Game Development Giant

"This is the appearance of the handheld phone originally designed by Yokoi-senpai."

When Hiroshi Yamauchi carefully examined the mobile phone on the table, a Nintendo employee explained quietly beside him. After hearing this, Hiroshi Yamauchi's expression did not change much and he just nodded.

And if Yamauchi Hiroshi didn't take the initiative to speak, other people present would naturally not be qualified to take the initiative to speak.

This situation lasted for more than ten minutes and ended with a long sigh from Yamauchi Hiroshi. After Yamauchi Hiroshi finished sighing, he said with some regret: "If I hadn't insisted on going my own way, maybe the situation would not be the same. In this way, Yokoi may not leave."

Almost all of the people present were subordinates of Yokoi Gunpei before. They all admired such a talented senior with a humble personality, and they were all extremely sorry for his departure. With nostalgia.

Even Masayuki Uemura, who had a heated argument with Yokoi Gunpei over which one to develop first, the console or the handheld phone, missed his old superior very much.

Masayuki Uemura is not a jealous person. He admires Yokoi Gunpei from the bottom of his heart. Especially Yokoi Gunpei thinks what an electronic product should be like, what functions it should have, and under what circumstances it should allow players to use it. Using the above vision and knowledge impressed him the most.

Although, Gunpei Yokoi did not know how to design circuits.

Just like the outline drawings of Nintendo's handheld console that were completed before he left, Masayuki Uemura had people redesign it before, but for comparison with the models made, none of them were made according to Gunpei Yokoi's drawings. It comes out beautiful and good-looking.

"How is the performance of the handheld phone? How is it compared to Mars Entertainment's Gameboy?"

Yamauchi Hiroshi only briefly mentioned Yokoi Gunpei. He did not want to go further on this issue. He immediately raised a new topic and asked about the mobile phone in front of him and Mars Entertainment. Compared with handheld phones.

Nintendo's handheld console still doesn't have a name, and internal R\u0026D personnel also refer to it as the handheld console.

After hearing this question from Pu Yamauchi. Everyone looked at Masayuki Uemura, because Masayuki Uemura was the designer of this handheld phone, and Masayuki Uemura did not hesitate. After hearing Hiroshi Yamauchi's question, he just thought about it for a moment and then started. answer.

"It should be about the same. We have studied their machines, because we developed them a little later than them, so ours is still slightly better. But this advanced hardware performance may not have any impact when it is fed back to the game. use."

Uemura Masayuki spoke concisely and concisely. After finishing speaking, he also looked at Miyamoto Shigeru.

Miyamoto Shigeru also nodded, expressing his agreement with Uemura Masayuki. Yamauchi Hiroshi still listened silently and did not express his own opinion. He picked up a mobile phone. Then he pressed the power button. Nintendo has not yet designed a special game for this handheld phone.

It's just that the software department developed a game clip for testing, and now such a cassette is inserted into this handheld phone.

Hiroshi Yamauchi had no interest in playing games, so he just gave it up after casually looking at it for a few times. Then he seemed to suddenly remember something, and continued to ask: "Have you done any physical damage tests? I heard that before Mars Entertainment's gameboy was released, Yokoi Gunpei mentioned it and made a Such a test. Let the testers throw the test gameboy out of the window directly from the second floor, and then pick it up to see if it can still be used. Have you ever done a similar test?"

After hearing this test from Hiroshi Yamauchi. Everyone present looked at each other.

This test is very famous in the current gaming industry, and these people have heard of it, but they have never done it.

As soon as Hiroshi Yamauchi saw the expressions on his employees, he knew that they had never done this. However, he was not as angry as before. He just sighed and reprimanded slightly angrily: "You guys For these people, we are the pursuers, so we have to put aside all our self-confidence. If we cannot do what Mars Entertainment can do in this regard, then how can we compete with them?"

Saying that, Yamauchi Hiroshi paused for a moment, and his tone became a bit hateful: "Can your game development level be better than Jester?" Where \u003cbox competes, Miyamoto Shigeru's reputation is He could be compared with Jester, but as he failed in direct competition time and time again, he was no longer qualified to discuss it with Jester Lee.

It's not that Shigeru Miyamoto's level is not good, but that Jester's status is too high.

