Tokyo Video Game Tycoon.

Chapter 242 A Direct Challenge

Game developers now have more options.

If you're relatively poor and don't have much money, you can start by developing PC games.

PC games don't have to consider console licensing fees or cartridge production costs.

Costs can be reduced by at least half.

That means you only need half the profit of a game console game to make money.

This allure led to an increase in the number of people developing PC games.

However, console games tend to sell better, generally three to five times more than PC games.

It is clear that most gamers have gradually come to believe in game consoles and think that they should play games on game consoles, not computers. They do not yet fully regard computers as an entertainment product.

Therefore, game developers of a certain scale will still choose to release their games on game consoles.

In the first month of 1996 alone, more than 100 game companies were founded in the United States, and hot money quickly poured into this newly emerging industry.

However, among these people, they knew that there was still only one dominant player in the gaming industry: Youxing Electronic Entertainment.

To date, no one has been able to challenge its position.

Even Su Rui Electronics could only barely grab onto the other person's clothes to keep up with their pace.

When February 1996 arrived, nearly two years later, Yusei Electronic Entertainment finally released the third installment of their game, Metarod, which they had been secretly developing for almost half a year.

Super Midrod.

Its story picks up right where the second film, *Metrold: Samus Returns*, begins, with Samus traveling in a spaceship with the Metrold cubs to a scientific planet in the Galactic Federation.

However, not long after they settled in, space pirates came knocking and kidnapped the Metrod cub.

Samus had no choice but to embark on another journey to rescue the Metrod cubs.

This game was released only after much anticipation.

Two years.

Do you know how I got through those two years?

This is what many loyal Metrorod players think.

Some people even got a little teary-eyed when they saw the actual promotional video for Midrod.

They've been waiting for a new story for a long time, but Yuxing Electronic Entertainment just won't do it.

If this were done by Suri Electronics or other game developers, they would probably have already developed three or four generations of games.

However, Youxing Electronic Entertainment is truly a large and powerful company with a vast number of IPs.

With Yusei Electronic Entertainment easily able to continue producing a series of games, Metrod's position becomes less important.

However, in response to the calls from countless players, Yusei Electronics Entertainment seemed to have finally heard their voices and promised to continue making the Metroid game. In the end, they finally produced the game at the last minute.

The players are very excited.

They had never been so excited.

However, in February, only a few trailers featuring game footage were released, and the game's price was officially announced.

The price is 8900 yen in Japan and 99 US dollars in the United States.

If you're planning to buy an SFC game console, you can reduce the price by 1,000 yen and 10 US dollars respectively, which will help boost the console's sales.

The price of this game is already outrageous.

Most of the cost was concentrated on specially made game cartridges.

The production cost of just the game cartridges alone was as high as 2,000 yen.

Including packaging and shipping, the cost of each cassette tape reached approximately 3,500 yen.

For a typical game company, this would be too much to handle.

If it's a game based on a completely new IP, it will probably be difficult to recoup the costs.

However, Metrorod already had a certain player base, and given that it was a game released two years later, players actually found the price acceptable.

However, this might deter new players.

With that money, you could buy two equally fun, slightly outdated SFC games; the initial price of Metroid is just too high.

However, this is not a problem. As long as the game itself is of high quality, its sales will definitely not be low.

Hayakawa Ueto finally realized that Yusei Electronics Entertainment was no pushover; they were indeed preparing to unleash their ultimate move.

How could a game that was just released under normal circumstances possibly sell for such a high price?

Something unusual must be going on; this game definitely has its own unique features.

Unlike other game companies, Yuxing Electronic Entertainment always has a plan when it does anything unusual, and there have never been any unexpected incidents.

Therefore, this time Hayakawa Ueto did not underestimate Yusei Electronic Entertainment.

He immediately decided to back down.

It's clear that Yuxing Electronics Entertainment has come in with great momentum, ready to flex its muscles once again in the industry.

Hayakawa Ueto, who has a slight case of PTSD related to Yusei Electronic Entertainment, seems to have already sensed something.

Sometimes it's not shameful to avoid direct confrontation.

The worst thing would be to fight against Yuxing Electronic Entertainment, invest huge resources to confront them head-on, and then suffer heavy losses.

