Chapter 179: International Electronics Exhibition
Here's the translated content:
"$399."
"..."
At that moment, the atmosphere in the president's office became extremely subtle.
In yen, that's 44,800 yen. It was quite a hefty amount for a home console enjoyed by kids. In fact, the NEGA Saturn wasn't this expensive during its early planning stages.
Considering that the failure of NEGA CD, the predecessor to Saturn, was due to its high price and loading times, the developers, taking this into account, managed to create a sprite engine capable of extreme 2D capabilities at a relatively reasonable price point.
However, due to the popularity of "Real Fighter," which showcased the possibilities of 3D games, the landscape of the gaming industry changed.
Gamers who enjoyed "Real Fighter" assumed it would naturally transition to the Saturn, even though it hadn't been officially announced.
As user expectations soared, President Yamanaka, postponing Saturn's release for about a year, gathered the technical developers and assigned them a task: "Make Real Fighter work on the Saturn."
This was a more heinous command than merely "build a machine again."
With only about a year left in the development period...
Due to limited resources, the developers resorted to a rather brute method to enhance Saturn's performance.
Their chosen method was to slam two identical CPUs into the Saturn to complement its added 3D capabilities.
It seemed like an incredibly simple solution, but this method inflated the production cost of the Saturn and provided developers with an incredibly convoluted development environment.
In the future I knew, we had progressed beyond dual CPUs to even quad CPUs. But in this era, a dual CPU meant exactly what it said: two separate CPUs.
Regarding this, NEGA explained to third-party developers working on Saturn games, "Just divide the operations to be processed by each CPU."
Easier said than done.
Even for experienced programmers, synchronizing each CPU's processing was a difficult task. If one CPU finished its operation while the other still had tasks pending, it would inevitably cause delays in the overall program.
"Indeed, the worst moves often stem from the desires of top management."
I swallowed a smirk and slowly raised my head.
Meanwhile, President Yamanaka, alongside the Saturn's price reveal, hurriedly announced that Real Fighter and Daytona 3D, showcased earlier, would be released simultaneously with the Saturn launch to rekindle the tepid user response.
The users began to somewhat accept it, understanding that $399 was higher than expected, but having confirmation of being able to enjoy Real Fighter at home.
So, I raised my hand towards President Yamanaka. Suzuki-san, who recognized me, widened his eyes and immediately whispered something to the President.
Seems like he's briefing President Yamanaka about me. How could he ignore me in front of so many users?
At that moment, a voice of recognition from a user somewhere reached me.
"Oh! I've seen that person in a magazine."
"Who?"
"He's an employee at Pentagon Soft. Before that, he created Super Family at Mintendo and then moved to Laon at Pentagon."
"Incredible. So, is that person a console developer?"
"He's a console developer and also makes games. He even created a version of Dragon Emblem that didn't have me as the main director."
As expected, at an event of this scale, there would be one or two people who recognized me...
But a comment from somewhere hit me in the chest like a knife.
"I thought he'd create only hardcore games and look like a weirdo, but surprisingly, he looks normal...?"
... What does a weirdo look like, exactly?
For a moment, an image of a 'middle-aged man in a tracksuit with a yellow towel around his neck' flashed in my mind, but let's just forget about that.
"Well... Do you have any questions?"
President Yamanaka spoke with a slightly uneasy expression.
"The gameplay footage of Real Fighter you showedis that for the arcade or an actual video running on the Saturn?"
At that moment, President Yamanaka and Suzuki-san exchanged uncomfortable glances, furrowing their brows.
How bad do I look in their eyes right now?
But when other users started murmuring upon hearing my question, Suzuki-san had no choice but to respond.
"The promotional video of Real Fighter you've just seen is for the arcade. The Saturn version of Real Fighter is still in development. However, to achieve a perfect port, the entire VM team working on Real Fighter for Saturn is putting in great effort, so you can look forward to it."
Yeah, that's why I believed in those words and bought the Saturn...
However, the Saturn version of Real Fighter I played was far from being a 'perfect port.'
Unable to utilize full polygons, the background was a 2D texture stuck on, and due to the limited 3D capabilities, the characters felt disjointed during gameplay, often resulting in graphics glitches and feeling significantly messier than the arcade version.
The feeling of betrayal I felt back then...
Moreover, considering the already steep price, when the Saturn first arrived in Korea, it reached an astronomical price of about 600,000 to 700,000 won from street vendors.
I tried hard to develop an attachment and play, but I couldn't bear it. Eventually, a few months later, I sold the Saturn and switched to the Gear Station.
NEGA's new announcement merely involved porting most of the games previously released for the arcade. User expressions at CES couldn't hide a sense of disappointment.
