Game Development Giant

What is the concept of 400,000 units?

"Balotelli's Adventures in Another World", now known as the best-selling game, has only sold three million units so far, which is already a very astonishing number.

"The Legend of Zelda", a game that Nintendo regards as its savior, has only sold 1.5 million units so far. This is a result they only achieved in more than two months. A month ago, they sold 1.2 million units were sold, and it took them two full weeks to sell 400,000 units.

Nintendo, which had already prepared some mocking lines, suddenly became silent after hearing this data. Originally, they wanted to mock Mars Entertainment as soon as they announced the first day's data, but on the first day, there were 400,000 sets. The results really couldn't make them talk. This data was too high, too high, too much beyond their expectations.

The next day, the sales points were expanded to all Mars Entertainment franchise stores. It was no longer the first day that only flagship stores would conduct sales. When Jester received the data collected from all over the country late at night, Fifty-Three The score of 10,000 points made Jester almost scream, but he still waved his arms vigorously to vent his emotions. It was not just him, Mark Saini, and the entire "Fire Emblem" present. 》Everyone on the development team is there. The price of a game cartridge was US$60, and sales of nearly one million copies in two days amounted to sales of US$60 million. When this figure was first reported by the New York Times on the third day, it directly shocked the entire United States. Sixty million dollars in sales were sold in two days. The product is just a small copy of the game, which has almost completely subverted the entire American worldview and values.

At this time, the sales data for the third day of "Fire Emblem" were once again released. When Mars Entertainment released the data of 580,000 units on the third day, it once again shocked the entire United States. The vast majority of Americans may not know what this sales figure means for the current video game industry, but after yesterday's "New York Times" hype of a two-day sales of $60 million, they know that this represents On this day, Mars Entertainment made $35 million in revenue just from the game "Fire Emblem." Moreover, it also gave them a sense of powerlessness.

For Jester. Sales of close to 1.5 million copies in three days are indeed worthy of celebration, but what reassures him most is Dreambox’s platform share. Once again, thanks to the crazy sales of "Fire Emblem", it once again returned to more than 80%, although it is still far from the 85% share before the release of "The Legend of Zelda" It was a big gap, but it was enough to satisfy Jester.

Moreover, now with the hot sales of "Fire Emblem", his Dreambox has once again exploded into a sales frenzy that is not inferior to that at the beginning of the sale. Even because of the article in the "New York Times", the previous review of video games Even people who have no interest at all can’t help but buy one.

The most disappointed person right now is Minoru Arakawa. But he was the happiest person three days ago.

Originally, he thought he could make a great comeback with "The Legend of Zelda", but he never thought about using this to overturn the strength of nes and Mars Entertainment's Dreambox. After all, the gap between them was too big before, but what I didn't expect was. The opponent's game called "Fire Emblem" turned out to be so good that the little glimmer of light that was originally seen was instantly extinguished.

Minoru Arakawa is just an excellent operator. He has never been exposed to games and does not understand games. He does not understand what is so good about "Fire Emblem", or in other words, how good it is. Even their "Cel" How good is "The Legend of Zelda", a game that his father-in-law hailed as a masterpiece, but he knew that when his subordinates who came from the Japanese headquarters and participated in the development of "The Legend of Zelda" finished trying out "Fire Emblem" Chapter", the deep frustration showed in his eyes.

He still can't even accurately describe the look in the eyes of the game developer he saw at that time. It was full of gray, with almost no light visible. He remembered that the developer at the time was silent for a long time. sighed: "It goes without saying that I was asked to do such a great game. Even if we were asked to think about it, we couldn't think of it."

However, the sales growth of "Fire Emblem" only lasted for these three days. Starting from the fourth day, sales began to decline. The sales volume on the fourth day was 530,000 units, and the sales volume on the fifth day was 500,000 units. sets, it was 450,000 sets on the sixth day, and directly reached 380,000 sets on the seventh day. Despite this, "Fire Emblem" successfully surpassed it with more than 3.3 million sets in the first week. "Balotelli's Adventures in Another World", which has been on sale for half a year, has become the best-selling game in history.

When the specific survey data of the first week was passed to Jester, one thing surprised him. In this craze of buying "Fire Emblem", in addition to the support of his fanatical fans, , and besides the fact that this game is indeed made by integrating the essence of almost all RPG games in the entire eight-bit computer era, more importantly, it is the cassette that was made in a special way and can be archived with batteries. reason.

Many players who were attracted after playing "The Legend of Zelda" before also bought "Fire Emblem" simply because "Fire Emblem" has the function of being able to save at any time. This function is much better than "The Legend of Zelda". The progress of "The Legend of Erda" is really great. After all, not everyone has the time to spend a few hours not doing anything and just playing a game in front of the game console.

Most people can't do it.

And when there is an RPG game that is promoted to be better than "Zelda" and also has a save progress that can be lost, and the progress can be directly read the next time you play, these people who have just played RPG games are addicted. Players who have not yet recovered from this problem can't help but buy a game cartridge to try to see if it is really as good as they said before, even if it is not as good as the previous promotion of "The Legend of Zelda" or something like 41 points. It’s a super masterpiece, but it’s produced by Mars Entertainment Gajeste and has never let players down.

That's it. Although "The Legend of Zelda" and "Fire Emblem" each have their own advantages, in comparison, a game that has just touched the threshold of arpg games is combined with one, Jester. The most outstanding designers and design teams in the eight-bit computer era for almost ten years have used the wisdom of the turn-based RPG type that is most suitable for current functions to design a game that is completely beyond the level of this era.

For these current players, playing "Fire Emblem" is like playing DQ, FF, and other RPG masterpieces a few years later, and because of being a pioneer of a game type , which is much greater than the shock they felt when they played dq, ff.

Many game designers, when they look back on their gaming careers twenty or thirty years later, will unanimously say that "Fire Emblem" was their true inspiration for RPG games.

For example, Yuji Horii.

Enix is ​​not a small company. They are very famous in the industry. Although they are not as influential as the Big Six now, they held a video game design competition for all of Japan in 1983 - the first Back in the Enix Game Design Grand Prix, the first place winner was worth one million yen, while the second place winner was also worth 500,000 yen.

This was not a small number in Japan at that time.

Moreover, their president, the famous entrepreneur Yasuhiro Fukushima, has a close relationship with Hiroshi Yamauchi, the head of Nintendo.

Although this competition may not be too big, in this competition, two figures appeared in the future of the video game industry who cannot be avoided no matter what. One is still in high school for three years, and he is only Eighteen-year-old Koichi Nakamura, and the other one is the later soul of Enix, Yuji Horii.

It was in this competition that Koichi Nakamura took second place, while Yuji Tsui took third place.

Now more than two years have passed, Yuji Nakai and Koichi Nakamura have become the main creators of Enix by virtue of their extraordinary talents in game design. And like many Japanese designers of this era, Yuji Nakai is also deeply involved in the game design. Influenced by European and American DND, when he heard that Nintendo was going to make a Western-style RPG adventure game, he was extremely excited. However, after he played "The Legend of Zelda", he just thought it was a very good game. game, but it was still a little different from the kind of RPG he wanted.

However, now Yuuji Sakai is running "Fire Emblem" which has just been released in the United States a few days ago on a Dreambox in his workshop, and from the look of addiction on his face, his eyes blink. Looking at the screen showing the game screen without blinking, I am afraid that he will not be able to get out of this state easily for a while.