Game Development Giant

Two hours after the end of Mars Entertainment's E3 conference.

Video recordings of the demonstration video of the ‘Era’ project were also sent to the senior executives of Sony and Sega.

Because it is in the United States, it is impossible for the entire Sony hardware R\u0026D team to watch together. However, Ken Kutaragi comes from a hardware background, and he has also participated in the entire development of the ps2. For Sony's next-generation console, what can they have? He knew exactly what kind of performance it had, so when he saw this demonstration video, he was immediately shocked.

Because he knew that to achieve this level of graphics, it would be impossible for their next-generation PS2 to do it, unless it was the next-generation console that might be able to do it.

Immediately, Kutaragi Ken wanted to ask the hardware development department to stop developing the next-generation console currently under development, and then devote all his energy to the development of a console with better performance. However, he soon drove this idea out of his mind. He quickly It occurred to me that such a picture is indeed not something that the next generation of consoles can handle.

It’s not that it can’t be done, but the cost is very high.

For a home game console, to be honest, performance is of course important, but there is another thing that is more important than performance, and that is universality.

In other words, it is cheap.

The most important thing is that most people can afford it. For example, the current price of a game home console is 200 US dollars, which is not a lot of money. Even some students who have no income can rely on With some of your usual pocket money, you can buy it after saving for a while. In other words, the most important thing is that this thing can be easily purchased.

Just like how Microsoft competed with Sony later.

At the e3 pre-show conference that year. Ken Kutaragi announced the price of PS3 on the counter. When Peter Moore heard that the price was as high as more than five hundred US dollars, he even jumped with excitement.

Price is crucial in the competition for next-generation consoles.

Therefore, Kutaragi Ken quickly thought of this. It is indeed possible to have a host with such a picture, but the problem is here, the cost is too high.

The price of a game console. In Kutaragi Ken’s view, the price of the next generation will definitely be higher than this generation.

But it won’t be much higher, probably about fifty to one hundred dollars more than the price of this generation.

The improvement of this generation is actually not that big compared to the eight-bit computer era. The cost of electronic components is extremely low, so all parties can maintain it to US$200. If all costs are included, it will be US$200 at the beginning. There may be a slight loss, but with the increase in production, now, even the selling price is two hundred dollars. You can all make money.

Game platform companies do not make money from hardware, except for Nintendo.

Even Jester doesn't make money from hardware. At most, they make money by maintaining balance. It depends on the platform’s royalties.

Of course, Jester has a share of more than 60%, and the royalties he collects are very huge. It’s about one-third of the selling price of the game. Even though this royalty is very high, you must know that when Nintendo first started to implement the royalty system, it had to charge two-thirds of the royalties from the producer. Now the rights Gold has been greatly reduced.

"It is absolutely impossible for Mars Entertainment's next-generation console to have such high performance."

After all, he came from a hardware background. Kutaragi just thought briefly before making his judgment. He even said to himself: "Unless Jester plans to increase the price of the next-generation console to 600 dollars." possible!"

After he finished speaking, there was even a look of excitement on his face.

"This should be a cover-up prepared by Jester, but if Jester really wants to sell a game console for six hundred dollars, it will be a real way to kill him."

"So, this demonstration screen is simply impossible to complete!"

Like Sony, Sega was also surprised and shocked, and quickly figured out that the production cost of a game console that could handle this level of graphics was too high, and it would cost at least 600 yuan. US dollars are enough, but basically not many people will buy a game console at this price. According to Jester, it is impossible for him to do this kind of death.

Of course, this incident also caused waves on Sega's part.

Because although it is not clear to the outside world, senior executives within Sega know that their new console finally decided to use 2D image processing as the assist aspect, while 3D processing was a compromise.

This has also caused a lot of discussion within Sega, because one of the hot topics of debate in the industry now is whether 3D games can replace 2D games and become the focus of the game world in the next era. Those who support this view do not support it. Yes, it exists in the industry, and it is the same within Sega.

Therefore, there is a lot of debate within Sega about the development of the next generation console.

It is impossible to say that Sega does not understand the potential of 3D games.

Because it was Sega who was the first to use 3D effects in arcades. In terms of 3D game development, they are not inferior to Mars Entertainment before. In arcades, they even surpass Mars Entertainment.

However, in the eyes of many people at Sega, 3D games do have great potential. However, the 3D graphics at the beginning must be very rough. However, the next generation of consoles can process 2D graphics to the extreme. , this is something that 3D graphics cannot achieve in the next generation. Therefore, after internal discussions, the development plan for Sega Saturn was decided.

Therefore, when Sega's senior executives saw that 3D game graphics could be so beautiful, they were shocked.

If only the next generation of 3D graphics could achieve this level.

So, how competitive is their Saturn?

However, they soon figured out the key to this matter, that is, it was simply impossible for Mars Entertainment to produce a game console that sold for $600, let alone to make the cost close to $600. The U.S. dollar console was sold for three hundred dollars, so this kind of picture was completely done intentionally by Jester purely because he wanted to shock the industry.

His game could have achieved such a picture when it was released.

But it must be at the level of a rough 3D picture.

This is also a conclusion made by Sega's hardware engineers after analyzing the video recording. This also made the Sega people completely relieved. (To be continued...)