Yamauchi Hiroshi also saw Miyamoto Shigeru's look. He shook his head and said comfortingly: "Miyamoto, you don't need to be like this. It's not your fault that Nintendo has reached this point. The games you made, The sales are very good, but it’s all my fault, I was too conceited.”

Saying that, Yamauchi Pu frowned.

"By the way, has Arakawa gone to the United States again? I remember spending 80% of the time in the United States in the past few months? Our business in North America has shrunk sharply, and our flagship stores have also been removed from the North American market. After evacuating, what else does he want from the United States?"

Nintendo's FC console has a low market share in the United States, but their market share in Japan is high.

Even now, after 16-bit consoles have been launched for more than a year and almost two years, FC consoles still have a 40% market share in Japan, and they still account for the largest share of game consoles in the Japanese market. The most popular single-machine model, and Nintendo has signed a contract with Mars Entertainment not to continue developing new consoles.

There are no restrictions on fc.

Therefore, although Nintendo no longer continues to develop new consoles, and the 16-bit consoles have not continued to be produced, FC consoles continue to be sold, especially in places like South America, where the sales of FC consoles are still very high.

Therefore, they are still developing FC games.

On the contrary, games for 16-bit consoles have not yet been developed by Nintendo. The United States, or rather the North American market, is already in the era of 16-bit consoles. The outdated eight-bit consoles such as FC no longer have games. What a big market, so Hiroshi Yamauchi is still extremely dissatisfied with his son-in-law who has been running to the United States during this period.

Seeing that no one answered after everyone heard his question, Yamauchi Hiroshi also knew that they were worried that Arakawa would settle the score with them afterwards.

Therefore, Yamauchi Hiroshi just snorted and did not continue to ask.

However, he was still a little angry.

"Arakawa is getting more and more outrageous now. I asked him to take a good look at Nintendo, instead of asking him to go to the United States to consider his own career." Nintendo of America has not yet been cancelled, and Minoru Arakawa is still in charge. Holds the position of President of Nintendo of America.

It is said that there are some rumors in the company that Arakawa now has his own industry in the United States.

In fact, after Nintendo announced the post-launch console competition, Minoru Arakawa had the idea of ​​​​letting Nintendo completely withdraw from the game industry and then transform. He also made a proposal to Hiroshi Yamauchi, but unfortunately, his proposal was rejected by Yamauchi. Pu rejected it.

Because of this incident, Yamauchi Hiroshi became extremely dissatisfied with his son-in-law.

In fact, the reason why Arakawa Minoru said this is also the tradition of Nintendo, because Nintendo was just a small workshop-style company that produced gambling pokers in collusion with Yakuza. Later, they went through several transformations and made toys. , opened a hotel.

Therefore, in Minoru Arakawa's view, transformation is not a particularly difficult thing to accept for both Hiroshi Yamauchi and Nintendo.

After all, after losing the qualification to participate in the console competition, according to Minoru Arakawa, if Nintendo wants to survive in the video game industry in the future, it will have to rely on others, and his father-in-law will definitely not be such a person, so he With the previous proposal.

However, to his surprise, his father-in-law rejected his proposal without mercy.

Moreover, he was scolded severely.

This also made Minoru Arakawa a little dissatisfied. He really did this without any selfish motives. He was really doing it for Nintendo. Since there is no future in continuing in this industry, why not give up and insist on persisting? This is also what Arakawa The least understood.

In Arakawa Minoru's eyes, his father-in-law has become less and less decisive.

In fact, if Jester knew about this, he would never doubt why Minoru Arakawa made such a decision, because in his memory, the reason why Minoru Arakawa was later kicked out of Nintendo was Because in the late 1990s, after Nintendo's ncg failed miserably, he made almost the same transformation suggestions to his father-in-law, and also suggested that his father-in-law sell Nintendo's game department to Microsoft, which at that time had the idea to enter the game industry. .

However, this incident completely angered Yamauchi, and Yamauchi did not hesitate to expel Yamauchi, who had regarded him as his successor, from Nintendo.

This led to the rise of Satoru Iwata later.

At that time, Nintendo was just a console. They also had the largest game fan base in the world. Minoru Arakawa didn't want Nintendo to continue to intervene in the game industry. What's more, no matter what Nintendo does now, it is impossible to regain it. The situation of the right to speak. (To be continued...)