Rebirth 86: I use games to kick open the door to the world

That night, Takemura felt that time passed quickly.

He played Fire Emblem for a long time in one sitting.

He can be considered a somewhat skilled developer, and has been exposed to at least hundreds of games.

But there has never been one that made him so involved.

When he came to his senses, he found that his wife had urged her to have dinner several times.

In the end, his wife had no choice but to bring the meal directly in front of him, and Takemura finally remembered that there was still dinner.

And after he finished eating, he turned around to see Fire Emblem.

"Dad, it's my play time."

At seven o'clock in the evening, Zhucun's son ran to Zhucun and blocked his view, trying to attract Zhucun's attention.

"Good son, let your dad play for a while these two days."

"No! This is what we agreed on. From 7 to 9 pm every night is my play time!"

"Husband, why are you still fighting for toys with your children?"

Zhucun's wife on the side also said half-jokingly.

Mr. Zhucun blushed, and then defended: "That or something... I just suddenly found this interesting, and I did it for work."

When my wife heard this, she started to persuade her child very considerately.

"Dad is working, so let's not disturb him and let him work hard. How about your dad buying you more fun games then?"

Zhucun nodded quickly after hearing this: "Yes, I will buy you more games then."

Zhucun's son could only nod a little aggrievedly when he heard this.

It’s okay to get compensation.

"Then I...then I want the latest game, not the one you play."

"Okay, okay."

Takemura gave his wife a grateful expression, and then looked at the picture on the TV again.

In this way, he kept playing until two or three o'clock in the morning, and finally gave up temporarily because he couldn't resist the sleepiness.

He couldn't help but lament that he was really getting older and his physical fitness was no longer good.

If he had been young, he would have played all night long.

At the same time, an idea came to his mind.

This game...can it really only have 50,000 or 60,000 sales?

If it were morning, he would still believe this.

Because children are now the largest game market.

And if children don't like to play, how many adults will love to play?

But after playing it, he found that the game was not as simple as he thought.

The game is indeed more complex.

But for an adult whose logical thinking is very mature, this game system is not difficult at all.

The job is much harder than this.

And you may not always get feedback immediately after completing the work.

But Fire Emblem only needs to use your brain to arrange your troops and defeat the enemy.

The feedback has been overwhelming.

This really made him think it was a good game.

Otherwise, ask other people how they feel tomorrow.

The next day, Takemura went to other colleagues to briefly inquire about it. It seemed that most of them were not very interested in this game.

There may be others like me who have never played before.

But if you have played it before and get involved, you will get out of control and completely lose track of time.

If he hadn't accidentally experienced this game last night, he wouldn't have discovered that this game had something to it.

In terms of sales, Takemura’s idea seems to have been verified.

With the arrival of April, Famitsu announced the sales information obtained from the official side.

Among them, the first one is the most popular Dragon Quest Part 2.

The first one easily sold a million copies last year, and the topic is very popular, unlike other types of games where the topic of discussion quickly decreases.

The development company of Dragon Quest then took advantage of the popularity and released the second part in early 1987.

One million units were sold in just one month.

In March, the sales volume was still 700,000 units, and it has become a real national-level role-playing game.

Second place goes to the second installment of The Legend of Zelda.

The top two were very close to each other last year, but later The Legend of Zelda was even better. People commented that these two role-playing games almost dominated the entire market, and other games could only keep up.

This year, both games were released at the beginning of the year, and their sales continue to compete together.

The third place is an American football game.

This game is particularly popular in the United States. It was released in March and sold more than 500,000 copies. This is a very impressive result.

At fourth place, Fire Emblem sold 430,000 cartridges.

This is a bit confusing to those who previously judged that Fire Emblem only had sales of 50,000 to 60,000.

How did so many people buy this game?

They had previously concluded that children would not like this game because the system was too complex.

So if children don’t play, how about adults?

But adults are not the audience at all now.

Everyone is confused by the data.

At this moment, there is no very mature data statistics system, and it is impossible to subdivide it into age, gender, ethnic group, etc. as in later generations.

The best we can do now is to determine which country has higher sales.

This sales volume really silenced these people.

Then they hurried back to play the game again.

But pretty much the same as before.

People who like it really like it.

People who don’t like it continue to be confused.

I don’t understand how this game managed to sell four to five million copies.

Is it a war chess type game... So if we make something similar, is it possible to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of the game?

Some companies that had been ready to make a move immediately took action and made similar games directly based on the Fire Emblem template, hoping to see if they could get a piece of the action.

Although this is not a big game type like role-playing with millions of sales, it can at least ensure profitability.

When Zuozhen had a routine phone call with Akira Nakamura and told Zuozhen about the sales of Fire Emblem, she was still a little embarrassed.

Because Fire Emblem's billboards were removed during the period before its release, and more than half of its promotional channels were cut.

Even so, Fire Emblem has achieved sales of 400,000. If the promotion is strong enough, wouldn't it be possible to achieve sales of one million?

However, Zuo Zhen is not optimistic about this.

Fire Emblem actually sucks at the player base.

People who enjoy playing will become loyal fans in the future.

The sales volume of three to four hundred thousand is estimated to be the upper limit in Japan, and it may be difficult to increase it in a short period of time.

Because there may only be so many people who like this genre.

We will have to wait until the Internet media gradually rises to have greater influence.

It is not easy for the first generation to sell millions of copies.