However, while Hayakawa Ueto was very cautious, other game companies were not as cautious.

Especially Lierda, who has been enjoying immense popularity recently.

They made a lot of money during this gaming industry boom.

Players seem to be quite receptive to it.

The founder of Lierda is himself a game enthusiast, so the games he spearheaded have all been quite successful.

After Yuxing Electronic Entertainment had been silent for more than half a year, they seemed to have forgotten the fear they had felt during the period when Yuxing Electronic Entertainment dominated them.

They want to directly challenge Yuxing Electronic Entertainment.

Chapter 243 Cell Phone? Handheld Console?

"I am delighted to announce a groundbreaking video game hardware product, the result of a year of dedicated research and development. It is called the Lierda Mobile Edition and is a handheld entertainment product co-developed with Eaton, a well-known mobile communications equipment manufacturer."

The young CEO of Lierda stood in one of the largest theaters in San Francisco, with a large audience of media reporters and business partners below.

He personally announced the first handheld game console they were preparing to manufacture.

However, he was not content with simply creating a game console for entertainment; his ambitions were much greater.

The mobile communication business is currently an industry with a very promising future, and handheld consoles and mobile phones happen to have a high degree of overlap.

With his foresight, he immediately realized that the two sides could potentially merge to some extent.

Creating a handheld device that can be used to make phone calls sounds a bit strange.

But this era is an era full of dreams. Products of all shapes and sizes can be born, and after years of continuous exploration, the products that are most popular with users can be found.

Lierda's CEO clearly wants to expand into this area.

Eaton is a telecommunications group from Norway.

They are quite well-known in the world, and their mobile phone products have a market share of over 70% worldwide.

This 70% share represents the massive mobile communications market, exceeding one billion, rather than the video game industry, which has only emerged a few years ago and has a user base of at most ten million in Japan.

Given their size, they probably wouldn't be interested in the video game industry, at least not in the short term.

However, Lierda itself is backed by a capital giant.

With the CEO of Lierda constantly touting video games as the future star of the world, the capital giant behind him finally decided to act as a go-between, facilitating a technological and commercial collaboration between Lierda and Eaton.

Eaton's engineering team took the lead, and then Lierda provided the ideas for console production and game development.

Both parties attempted to create a handheld device that could make phone calls.

Lierda's CEO smiled as he looked at the crowd below the stage.

"Now, please look at the product in my hand."

He slowly pulled out a small, exquisite-looking electronic device from his pocket.

In an instant, the spotlight immediately focused on the hands of the CEO of Lierda.

It was a bright silver device with an oval-shaped body.

The device has a dense array of buttons on both the left and right sides.

The device, which is only the size of a palm, contains almost all the keys of a keyboard, making it look quite unique.

Previous mobile phone products all focused on the 9-key keypad, and none of them ever considered having a full keyboard on a single phone.

Immediately, the reporters in the audience and some business people who came to watch the spectacle also exclaimed in amazement.

"Huh? This product is interesting, and the concept is quite good too."

"Won't such small buttons be uncomfortable?"

Amidst the murmurs of discussion, Lierda's CEO gestured for everyone to lower their voices before beginning his speech.

He first called the head of the Eaton Group, with whom he was cooperating, to the stage, and then enthusiastically introduced their close relationship with the Eaton Group to everyone.

The Eaton representative also smiled in agreement.

Then, Lierda's CEO began to demonstrate the basic form of the product to everyone.

First of all, this full keyboard layout means that you no longer have to worry about a lack of buttons for any video game, as nearly a hundred buttons can meet the needs of any video game.

He also directly ported some of his company's self-developed video games to this phone, and assured everyone in the audience that there would be a new game specifically designed for this handheld device every month, allowing those who buy the phone to enjoy double the fun and have fun using their phones for entertainment. This is the ultimate vision of Lierda's CEO.

At the same time, he also announced that he would once again increase investment in the manufacturing and research and development of game consoles, striving to make video games his territory and a brand new and exciting industry in the world.

Lierda's CEO is very skilled at public speaking. Just one press conference was enough to make the audience feel excited, as if the product would change the world.

Those who previously idolized Japanese game consoles also showed expressions of surprise.