Tokyo Video Game Tycoon.

He's not one to sit idle.

He has developed almost all three major genres of games—shooting, racing, and sports—and each game has made significant achievements in its respective field. Zhuyouxing is not keen on developing any more games in this genre in the short term.

At this moment, Zhu Youxing's gaze drifted to several documents that had been sitting on the desk for a long time.

He casually picked it up and looked through it.

These documents are summaries of official or public meetings I attended previously. My assistant helped me with this, and all I had to do was read them.

Moreover, since I didn't have much time to look at these things, my assistant thoughtfully simplified all the content as much as possible, explaining the content of each meeting in a more straightforward way.

These meetings included industry seminars and also some meeting minutes with the Japanese government.

Looking at the meeting minutes with the Japanese government, Takeyusei suddenly remembered his own building.

The building in the port area has now completed its foundation work. There are five underground floors. Three floors are used for parking, and the next two floors are dedicated to storing confidential information and operating servers for the entire company.

Above ground, after negotiations with the Japanese government, the final agreement was reached at a height of 51 floors. The top floor would naturally be their own private office. Then, each game development team would have an entire floor of development space, with an area of ​​over 1,000 square meters, which they could use as they pleased. The average office space per person was over four square meters, which was quite a comfortable environment in Japan.

Based on the current construction progress, I will have to wait about two more years to move in, which is around 2002.

I can take this opportunity to prepare. To celebrate the company's successful acquisition of its own building, we should definitely make a big splash.

However, simply making one game is certainly not big news.

Two years to prepare a new game console?

That's a good option.

Zhu Youxing took out paper and pen and began to write and draw on the paper.

A new gaming console, the GS2? Performance comparable to its predecessor, the PS3?

No, this pace is a bit too fast. However, it's good to build up our technical reserves first, check the R&D progress of our competitors, and then we can respond accordingly.

So, if they don't release the GS2, what should they release?

Handheld console!

Zhu Youxing wrote the word on the paper.

The GBA's handheld performance is still quite good even by today's standards.

The players were very satisfied.

However, the GBA is actually quite outdated by today's technological standards.

If other manufacturers put in a little effort and paid more attention to game developers, and created some high-quality games with average ratings of around three stars, they could immediately steal away most of their users.

That's how Nintendo was in its past life.

Sometimes, high-quality games can indeed retain a lot of players, but players are never satisfied creatures.

They will endlessly hope that everything will be better.

High-quality graphics are the biggest draw for players to buy games.

Humans are visual creatures, and visual stimulation always makes it easier to release adrenaline than anything else.

Therefore, the GBA should not be allowed to continue to be limited.

Hmm, we'll develop a new handheld console, and its performance... will be set at a level comparable to the PSP from our previous life.

But at that moment, Zhu Youxing suddenly thought of something.

In its previous life, the PSP was a groundbreaking product.

It practically defined a new era of standards for mobile entertainment products at that time.

Later iPhones also drew heavily on this design.

Even so, the PSP did not achieve absolute dominance in the handheld gaming market at that time.

In that era, Nintendo's NDS ultimately triumphed in the handheld gaming market.

Even though this handheld console's performance is significantly worse than the PSP.

Zhu Youxing really wants to own a high-performance handheld console.

So, what if I combined the NDS and PSP?

Unbeknownst to him, a flip game console resembling the NDS from his previous life appeared on Zhu Youxing's draft paper.

Chapter 373 We must not let our guard down.

Strictly speaking, the handheld console that Yusei Takeshi drew at this time should be considered an upgraded version of the NDS, the 3DS.

The handheld console has one joystick, eight buttons, and two shoulder buttons.

The flip design allows the upper screen to display high-quality images, while the lower screen can be accessed via touch.

This brand-new handheld console format has also inspired new ideas for game development.

The top and bottom screens are indeed a very good idea.

Takeyusei remembered that this idea was proposed by Hiroshi Yamauchi, the late founder of Nintendo video games, in his previous life.

