game trailblazer

Chapter 313 Fierce Competition in Summer Vacation ([-])
Thinking of how people’s game-adapted movies and movie-adapted games are playing so high, Kutaragi Ken felt very upset. He couldn’t help but slapped the table and roared: “We also have to have our own movie-adapted games, and we have to have a relatively large one.” Influence!"

Aoyama Akihiro, who was sitting at his desk and steadily reporting his work, was taken aback, stood up instinctively, and nodded sharply: "Yes, President!"

Yes, I agree. Of course, when it comes to handling this matter, there is no need for Aoyama Akihiro. He has to keep an eye on the release of the PS-One, and collect information on competitors by the way, so contact influential directors and actors. , The adaptation of an influential film finally fell into the hands of Ichiro Fukai.

In fact, Ken Kutaragi also thought about whether, like Square Enix, he also chose a suitable game to be adapted into a movie. Speaking of which, Sony has a little advantage in this regard. After all, there is a large-scale film company in Hollywood, but a On the one hand, there is no suitable game to adapt, at least Ken Kutaragi can’t think of it. On the other hand, Columbia Pictures is mainly good at making live-action movies. There are only a few companies that are capable of making CG movies like that. The most famous and powerful are Industrial Light & Magic and Oriental Shenyun. Unfortunately, none of them can be hired. It would have been better if it was five or six years ago.

It will not be possible to play a game adaptation movie for a while. In order to win back, Kutaragi Ken's last hope is to find a suitable movie adaptation into a game, and it must be at the level of John Woo and Chow Yun-fat's "Hot Detective".There are not many qualified people, especially in order to avoid lowering his status, Kutaragi Ken did not find a way through Sony headquarters, and there are even fewer candidates who can be contacted in this case.Ichiro Fukai left with Ken Kutaragi's expectations, to visit those who are worthy of invitation, and all he can do next is to wait, hoping for good results.

……

RB Tokyo, Sega headquarters building...

Since the beginning of July, the place has been in a hurry. In order to strengthen the company's competitiveness and reduce unnecessary personnel costs, under the instruction of Okawa Isao, Xiang Shanzhe separated the nine game research and development departments into nine branches, such as Naka Yuji. The 7th Research and Development Department was independently formed as SonicTeam Co., Ltd., Yuji Nakashi served as the representative director and president, and the 8th R&D Department led by Minoru Nagoshi became AmusementVision Co., Ltd., and Minoru Hiroshi Nakoshi served as the representative director and president.

The reason for this is to enhance competitiveness and reduce costs, but they are not the main reasons. Sega has developed over the years, because it has always emphasized free creation, internal management is very loose, and various departments, especially the game R&D department, interact with each other. They didn't buy it, and they didn't cooperate too much. Even at a certain game exhibition, it happened that the ministers of the two game R&D departments had been strangers to each other, and there was no communication from the beginning to the end.When Sega headquarters planned to abandon the 16-bit MD console, they forgot to notify the North American branch in time, so that they were still enthusiastically developing the performance booster 32X, and a large sum of money was wasted.

Sega Corporation is now extremely difficult to return to. In desperation, Isao Okawa came up with such an idea of ​​branching out. He hoped to slowly resolve the conflicts between various departments, reunite the employees of Sega Corporation, and strive for Being able to get through this difficult time together will give Sega a new life just like the phoenix nirvana.It's just that he was trapped in his body, and Okawa Isao couldn't implement his own ideas in person, so he had to pin his hopes on Xiangshan Tetsu, Sato Hideki and others.

There is also some good news. Although the free Dreamcast console plan was abolished due to the departure of Shoichiro Nitsuko, the price of the Dreamcast console in North America was temporarily reduced to $149.99, and after 30 days of free SegaNet Internet service was also included, The sales situation of the Dreamcast mainframe has improved a lot, at least 12 more units are sold every week than before. If this continues, there may be hope that the global sales will exceed 2000 million units.

In mid-July, Sega's high-profile broadband network service "[email protected]"opened, and began to experiment with Sega's directly-operated amusement centers in Akihabara, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro in Tokyo. Through an optical fiber network up to 1Gbyte per second, it can provide players with a brand new gaming experience. A network-based A whole new way to play.

