Game Development Giant

"Mars Entertainment is developing the next generation of consoles! The competition in console development is once again heating up!"

Kutaragi Ken looked at the "Yomiuri Shimbun" in his hand. He didn't understand why a big newspaper like the "Yomiuri Shimbun" would report such gossipy news. It was completely invisible!

Why would he say that?

Because just on the other side of his desk, there is a book that has been opened but has not been read yet. The page that is opened happens to be the "Game" magazine where Jester's recent interview article was written. , in this exclusive interview, the reporter from "Game" asked Jester this question. ︾Ding︾dian︾小︾ said,

However, Jester did not say that Mars Entertainment is currently developing consoles. He only said that they are currently studying what type of console to choose for development.

Maybe laymen may look at this answer and wonder what type of console should be chosen for development - could it be that the development of the previous two consoles has not accumulated enough development experience for the development team? Don’t even know what type of game console you want to develop?

In fact, what Jester didn't say in his words was that he was studying whether to develop a console that focuses on 2D performance or a console that focuses on 3D performance.

If Kutaragi Ken hadn't made up his mind before, I'm afraid he is now struggling with whether to continue to develop a console that focuses on 2D games, or to develop a console that fully supports 3D imaging effects. You know. Today's 2D graphics, with the development of two generations of consoles, have accumulated a lot of experience in this area. The development of a 3D console is the first time, and the difficulty cannot be measured in miles.

Moreover, the development funds required are also different.

In fact, even the current Hayao Nakayama. I am also struggling with the issue of how to choose the type of next-generation console.

2d has proven his success, and the current glorious situation of video games can fully confirm this. And what about 3D game consoles? You know, the only game that has proven that 3D games can be as successful as 2D games is "Quake" by Jester on the PC.

But the problem is that "Quake" is a game developed specifically for PC. All his operations. They are all set according to the operating habits of keyboard and mouse. Even if the performance of the host can achieve the same 3D simulation effect as that of PC, it will be difficult to use the controller to replicate the FPS gameplay.

Therefore, it is a difficult decision to make the console completely tilted towards 3D.

This may be the case for ordinary people, but for Jester, this problem does not exist at all. He understands the future development direction of game consoles. The popularity of FPS on console platforms is also closely related to the game "Halo" - it is precisely because this game creatively uses the assistive aim setting. That’s why this game, which was so popular on PC, became the first category of console games.

In the past, only a few people were willing to try FPS games on consoles.

The reason why Jester said this in the interview is to deceive Sony and Sega and make them believe that he has not officially developed the next-generation console. This can, to a certain extent, delay their own development. Process and speed.

In fact, according to the meeting in Kutaragi Ken's own memoirs fifteen years later, he was indeed careless this time.

At that time, Kutaragi Ken had resigned as the president of sec. He was participating in an interview on a program.

At that time, the host asked what Sony Computer Entertainment's biggest mistake was during the 32-bit computer era. Kutaragi Ken talked about this past event after thinking about it for a long time.

"During PS2 development, I made an unforgivable mistake."

When he talked about it, even though many years had passed, Ken Kutaragi's face even showed an expression of annoyance and regret.

"When I was browsing the latest edition of "Game" magazine in the office, I only knew that this magazine had a deep relationship with Jester, but I didn't expect that Jester was the founder of this magazine. One, as you know, "Game" at that time can be said to be the most authoritative industry magazine in the industry. Basically, practitioners like us have a copy. If I had known that this magazine was related to Jester's If the relationship was so deep, I might have thought about it more carefully at the time, but I don’t know, and I didn’t think about it further.”

"I read this interview about Jester. In this interview, Jester faced the interviewer and told the interviewer that they have not yet determined what the next generation of consoles they want to develop will be based on. Mainly - anyway, generally speaking, I was almost overjoyed when I saw it. You know, our development of the next generation of consoles at that time was already on the right track, but our most important opponent was still There was no judgment that should have been made.”

"Of course, under the circumstances at that time, it was a very difficult decision to choose 3D as the future without hesitation."

"So, I didn't think there was any fraud in what Jester said. Later we found out that in fact, the development progress of Dreambox 3 at that time was not slower than our PS2, and was even slightly faster than ours."

As Kutaragi Ken talked, he himself felt a little funny.

"That night, I had dinner with several officials from our hardware development department. I mentioned this matter, and they all knew it. We even laughed at Jester together, because Jester had recently interviewed At that time, someone asked him why he could produce so many outstanding games. As a result, Jester said very rudely that his eyes can see the future. What we laughed at at the time was because we were laughing at him as to why he couldn't see the future at this time. Will it definitely be 3D in the future?"

Saying that, Kutaragi Ken sneered twice.

"In fact, those of us were fooled by Jester like monkeys - our hardware development progress was slackened at that time, because we knew that we were at the leading position among all competitors. Although I urged them several times for those in the leading position, it had no effect until a year later..."

Having said this, Kutaragi Ken stopped talking, as if he was remembering something.

"Is this the Mars Entertainment leak?" The interviewer in the interview immediately followed up and asked.

"Yes."

Kutaragi Ken nodded. He did not talk about the information leakage of Mars Entertainment in detail this time, but immediately jumped the topic to PS2 development again.

"It was from that leak that we learned that the development progress of Mars Entertainment's Dreambox 3 was already far ahead of us. And according to the leaked information at the time, the official development time of Dreambox 3 was definitely Long before Jester did this interview.”

This was just an interview with Kutaragi Ken fifteen years later. No one now knows, including Jester himself, that his unintentional act would actually have such great consequences for him.

Later facts also proved this. In terms of 3D game matching and imaging, as well as the difficulty of development, ps2 is better than dreambox 3. However, it is because of the release time of these two consoles that dreambox 3 is much earlier than ps2. It took ten months for this console war to become a war without any suspense.

In fact, when Sony Computer Entertainment later conducted its own analysis, it also believed that PS2 was actually the best period for them to surpass Mars Entertainment. This period was the period when their hardware development capabilities could best exert their power, and Mars Entertainment's The hardware development team and 3D technology are far inferior to our own.

Of course, this is all for later, it is still the early days of sixteen-bit computers.

Rob Pardo received a thick letter from Mars Entertainment today. To be precise, it was a gift box, beautifully packaged. When he took the package from the postman's hand, he felt... He speculated about the event and wrote a long letter analyzing how he guessed the game type through Sid Meier’s team and expressed some of his own views on this type of game.

A few days ago, when he saw Jester's interview from the latest issue of "Game", when he saw RTS, which is a real-time strategy game, he was so excited that he was in the library regardless of his image. He started dancing so much that he was coaxed out by security on the spot.

But it was all worth it in his opinion.

Because he knew that he guessed correctly and he could participate in this year's Mars Entertainment Carnival! You know, being able to participate in a carnival has become the ultimate dream of almost any Mars Entertainment fan, and of course, it was also his.

But the problem is that the tickets for the Mars Entertainment Carnival are really a bit expensive. If I work, I can say that I am just an ordinary student now and will graduate next year.

In fact, the ticket prices for the Mars Entertainment Carnival are not very expensive, but those crazy house hunters can directly raise the ticket price of the carnival to nearly two thousand US dollars. This is still the current price. By November, Ticket prices can even rise to $5,000. (To be continued...)