It wasn't until after Hiroshi Yamauchi's retirement that this idea was finally brought to fruition by a group of Nintendo's subsequent leaders, leading to a new era once again.

With current technology, is it possible to create such a game console?

Zhu Youxing began to think seriously.

The technology in this world is ten years more advanced than in the previous world.

It is now the year 2000, which is equivalent to 2010 in the future.

To Zhu Youxing's slight surprise, this should have been the stage when the mobile phone industry began to rapidly develop in the direction of multimedia entertainment.

However, this world doesn't seem to be developing in that direction yet, or rather, it's developing too slowly and hasn't reached the level it was in my previous life in 2010.

In other words, there is still a large profit margin if a new handheld console is released now.

Once smartphones, as multimedia handheld platforms, fully take off, the handheld console market will melt away as quickly as snowflakes.

This is the law of the market, and no matter how powerful Zhu Youxing is, he cannot stop this trend from happening.

Most time travelers didn't think about changing the general trend; instead, they went with the flow to achieve their own success.

However, even if the handheld console market gradually declines, the video game market will continue to develop rapidly; the two are just in conflict at a certain stage.

But in the end, they will reconcile in a completely new way.

Video games have forged a completely new path, spearheaded by new-era handheld consoles like the Switch.

Then, around the time when Zhuyouxing traveled over, some established video game companies began to try developing handheld games, thus revitalizing the handheld market.

However, it's too early to say all that. Right now, I can take advantage of the fact that smartphones haven't taken off yet to dominate the market for a while, and then quietly wait for the trend to pass.

Well, with current technology, the 3DS is entirely feasible.

However, the cost will skyrocket.

If a machine is successfully developed and put into mass production, the initial cost is estimated to exceed $150 per unit.

If you add in costs such as transportation and taxes, the price of a handheld console will skyrocket from just over 10,000 yen to 20,000 yen.

This is probably a price that players would find hard to accept.

Because they were used to prices that used to be just over ten thousand.

After thinking for a moment, Zhu Youxing crossed out his previous performance ideas and then planned the new handheld's performance.

This is where the benefits of having foresight come into play.

Zhu Youxing can plan a more stable development path on his own, and these are all paths that predecessors have already walked, so he can confidently follow them.

If we disregard the previous handheld performance, then in order to reduce costs, we can only manufacture a handheld that is about 30% more powerful than the original NDS.

This seems to be just right, and the cost can be kept below 10,000 yen, so we can earn less from the handheld console and make money from the games.

only……

Are you really content with this?

Zhu Youxing glanced again at the handheld console's performance list that he had just crossed out.

Looking at the list, Zhu Youxing recalled his past life.

In their previous lives, game developers did everything they could to maximize profits, but ultimately had to compromise and make sacrifices in terms of performance or other aspects of the user experience in order to achieve those profits.

The product presented to players is one that has undergone continuous compromise.

Players, however, are helpless; their handheld consoles always leave them with a sense of regret.

The NDS's low performance meant that NDS players could only experience games with graphics that were a generation behind.

Of course, the NDS's groundbreaking nature and gameplay are undeniable; otherwise, it wouldn't have won in the competition of that era.

But if the performance could really be improved, players would definitely be happier, and they would probably be more willing to spend money.

If I were just an ordinary consumer right now, what would I think?

What I'm really thinking is that I want to have the best experience, the kind of top-notch experience that I'll never forget.

Moreover, the development of this handheld console will likely be the swan song of the handheld console industry for some time to come.

Later, mobile phones dominated the mobile field for many years until people gradually grew tired of mobile phones and began to seek other new thrills, at which point the handheld console market shone again.

So, since this might be the last handheld console for a while, are you really willing to make such a censorship?

Not reconciled.

Zhuyouxing has always considered himself a player.

He aspires to become a godfather figure in the video game industry.

As long as there's enough money, that's fine.

His current reserves have reached two billion US dollars.

Honestly, he could totally accept the slight cost of the handheld console.

This allows players to have a better experience, and they won't have any regrets.

Since you're not short of money, why not pursue something with a longer-term vision?