America: The Godfather of Game Development

Chapter 328 Nintendo's Siblings

"But—what should we do?"

Nakayama Hayao understood what Lin Lixin wanted to do, but he didn't know where to start.

While Gamenova is undoubtedly a strong player, in a xenophobic region like Japan, it's not necessarily true that it has the same appeal as Nintendo.

It seems the only way to break Nintendo's goodwill is to wait for them to make a mistake on their own.

Lin Lixin pondered for a few moments, calculating the distribution of power in the Japanese region.

Before long, the name of an old acquaintance appeared in his mind.

Namco.

"Namco?!"

Nakayama Hayao was shocked, not expecting that Lin Lixin would choose them as his target.

This company—it's definitely not a good partner to work with—

This "arcade emperor," who started with the Pac-Man arcade game, is definitely one of the most troublesome opponents Sega has ever encountered.

The arcade market is only so big, and everyone wants to get a piece of it.

Namco Entertainment is probably the one that takes the biggest cut.

Pac-Man, a world-class arcade IP, created an entire era of gaming.

Ironclad is the ancestor of all modern flight shooting games.

Soon, two more excellent arcade racing games, Ace Combat and Ridge Racer, will be released.

It's fair to say that Namco and Sega are sworn enemies.

Even setting aside the past grievances, Namco has absolutely no chance of winning them over.

because----

They are a top-tier player in Nintendo's arsenal, on par with the "King of Kings".

Since the royalty system was established in 84, Namco has been on Nintendo's list of privileged companies.

Namco can be considered a close ally who fought alongside Nintendo from the third generation onwards.

"Hmm—that's fine for now."

Lin Lixin did not deny his statement.

Namco is currently still a closely integrated community of interests with Nintendo.

Namco and Nintendo's honeymoon period will end this year.

"President Nakayama, do you know what day it is next year?"

Lin Lixin's lips curled up. "The royalty agreements for the first batch of partners are about to expire."

What choice will the ever-arrogant President Hiroshi Yamauchi make at this juncture?

The answer is self-evident.

"Let's arrange it like this for now. We'll take action in January and then we'll close the net. I've also prepared another game for Sega that might be enough to sustain us for most of our lives."

Lin Lixin stood up, indicating that today's meeting would end here.

The true value of GenesisNEO still needs time to develop.

Lin Lixin's true trump card has yet to be revealed.

By next year, some of Japan's third-party developers might even voluntarily switch to Sega.

"As for now, President Nakayama, GAMENOVA is busy preparing Christmas gifts for its fans this year."

It's already December, but GAMENOVA hasn't prepared a suitable launch title this year due to Metal Slug.

This is really not right.

"President Nakayama, hurry back to Japan! Leading your Sega team is exhausting Ash."

Those who are in management positions should go back to management positions as soon as possible.

After all, Hayao Nakayama is neither a software developer nor a hardware developer, so there's not much point in talking to him about games and game consoles.

It would be better to let him go back as soon as possible and stabilize Sega.

A stable Sega is the most useful thing for Gamenova.

This is also the foundation for their full-scale entry into the Japanese market.

In this era of underdeveloped communication technology, it is indeed not easy to reach out to such distant places.

GAMENOVA, Development Department.

"Carmack, you don't need to participate in this project."

Lin Lixin's words struck Carmack like a bolt from the blue.

The Christmas season has always been a crucial period for major releases, and this year is no exception.

But at such a crucial time, he was actually excluded from the project by Lin Lixin?

Could it be that I'm going to be exiled to a subsidiary to work on cutting-edge development again?

"Lin! I still want it—"

"I know, but there's something else just as important that you need to do."

Lin Lixin reassured him and turned his gaze toward the office door.

The door was pushed open at that very moment.

The visitor was Christopher, the head of Bethesda and the chief technical officer for the physics engine development in NovaEngine.

"In your place, Christopher will take over and complete the core part of this new project."

"!!!"

Carmack abruptly turned his head and looked at Christopher, who was standing dumbfounded in the doorway, his eyes seeming to spit fire.

"Well----"

Feeling his murderous gaze, Christopher awkwardly scratched his head.

This feels like a scene of someone stealing someone else's love; it's kind of embarrassing.

However, since I was there to hand over the work, I couldn't let Carmack do whatever he wanted.