In order to attract more players to buy Dreamcast games, Sega also plans to launch a new game payment method "@barai".This is a new system that buys at a low price and then renews through the Internet. Sega will sell the so-called @barai version of the game that has been specially processed to players at an ultra-low price of 1000 yen. Players can try part of the content first If you are satisfied, you can pay the remaining money through Sega's account, and then you can get the unlock code to play the remaining game content.It sounds very fresh, but it is actually similar to the demo games on the computer, which is the leftovers from those shared games in the era of "Wolf3D".But for Isao Okawa, Zhe Xiangshan and others, this may be the last hope for the continuation of the Dreamcast host.

……

Before Ken Kutaragi could wait for the good news from Ichiro Fukai, he received the bad news from Aoyama Akihiro.In the first match of this summer vacation, PS-One completed sales of nearly 30 units, DreamBox128 sales exceeded 120 million units, while PS2 sales fell to 20 units in the same period, and Final Fantasy 128, which supported the DreamBox9 scene. " reached an incredible 276 million sets, and it directly became the driving force behind the increase in sales of DreamBox128 game consoles.

Ken Kutaragi is a little envious of this point but also very helpless. After all, his opponent has planned many years in advance, and it is normal to be able to launch many masterpieces of games step by step to boost sales. In fact, Sony Computer Entertainment also has this idea. It's just that it's a little late to help.At the beginning, I didn’t expect the DreamBox128 game console to appear on the stage. When I realized that the situation was not good and wanted to fight back, I couldn’t do anything on my side. I reluctantly released the PS2 game console in advance, and encountered difficulties in game development. In order to strengthen my own strength Development strength, invested in the establishment of some first-party development companies, and bought some companies to act as second-party development companies, but the people are there, but the game can be easily completed in two or three months. It is impossible to produce a substantial product without a period of 10 to 18 months.So now Kutaragi Ken can only watch his opponent show off his power, and then look forward to the company that helps PS2 develop games to move faster, and look forward to small moves such as PS-One to cause a little trouble for the opponent, but it seems that the situation is not the case now. It develops as he wishes.

As for Sega, which was lingering on the sidelines, Kutaragi Ken didn't take it seriously at all, especially when he heard that Sega's deficit had reached 300 billion yen, he had already put Sega in his heart ahead of time. I crossed it out from the list, but I didn't expect Isao Okawa to come out, and actually donated 500 billion yen of personal property.Sega, which had only breathed its last breath, came back to life. Now it has branched out the game research and development organization, lowered the sales price of the Dreamcast console, and is planning to launch low-priced games. Try it before you buy it. The new sales model, looking at this posture, I still want Sega or Isao Okawa to give it another go.

In order to make this stubborn opponent fall completely, Kutaragi Ken came up with a trick, which can not only destroy the foundation of Sega, but also take the opportunity to expand the influence of the PS2 game console.For this reason, he asked Namco, which has the closest relationship with Sony Computer Entertainment, to come forward and publicly publish the new business board "SYSTEM2" developed by the two companies with PS246 interchangeability, to stimulate Sega. The development of the "SYSTEM246" business substrate is only three months later than PS2. It is a PS2-related technology that is completely adopted, but the memory capacity is increased and the sound output effect is improved. The initial development code is called "PS2A (PlayStation2Arcade)" , mainly to facilitate Namco to reduce the development cost of arcade games and the difficulty of game transplantation, while the current "SYSTEM246" has been given a greater role.

Yoichi Haraguchi, the spokesperson of Namco, enthusiastically introduced to the media present: "... Everyone, 'SYSTEM246', as our new generation of business substrate, will be the fifth game of "Ridge Racer". Please look behind me... ..."

Following Yoichi Haraguchi's introduction, the game trailer of "Ridge Racing 5" began to play on the projection screen at the press conference. The excellent sense of presence and speed immediately attracted everyone's attention. After a wonderful racing scene , a racing car stopped on the side of the road, and a woman came out of the car door. According to the convention, this should be the signature Nagase Reiko of "Ridge Racing", but when the camera zoomed in on the racing car to see the woman's appearance clearly, many of them played "Ridge Racing" Everyone in Ridge Racing was stunned.

