Tokyo Video Game Tycoon.

Surui Electronics' PN game console has now gained a certain audience despite its ongoing struggles.

Its total sales have reached approximately 400,000 units.

Compared to the total sales of over two million units for the Famicom, it naturally couldn't compare, but it still occupied a small portion of the market.

Otherwise, it wouldn't have attracted some companies to make games for it.

In its early days, PN was like a garbage collector, taking in all the games that were being phased out of the Famicom, which was quite effective and actually helped retain some players.

This is arguably the biggest counterattack Hayakawa Ueto can launch against Yusei Corporation right now.

Following that, Hayakawa Ueto arranged for engineers to work overtime to develop a higher-performance game console as quickly as possible.

In terms of video game quality, Hayakawa Ueto admitted that he was indeed no match for Yusei.

But they can attract people with better performance and better graphics.

This is also one of the ways to succeed.

This was also what Surui Electronics excelled at when competing in other industries.

If it can't beat anything else, it should at least surpass it in performance.

Given Surui Electronics' own engineering and development capabilities, this is certainly not a problem. The only concern might be the cost of the game console.

If the cost is too high, it will also shut players out.

Apart from Surui Electronics, other game companies are more like spectators.

They watched quietly as the two game console companies competed, and then made their choice in secret.

Youxing Company can earn more money, but Surui Electronics can offer more generous benefits.

Next, we'll see how much of an advantage Youxing Company will gain in this round of competition.

On the other side of the gaming industry, Vides, who specializes in arcade games, remained calm and continued to play his own game as always.

In the arcade industry, they lived quite comfortably because Yusei Corporation was not involved.

His early start allowed him to quickly capture a significant portion of the arcade game market, giving him a considerable advantage.

They have recently received another huge round of funding and are planning to expand their arcade production line and the frequency of game development.

The Japanese gaming industry seems to be showing signs of being divided into three major players.

Among them, Surui Electronics is slowly rising, while Youxing Company has always maintained its dominant position. However, there are always people who want to find a way to kill this dominant company so that they can take over and seize the video game market.

At the headquarters of Yuxing Electronic Entertainment, several senior executives are participating in an impromptu meeting.

Zhu Youxing told everyone about his plans.

He wants to personally host a live meeting.

In his previous life, Nintendo loved having its president host meet-and-greets, and Takeyusei naturally wanted to experience it too.

Come to think of it, he's never actually been on television.

Natsume Yasutaka asked seriously, "President, are you really going to personally host the Direct?"

Zhu Youxing nodded: "Yes, this is a new breakthrough for our company. The release of the brand-new game console is worth announcing personally."

Personally announcing a brand new game console is a very ceremonial event.

He could only experience this in this world; in his previous life, he didn't even have this opportunity.

Now that this opportunity has come, Zhu Youxing doesn't want to miss it.

"Then we should change our strategy. If the president is personally in charge, it needs to be made more formal."

"Why does it have to be more formal?" Zhu Youxing asked, puzzled.

Natsume Yasutaka explained, “President, you’re usually quite casual at the company, and we’re all used to that atmosphere, which is fine. But I think you should maintain a serious and formal image in public. That’s how a president should be.”

Chapter 123 'A Little Surprise'

Natsume Yasutaka has always been a relatively conservative person.

This has both advantages and disadvantages.

Takeyusei just smiled and said, "Video games are an emerging field, and there will inevitably be some differences from the past, so don't get hung up on those details. In your eyes, I am a president, and in my own eyes, I am a game producer, but deep down, I have always considered myself a player."

Several people in the meeting room seemed to be moved.

They also enjoy games and strongly agree with what Zhu Youxing said.

Only by putting yourself in the shoes of a gamer can you truly understand what players want.

Takeyusei continued, "Therefore, on television, I will not identify myself as a president or anything like that. I will always identify myself as a player, and I am proud to be a player."

Actually, what Takeyusei said just now was taken from a famous quote by one of his most admired people: Mr. Iwata Satoshi.

This person made great contributions to Nintendo and is the biggest contributor to Nintendo's long-term success since the millennium.

This person is also very popular among players.

Even his competitors admired him.

When this gentleman sadly passed away, gamers and industry leaders alike mourned him, and no one could deny the transformative impact he had on the gaming industry.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call Satoru Iwata the Steve Jobs of the video game industry.

Zhu Youxing has already made his decision, so there's no need for anyone else to stop him. After all, the company belongs to him, and he now has absolute control over it. There isn't even a second shareholder who can influence the company's will, so no one else can say anything.

Takeyusei said again, "Alright, everyone get ready. I need plenty of interesting content for the Direct in two weeks. It's not just about the game console release."