After composing himself, Christopher took the initiative to speak: "The equipment is ready. With the data accumulated from the previous two projects, the completion rate is quite high. After a simple debugging, it can be put into production immediately."

"Okay, sure."

Lin Lixin nodded, looking at Carmack who was almost breathing out cold air. "Don't worry, Carmack, your mission is equally crucial."

As he spoke, his gaze swept past the two men toward the direction of their workstations.

Kojima is already packing up his equipment.

"Your first task is to go out and explore the island with the crew who are doing fieldwork and take a good rest."

"ah?

"As for the second task—you need to think about it carefully on the way back, and when we get back, we'll get the scripting language we discussed earlier sorted out."

"?!"

Carmack's breathing suddenly stopped abruptly.

Lin Lixin had indeed mentioned scripting languages ​​to him a long time ago.

That was the path they set when they were developing HTML at NeXT.

However, due to several major projects recently, this matter has not had the opportunity to be implemented.

When they had just built the world's first global information website, Lin Lixin mentioned this idea to them.

"Static web pages can only display static content; only interaction is the future direction."

"Therefore, we need to further improve this system after the global information network becomes widespread."

"This choice will not be N, nor C, Scheme, BASIC, or any existing language."

"We need a new language that is minimalist, lightweight, easy to learn, and loads quickly and can be embedded in a browser."

From that day on, this incident became a source of inner demons for Carmack.

He even thinks about it in his dreams.

Unfortunately, whenever he brought it up, Lin Lixin would dismiss him with the excuse that the global information network was not yet widely accessible.

And now, he has finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

"Remember, Carmack, what we need is not an all-encompassing language, but a language best suited for browsers."

"JIT, Just In Time."

""

After saying that, Lin Lixin waved his hand, indicating that he could set off.

"receive!"

Having received such an important task, Carmack had no more complaints. He turned around and ran out of the office with a happy smile, leaving Christopher and Lin Lixin staring at each other.

To be honest, even though Christopher had worked with GAMENOVA headquarters for a long time, he still felt a little uncomfortable with the atmosphere and scale of the headquarters.

It's so unconventional, it's practically like his own Bethesda.

"Ahem—Anyway, we need to speed things up here too."

Lin Lixin nodded, got up, and led him out of the office.

The reason we brought this guy over is naturally because this project is again closely related to the physics engine.

The final installment of NovaSwift's physics trilogy—time to experiment with slingshots!

He walked up to the whiteboard, erased a section of the writing, and wrote a title.

Angry Birds

Another legendary IP on mobile devices.

As early as the beginning of the fourth generation layout, Lin Lixin always required Gerald to ensure the input of analog signals no matter what.

This factor also plays a role here.

How can we achieve a satisfactory user experience in an era without touchscreens?

Analog signal joysticks are an indispensable part of this process.

For example, Nintendo's fourth-generation console, the Super Famicom (SFC), does not natively support analog input.

"For SFC, it has absolutely no understanding of what degree is."

It accepts a binary signal containing only "yes" and "no".

Discrete digital signals are output using microswitches.

Pressing the left side of the D-pad will activate the microswitch on the left, informing the SFC player that the left button has been pressed.

This isn't to say that Nintendo lacks the technical capability, but rather it's a compromise made to reduce costs.

Analog signals will increase performance overhead and hardware costs.

Both NovaXeno and NovaSwift, thanks to Lin Lixin's insistence, come with native analog signal support.

The number of degrees the joystick is pushed is the total number of degrees.

It can output accurate signals in real time, regardless of how far it is pushed or whether it has been pushed all the way.

This gives it a unique advantage.

In any situation involving linear signal inputs such as force, it can be simulated by a joystick.

For example, billiards, or — a slingshot.

Okay, strictly speaking, it should be a simulation of projectiles.

In fact, the gameplay of "adjusting the angle and force to launch objects to destroy targets" predates most video games.

Lin Lixin took a floppy disk from the shelf.

Its name is written on it: SuperArtillery.

Although its name is from a super-generational family, this thing has no blood relation to that future super-Earth.

Its existence belongs to another game genre that may sound unfamiliar, but is one that almost all players have played.

ArtilleryGame.

The one they have is the earliest floppy disk they could buy without using special means.

If we really want to trace back to the earliest artillery game, it should be a title that was created in 72:

"War3".

A game modified from a ballistics simulation computer program.

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