America: The Godfather of Game Development

Chapter 337 Pretending to be weak to fool others, what a rip-off!

For a game company, intellectual property (IP) is perhaps one of the most important assets.

Just like Game Freak's Pokémon, Nintendo's Mario, Capcom's Resident Evil, and EA's several sports games, Sega, surprisingly, has never produced a single decent flagship IP throughout its history.

Indeed, there are many masterpieces that have been recorded in history.

Like OutRun, the benchmark of arcade racing games, it was a dominant force until GAMENOVA's Rock Racer came out.

Space Harrier and Beast King Chronicles are both considered blockbuster titles from Sega.

However, in terms of influence, they are probably far inferior to the top-tier IPs.

This is also Sega's biggest problem.

It lacks a soul.

Without resolving this issue, even with GAMENOVA's continuous financial support, Sega will ultimately remain just another GAMENOVA branch office in Japan, rather than a true pillar of support.

Fortunately, Sega found a solution to this problem in 91.

What Lin Lixin needs to do now is to get that fast-running hedgehog out of the way as soon as possible.

Sega, AM8.

Although the newly established development department AM10 is very powerful, in reality, AM10 is directly under GameFreak, but it is registered under Sega's name.

If you want to develop your own IP, it would be best to have it developed under the name of Sega's own team.

Therefore, Nakayama Jixiong naturally introduced his own family's rising star, the Eighth Development Team, to Lin Lixin.

"President Nakayama!"

The person in charge of AM8 is a young man in his twenties, whose attire clearly exudes the air of a programmer.

Lin Lixin recognized the man without even needing to bring out the noodle board.

The future president of SONICTEAM, a game producer with a background in programming.

【Nakayuji】

Overall Rating: A+ (Unconventional Approach)

[Programming Development]: 106 (Growth Value: S)

[Game Design]: 89 (Growth Value: A)

[Graphic Design]: 61 (Growth Value: B)

[Hardware Design]: 70 (Growth Value: A)

[Series Composition]: 98 (Growth Value: S)

Social Skills: 41 (Growth Value: C+)

The father of Sonic the Hedgehog, the father of Phantasy Star, and the top figure in Sega's console gaming line.

In the future, AM8 was completely reorganized into the formal SONICTEAM Corporation.

Unlike Yu Suzuki, a veteran of the arcade game genre, Yuji Naka may indeed be somewhat lacking in overall ability compared to Yu Suzuki.

But in terms of programming, even Yu Suzuki had to admit that he was indeed a genius, one in a million.

This genius programmer was involved in almost all of Sega's masterpieces from the 80s and 90s.

In a sense, he is actually quite similar to Carmack.

He is arrogant, aloof, and has a somewhat unpleasant personality.

But precisely because of this, Lin Lixin knew all too well how to tame him.

Please, you think you're a genius with such limited attributes?

His company has plenty of companies that are even better than this.

The simplest way to conquer a genius is, of course, to defeat them in the most thorough way possible in their area of ​​expertise.

"Zhongjun, this is Chairman Lin Lixin."

"President Lin."

Yuji Naka nods and takes the initiative to shake hands with Lin Lixin.

Yuji Naka naturally had no aversion to Lin Lixin, the savior who revitalized Sega's console division.

But to say how much reverence one has for someone is really just that.

Based on my skill level, I only entered the industry a few years late.

If I could have taken advantage of the opportunities of the 80s, I might have been able to climb that high.

Yuji Naka has this confidence.

"Mr. Yuji Naka, I'm planning to develop a game for Sega using the AM8. I wonder if you'd be interested?"

Lin Lixin's lips curled up, and he leaned slightly closer to Zhong Yusi, intentionally or unintentionally releasing a bit of the aura of a big boss.

Yuji Naka's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

"AM8 — has its own projects to do —"

"Your Majesty!"

A sharp glint suddenly appeared in Nakayama Hayao's eyes, his voice carrying obvious displeasure, and his face darkening.

This guy just bluntly and directly rejected Lin Lixin's invitation right in front of him. This wasn't just slapping Chairman Lin's butt; it was slapping himself in the face!

"I see—that's a real shame."

Lin Lixin stopped Nakayama Jixiong, who was having an outburst, and nodded with a slightly disappointed expression. "Then it's not a problem for me to borrow your office, is it? I came to Japan in a hurry, and Xiaozhi didn't prepare a place for me."

"this----"

Yuji Naka opened his mouth, but noticing President Hayao Nakayama's eyes that seemed to want to tear him apart right now, he finally nodded.

He's not so crazy as to take advantage of others.

As long as AM8's independence can be guaranteed and they can focus on their own projects, he doesn't care what these people are planning to do.

"Oh well."

Yuji Naka reluctantly nodded.

"Click"

Faintly, Yuji Naka seemed to hear a few cracking sounds coming from President Nakayama's body.

Hmm, you must have misheard.

After some effort, I finally managed to set up the N language development environment on the AM8 computer and connect it to the GenesisNEO development machine.