The section chiefs of several game development teams were all excited.

They took turns reporting on the games their groups had prepared.

Three of the five groups will each produce a high-quality first-party game before the official release of the Super Famicom.

At the same time, the graphics and sound effects of the original first-party games on the Famicom will be upgraded to a higher level and then released on the new game console, which is almost like a remastered version of the games.

Veteran players only need to bring their old game cartridges plus 500 yen to exchange them for new game cartridges on the Super Famicom.

Older cartridges will be refurbished and repackaged for sale at a lower price, essentially becoming official replacement cartridges.

Zhu Youxing knew that the sale of second-hand cartridges was unavoidable, so he might as well start doing this business himself.

Officially endorsed, newly replaced cartridges will be of higher quality and more popular with players.

Besides these, Zhuyouxing has actually prepared another unexpected surprise.

This was a surprise that dealt a fatal blow to Surui Electronics.

After listening to the reports from the group leaders, Takeyusei looked at Hayasawa Airi.

"Airi, has the battery issue been resolved for the Second Engineering Development Group?"

Just now, Hayazawa Airi had been waiting for Takeyusei to call her.

Now that it was finally brought up, she immediately perked up and said happily, "It's solved! As per your request, we can now ensure at least twenty-five hours of battery life."

"Alright, let's officially release it then. Next, let's discuss in detail what kind of release method will most likely generate the greatest response."

Airi Hayazawa was very happy. She had been following up on this project all along, and she and a few others had started planning it six months ago, even earlier than SFC's planning.

From the very beginning, Zhuyouxing had already asked them to do their best to balance the battery power consumption.

To solve this problem, from the very beginning of their battery research until now, they have finally managed to maintain a battery life of more than 25 hours, which is just the minimum requirement for Zhuyouxing, and they have barely accomplished their mission.

This product is the Game Boy, or GB for short. It is a handheld game console. Its performance is slightly worse than that of the Famicom, but its biggest advantage is that it can play games on a very small screen, allowing video games to be enjoyed anytime, anywhere.

Its portability, combined with its long battery life and relatively low price, immediately won over gamers upon its release. Even with many competitors at the time, it was difficult for the GB to compete with it.

That was truly the era when Nintendo dominated the world.

In his previous life, Zhuyouxing's first handheld console was the GBC, which was considered an upgraded version of the GB handheld console.

Zhuyouxing initially intended to develop this game console directly, skipping the original Game Boy handheld console, in order to improve the console's performance.

However, doing so would significantly increase the price, potentially pushing the actual selling price of the handheld console to over 10,000 yen.

Players in this era probably can't afford such expensive game consoles, so we've decided to expand the player base first before considering upgrading the consoles.

Ultimately, we might be able to skip GBC and develop GBA directly.

Furthermore, Takeyusei has finalized the lineup of games to be released on GB.

This includes what should have been the second generation of Metroid, as well as Tetris, a Super Mario game, and a new Super Baseball game.

In its previous life, the Game Boy's initial lineup also consisted of four games, but two of them, Breakout and Mahjong, were somewhat of filler.

However, the games he plans to release are all considered to be top-tier, and Takeyusei also wants to see if he can break the highest sales record of Metroid under these circumstances.

Generally speaking, games released at launch tend to have a certain advantage.

Among the launch games for the Famicom, Gomoku (Five in a Row) has already reached 500,000 sales, which is unmatched by other similar board games. This is the advantage of being a launch title.

The group began to discuss how to promote these things in the live event and how to announce them to maximize their effect. Zhu Youxing did not interfere too much, since there was still plenty of time and it would be fine to make a decision on the last day.

"Alright, you can discuss the details after the meeting. Meeting adjourned."

People gradually left their seats and went out in twos and threes to continue their discussion.

This live stream was quite important; it was an opportunity for the company to showcase its capabilities to the outside world.

Perhaps manufacturers like Surui Electronics already knew about the release of the SFC, but they didn't know the price yet. However, they certainly didn't expect that there would be another bombshell after the SFC.

I wonder what their expressions will be when they see this bombshell.

Okay, it's decided. GB will be the grand finale of the Direct, giving the competitors a little 'surprise'.

Chapter 124 Direct Recording

Preparing for a Direct interview isn't particularly difficult.

Even though Zhu Youxing wasn't very familiar with the pace of television broadcasts, he had at least watched many game showcases in his previous life.

Simply imitating it is perfectly sufficient; what's truly captivating isn't the playback process, but the content itself.

So after everyone had roughly decided on the order of the announcement of the game consoles and games, they handed it over to more professional people to handle.

Although it's called a live event and seems like a live broadcast, it's actually completely pre-recorded.