Looking at the stunned people below the stage, Yoichi Haraguchi smiled with satisfaction. It seems that the newcomer's debut effect has been achieved, so he continued to introduce with a smile: "Everyone, everyone, everyone can see on the screen that there is a smile on his face. The woman with the beauty mark is the new heroine Fukami Ai of "Ridge Racer"..."

Some people who played "Ridge Racer" admiring the deep water blue on the screen for a while couldn't help but frowned slightly. If it wasn't for the consideration of the impact, some people might not be able to help shouting: "I want to Miss Nagase..."

I don’t know if it’s preconceived reasons, but many people in the audience think that compared with the beautiful Nagase Reiko, Deep Water Blue is too mediocre. Of course, if you only look at the neck, it’s okay, at least in terms of figure. Deepwater Blue still has something to be proud of.Some people can't figure it out, why would Nagase Reiko be replaced when Namco is fine, if you really want to change it, you have to change it to something better, if it's deep water blue, it's better not to change it.

After thinking about it, everyone would not touch Namco's bad luck out of politeness. At least Yoichi Haraguchi on the stage introduced so hard, so he should give some face.It's strange to say that Deepwater Blue is not as good as Nagase Reiko, but Toyota has taken a fancy to it, claiming to use Deepwater Blue as the protagonist in the advertisement to promote the company's new satellite positioning system. If it wasn't for Toyota's The officer was on the scene, and he couldn't believe that many people were beaten to death.

The press conference is still going on. After introducing "Ridge Racer 5", Yoichi Haraguchi mysteriously revealed that Namco has 4 other games based on the "SYSTEM246" business substrate that are under development and are expected to be launched next year. One of them is also It's also a racing game, but in a very different style from Ridge Racer, as well as a shooter with ray guns, an action-fighting game, and a game that simulates skiing.

Not to mention, the "SYSTEM246" business substrate on Namco's side has just been unveiled, and on the other hand, Oriental Industrial Group, together with companies such as Capcom and Konami, has launched a business substrate "DreamSpace" that can be interchanged with DreamBox128. "The original arcade games of several companies, such as the "Street Fighter" series and the "Dancing Revolution" series will be displayed on the "DreamSpace" business substrate, and there will also be a number of original games on the stage. The shocking promotional video immediately replaced the "SYSTEM246" a few days ago and became the most anticipated arcade machine in the minds of many people.

For Sega, "SYSTEM246" and "DreamSpace" are no different from two heavy hammers, hitting the arcade business that he originally intended to be unstable. The most obvious impact is that after the two conferences, many of Sega's direct sales Receipts at amusement centers are down.The arcade board currently used by Sega is the NAOMI board, which is very similar to "SYSTEM246" and "DreamSpace", and can also be interchanged with the Dreamcast host. It has been used for less than a year.At the beginning, NAOMI board was designed with interchangeable technology, in order to reduce the development cost of arcade games, and at the same time have good performance. This goal can be said to be basically achieved by Sega. Of course, if the Dreamcast mainframe can be sold as originally expected Going to three or 4000 million units will be even more perfect, and the role of NAOMI substrates will be greater than now.

It's a pity that this idea is no longer exclusive to Sega. The performance of "SYSTEM246" and "DreamSpace" which also uses interchangeable technology is much better than that of NAOMI boards. This can be seen from the comparison of the effects of DreamBox128, PS2 and Dreamcast games. .But the current Sega is no longer the Sega it was a few years ago. They don’t have so much time and money to spend on the development of new products. Their only hope now is networking. Develop networked arcade games to attract players.

Unlike Sega, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Oriental Industrial Group, which were busy fighting, Nintendo seemed very calm, so calm that one wondered if they were planning to quit.Fortunately, after holding back for a few days, Nintendo finally pulled Panasonic together to make a promotion, claiming that the development of the "Dolphin" console has ended, and it will be exhibited at the "Nintendo Space World Show 8" held from August 25th to August 8th. At that time, the official name of the "Dolphin" console will be announced, and the game console will be released in 27.

The last game console in the battle of next-generation game consoles is finally about to show its glory. Of course, it’s not that everyone still has much hope for Nintendo’s “Dolphin” console. It’s impossible for them to create miracles if they are too far behind. Turning around in North America like N64 is much more difficult than before. If it weren't for Nintendo's own strong game development capabilities, maybe the current Sega is the future Nintendo.

(End of this chapter)