There are just too many things you can tweak about this high-speed host.

"President Nakayama, do you remember what I told you when the Metal Slug project was first launched?"

-

"Um?

""

Nakayama Hayao was slightly taken aback.

There are too many to count. Lin Lixin is a chatterbox in front of acquaintances, so how could he possibly remember a single sentence or two?

"—Ahem, I mean, the scrolling is almost over, but the speed is just getting started."

"speed?"

Nakayama Hayao then revealed his understanding.

indeed so.

The path taken by Metal Slug completely exceeded everyone's expectations.

Before this, almost everyone in the gaming industry, whether developers or players, firmly believed in one thing.

3D is the only way out!

However, GAMENOVA completely shattered this mindset with just one game.

The exploration of 2D technology is far from over.

With its ultra-fast arcade pace and stunningly gorgeous graphics, Metal Slug has become the strongest 2D game this year, and possibly for years to come.

"Nintendo has absolute authority in platforming, and its accumulated experience and large fan base are not something that can be easily challenged."

Level design is a field that cannot be quickly mastered through theory alone.

This is why Lin Lixin was so pleasantly surprised by Sam's talent in this area.

Regardless of what kind of gaming industry mogul Nintendo was during the Hiroshi Yamauchi era, they were a force to be reckoned with in Super Mario Bros.

The incredible level design and development techniques used in the game are worth learning.

In this respect, GAMENOVA is not necessarily guaranteed to win.

This is also why Lin Lixin has always intentionally avoided this product category.

Now that she has the ATHENA chip and a machine that can house her, she seems to finally have the opportunity to challenge this category.

"Even so, we can still find another way. Sega's strength lies in its arcade-style, fast-paced gameplay! We need to capitalize on that."

"What?!"

Before Nakayama Hayao could react, Naka Yuji, who had been secretly watching the two of them, let out a high-pitched exclamation.

Arcade-style? Wouldn't that give Suzuki Yu a handle to use against him?

If Suzuki Yu uses this as an opportunity to strengthen his authority over the game department, wouldn't my newly acquired position be severely damaged?

"Click"

A loud bang came from the fist of Hayao Nakayama.

No matter how much he tries to appear refined and easygoing, he can't help but bulge his veins a little now.

Damn it, is it really okay to let someone like this be the executive director of AM8?

"Uh—in short, what we need is a side-scrolling action game with high speed as its core selling point."

As he spoke, Lin Lixin began typing code on the keyboard.

This scene surprised both Hayao Nakayama and Yuji Naka.

What happened?

Why did Lin Lixin personally take charge?

Nakayama Hayao originally thought that Lin Lixin would leave them a complete plan and let them figure out how to implement it themselves.

Before I could even react, he had already grabbed the keyboard and started working.

Such drive, such respect for technology and the work—!!!

No wonder they're so awesome.

Looking back at myself, I was just a traditional company president who knew nothing about management.

Although Hayao Nakayama is the president of Sega, he actually graduated from the Department of Literature and Science.

He is neither a programmer nor an electrical engineer.

Aside from having a keen eye and an indomitable spirit, Hayao Nakayama didn't really have any technical skills.

"So, for this high-speed platform jump, the old reel technology is naturally no longer usable, right?"

Ignoring the changing emotions of the two, Lin Lixin continued writing the program, "For this, I designed a technology called high-speed scrolling. Besides multi-layered background parallax scrolling, it has another crucial function."

"Matching the character's high-speed movement, we will fully utilize GenesisNEO's capabilities."

High-speed reel technology, the core of Sonic, was used by Yuji Naka to achieve high-speed visuals comparable to Sonic on the Motorola 68000 16-bit processor.

Only with this technology could Sonic truly have the prerequisites to be realized.

"Snap"

Lin Lixin typed the last character and burned the data into the GensisNEO development machine in front of the two of them.

There are no textures; the entire game consists only of blue squares and green lines.

However, as a test demo, its recognizability is more than sufficient.

The blue cube is naturally Sonic, the main character of the game.

The green lines represent the ground of the level.

Unlike the map design of Super Mario, Sonic's map is filled with numerous ramps and 360-degree loops.

Lin Lixin picked up the handle and gently pressed the directional keys.

The blue block responded immediately, and the entire screen shrunk or distorted slightly.

Then————

"Whoosh!" The blue cube rushed toward the slope at an exaggerated speed, and it kept getting faster and faster.

It was so fast that speed lines appeared on the screen.

"this----"

Hayao Nakayama didn't understand the technology and only found it fascinating.

But Zhongyu is the managing director of AM8.

Faced with the demo that Lin Lixin and the president had casually created while chatting, Yuji Naka suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

A chill ran straight to my head.

Is this guy even human?

Dude, if you're so great, why didn't you just say so from the beginning? Leaving it there pretending to discuss it with yourself is just a trap.

Pretending to be weak to fool others?

At that moment, Yuji Nakayama could still hear the cracking sound of President Hayao Nakayama's bones grinding together.

Oh no! We're in big trouble!