Since it's the next-gen console, there was an expectation for new titles that would showcase its performance. But amidst struggling with the hardware, NEGA couldn't muster the courage to announce any new titles.
However, the real show at CES was about to begin.
The conference of the reigning monarch in the gaming world, Mintendo, was scheduled for 1 PM.
Also, curious to know about the truth behind the rumored project being jointly developed by SensoNi, users were skipping meals to gather at the Mintendo conference.
"Indeed, Mintendo always lives up to its name."
Morita, Hayashi, and President Kawaguchi, who had finished preparing for the event, suddenly appeared by my side. I briefly shared my feelings about NEGA's presentation with them, as they had missed the NEGA unveiling.
"It feels like NEGA was somewhat unprepared. There was no gameplay footage even for the next-gen Saturn, and the price, exceeding user expectations, ended somewhat blandly."
Hearing my words, President Kawaguchi nodded with a wry smile and replied, "There's still about three months until the official release, right? With that much time, they should be able to show some gameplay to promote the Saturn. Wonder if there's an internal issue or something else?"
"Well, even I'm not sure about that. It could be an internal problem or a countermeasure against Mintendo..."
Arms folded, President Kawaguchi muttered while gazing at the Mintendo booth.
"I wonder what cards Mintendo will play along with SensoNi in the upcoming next-gen war."
"Shall we grab a quick bite first?"
They nodded in agreement with my suggestion.
"We were hungry anyway, so that sounds like a good idea."
&
"Several days of event preparation and just eating hot dogsit's starting to get to me. I want to eat a proper meal. Food!"
Hayashi complained as he took a bite of a hot dog slathered in mustard, swallowing it down with a gulp of cola. Morita, who was nearby, grinned and spoke up.
"Why? I'm fine with this, you know?"
"You've got that instant-eater constitution. I've been eating only flour-based foods for a few days now, and it's killing my digestion."
It's been about ten days since I arrived in the U.S.; complaints like these were starting to surface.
Except for Uchimura and Morita, who had been trained on instant foods for a long time, everyone seemed to miss home-cooked meals.
Now that I think about it, I do miss the food Yuki made for me...
After a quick meal, I bought some hot dogs at the Pentagon booth and when I returned, Rob, dressed in a suit, greeted me. His scruffy beard, neatly trimmed, gave him a completely different image from the Rob I knew.
"You're Rob, right?"
"Yeah, in the flesh. But hey, do I really have to do the presentation?"
"Since you made it, it's only natural that you explain the structure, right?"
"This is my first time in this kind of setting, and I'm terribly nervous..."
"No need to worry. Just talk about the specs of the VRAM chip we created. We've got the performance video ready, right?"
In response to my question, Rob nodded, giving a thumbs-up.
&
1 p.m.
Ring! With the sound effect signaling Super Marigi eating a coin, the Mintendo booth finally appeared.
"Wow!"
As Yamashita-san and Shige-san, the heads of the U.S. branch for Mintendo, took the stage for Mintendo's presentation, the cheers from the crowd around the booth began to heat up the atmosphere.
It seemed the disappointment from NEGA's conference amplified the desire for compensation from Mintendo. Shigeru Kumamoto, the father of Super Marigi, smiled and waved to the people until the cheers from the users quietened down.
Seeing Yamashita-san after a long time, I applauded from a little distance away.
"To all of you who have come to the International Electronics Expo, thank you very much. Just a decade ago, when we released the Family in the U.S., we couldn't have imagined the gaming market expanding to this extent. Mintendo has been striving to deliver more enjoyable and delightful games to you through a generation from the Family to the Super Family."
After delivering the pre-written welcoming remarks, Yamashita-san took a small breath before continuing.
"And now, we are about to face another era. That's right, with the new console created by Mintendo. Hmm... Many expect the next step after the 16-bit gaming market to be the 32-bit market. And I also think that's not a wrong choice. However..."
As Yamashita-san's speech progressed, the audience inside the hall was gradually getting drawn into his rhetoric.
"But... someone has to think a step ahead of that. It's not necessary that the next step after 16-bits is strictly 32-bits."
As confidence beamed from Yamashita-san's smile, murmurs of "No way..." began to emerge from the users.
"We've put a lot of thought into this project. While developing the new next-gen model in collaboration with Sony, we realized something: what you really desire in gaming isn't a CD medium. Games should always be intuitive. And to achieve that, we realized that CDs are an absurdly slow medium. We had to make a choice. We decided to abandon the project we jointly developed with Sony, pouring a massive amount of capital, just to create games that you all want. Something more than that..."
"Wow!"
"I won't draw this out. Our next Mintendo console will use a 64-bit system. And we'll show you a completely new form of gaming."
>
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