Super Tycoon

In the island country market, the largest software publisher is not Nintendo. Nintendo can only be regarded as first-class, but there are Namco and other companies on it, and there is also a company called Square.

Square Enix was relatively early in the distribution of game software, and it also signed exclusive distribution agreements with many game development companies, so they are very powerful in the island country.

The company's most famous game is the Final Fantasy series. Before Zhang Yang was reborn, new works were continuously released, and there were also a lot of loyal players.

This company has unswervingly supported Nintendo before. From FC to SFC, it has developed many games for Nintendo. At the same time, it is also a publisher of many Nintendo games. It is a pleasure to cooperate with Nintendo.

It's just that Nintendo's continuous increase in royalties made Square very dissatisfied. They found that no matter how they developed, they could only rely on Nintendo's breath.

No matter how good games they develop, Nintendo will always make the most money, so why?

Players buy games, and our games can also drive the sales of game consoles. Why not let our games run on more game consoles?

Moreover, Nintendo requires the company not to have more than three new works per year, which is not good for Square, which has a large number of developers, so in order to increase revenue, they cooperated with Sonny to develop Fairy Warrior.

This suddenly angered Nintendo. They had previously warned their third-party game companies that if they switched to other game console manufacturers, they would be punished.

But Square is not afraid of this at all, because they have signed agreements with many game companies at the same time. If Nintendo raises the royalties, they will all switch to the Souni camp.

It is precisely because of this that it makes Nintendo even more angry. When has Nintendo been threatened by a game company?

Nintendo has made a decision for this, even if it hurts both sides, it must make the company unlucky, and at the same time warn other game manufacturers to avoid this situation from happening again.

If you want to change jobs to other camps, you need to have this ability.

On the surface, Nintendo seemed to suffer from being dumb and didn't say a word. Because Nintendo had just experienced the failure of VB at that time, and the sales of GBP were not satisfactory.

Then Nintendo launched the N64 ahead of schedule for the company's development, saving the defeat. At this time, Nintendo finally pulled out its hand and could clean up this Square company.

They made an agreement with Square,

Let the opponent's new game "Legend of the Holy Dragon" be released on N64, and the estimated sales volume is 900,000 sets.

Under the strong encouragement of Nintendo, Square Co., Ltd. produced 90 complete sets of cassettes at once, preparing to make a lot of money. They felt that Nintendo had given up and was willing to let Square produce it by itself. Each set of games only charged 1,000 yen in royalties, but there was no sales guarantee compensation.

Square doesn't care about this at all. They are also established game sellers. They know how fun this game is. They feel that 900,000 sets are too little. In the island market, they should be able to sell at least one million sets. right.

And at the same time of production, they are rushing to make the English version and other language versions for the European market.

According to the previous sales method, Nintendo should ship the game cartridges in batches, while promoting the game while ensuring the popularity of the game, and it is best to have a short-term sell-out, creating the illusion that the supply is in short supply.

This time, Nintendo directly piled up all 900,000 sets of game cartridges on the shelves of the Nintendo Game Store and other retailers, and asked them to sell them out as soon as possible.

Nintendo's game store doesn't have a lot of stock, and those other retailers have a large backlog of stock. They also need to sell out as soon as possible according to the requirements. At the same time, they also got wind that other retailers had cut prices.

Now, all retailers are starting to mark down their prices, and the prices are dropping every day. This not only caused the word-of-mouth of the Legend of the Holy Dragon to decline rapidly, but also made this product become uninterested.

Players are very curious about this game, but they are still waiting. If the price can be reduced by one-tenth or even one-fifth after waiting for a week, it will be worth it.

In this way, this game that Square Enix bought and released with a lot of money suddenly hit the street.

900,000 sets, each set was priced at a high price of 8,000 yen, but in the end, only more than 200,000 sets were sold, and they were all discounted, and then sold to retailers, distributors, etc. The profits, the cost of buying and producing games, and the royalties they paid, not only did they not make money, but they also lost money.

The loss this time was not a small amount, and there was a direct financial deficit of 3.4 billion yen!

A game production and distribution company originally had relatively small assets, but at this moment, the company's capital chain was almost broken.

Once the capital chain is broken, this company will go bankrupt. They were once the largest game software publisher in the island country.

How could Square Co., Ltd. tolerate this matter, and directly tore it openly with Nintendo in the media. Nintendo also stated that they did not receive enough royalties and lost more than one billion yen.

However, Nintendo's violation of its previous sales strategy is indeed a stone hammer, which cannot be blamed. Many companies also understand that this is because Nintendo has made it clear that it wants to cheat Square Enix, and it will hurt both sides.

For Nintendo, a loss of one billion yen is nothing. Their other games are selling very well. With the hot sales of N64, Nintendo's revenue is also growing rapidly, sweeping away the haze in the first half of the year.

It was Junpei Yokoi, the father of GB, who had been in contact with Square on behalf of Nintendo before, and even Square could port some games to GB, which was reciprocated. After all, when Square was about to go bankrupt, it was Nintendo who saved them.

However, Junpei Yokoi retired, and he retired in a dishonorable capacity, and after retirement, he did not receive any compensation. Instead, the Nintendo stocks he once held were returned to Nintendo.

Square Enix no longer has a good impression of Nintendo, and thinks that its wings are hardened and it can fly solo.

The lessons learned this time let Square know that it will definitely be difficult to develop if it continues to cooperate with Nintendo. It is better to change the family. And they also need new capital infusions to save businesses that are on the verge of bankruptcy.

This incident has become a big deal, and game manufacturers around the world are paying attention, and Nintendo has once again been criticized, and the most popular ones are Sega and Sunny.

It was also at this time that Zhang Yang asked Matsudajiri Satoshi to go to Square, and Yokoi Gunpei also went to Square.