next. It's just that there were too many people around just now."

After a brief explanation, he continued, "I came to you for two matters. One is related to production, and the other is related to sales, but both of them are related to the same person."

"That's the new governor of Arkansas."

Michael Blanco looked at Ethan calmly and said in a calm tone: "Because--"

"He called me."

Note: ① Doraemon was serialized in 1970 and became a hit in the early 1970s.



(End of this chapter)