Chereads / Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo / Chapter 66 - Challenge

Chapter 66 - Challenge

It seems there are many people who are like two-faced.

There are many people who are eager to join in when they see the opportunity to create a game world on the website of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, and they are eager to sign up for game production courses.

Just imagining being able to create an electronic world is cool in itself.

But there are not many who dare to actually practice.

Most of them still have jobs and families to take care of.

In this era of the bursting bubble, they dare not take risks, and they don't have spare time to do other jobs, so they can only suppress this impulse in their hearts.

They are actually waiting, waiting for the first person to take the plunge, but they dare not take that first step themselves.

At the same time, new weekly sales records once again arrived on Takayuki's desk.

He picked up the data and began to study it carefully.

So far, after three months of sales, the sales of game consoles have exceeded 300,000, far beyond Takayuki's expectations.

At first, he thought that selling 120,000 game consoles in the first three months would be enough.

After all, people in this world don't fully understand electronic games; they need some time to digest.

But perhaps the low-price strategy played a significant role. Several top-quality games, combined with already inexpensive game consoles, made it easier to penetrate the market than he had imagined.

Many parents are willing to spend a little money to buy a game console and one or two games to keep their children quiet.

Some children even have enough savings from their own work to buy a game console without relying entirely on their parents.

With word of mouth spreading among buyers, within three months, the trend quickly swept through the Tokyo metropolitan area and its surrounding areas, becoming a symbol of fashion and beginning to spread rapidly to more areas.

The latest weekly sales volume of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) has reached 40,000 units, which has completely surpassed the sales volume of the first week of game consoles. Looking at this trend, the sales will only continue to rise in the following weeks.

As a result, game sales data are also rapidly increasing.

"Contra" and "Dragon Quest" have both exceeded 200,000 in sales.

"Tetris" is hovering around 190,000, and even the least-selling "Bomberman" has sold 120,000 copies. It can be said that this is cause for celebration.

The next week will be the release date of the next game, "Red Fortress", and many players have already prepared their money to buy it first.

Takayuki is quite satisfied with this sales data.

And the company's reserve funds are quite sufficient. Even now, it would be possible to assemble a super team of several hundred people to develop a large-scale game.

But not yet. The game industry is not mature enough, and there are not many talents in the game industry. Making a large-scale game now would probably waste most of the money and time in useless places.

The key is to find a way to expand the industry scale first; this is just the beginning.

Let's execute the game producer training plan well first. It is estimated that in about two or three months, the first batch of programmers and producers for making games can be trained.

As these people mature, the number and scale of games on the market will rapidly expand. Then, in another year or two, the entire industry should gradually mature.

At this time, Takayuki's mind is already filled with many future classic blockbuster games.

Such as "Red Dead Redemption", "God of War", and so on.

Ah, I really want to play these games, but unfortunately, it's not possible now.

Even a mature game engine has not been developed yet.

Just as Takayuki was imagining the beautiful future of games, a slightly urgent knock on the door sounded.

Takayuki refocused his thoughts and said, "Come in."

"President Takayuki, please take a look at this!"

A man in a neatly pressed suit walked in. This man's name is Yasutaka Natsume, the General Manager of the Marketing Department, who was recently established by the company.

He was recruited by Masaki through a headhunting company.

Previously, he had worked for a mechanical manufacturing company, but after the bubble burst, this company also nearly went bankrupt. Employees began to look for their own ways out, and then he was recruited by Masaki.

His business acumen is good; his decisions have helped the company through several crises before, but it was ultimately eliminated by the market due to the insufficient potential for development. He could only seek employment elsewhere.

When he learned that this was a startup company, he was initially hesitant to join, but after seeing the sales data of the company's first two months, he almost didn't hesitate anymore.

Since coming to the company, he and Masaki have worked together to build the strategy and framework for marketing. Now, with the game console and game sales advancing so quickly, he has contributed to it.

Yasutaka Natsume went straight to Takayuki's desk and placed two documents on it.

One is today's newspaper from the Economic News, and the other is a screenshot from a webpage on the internet.

Takayuki curiously picked them up, and his gaze quickly locked onto one section of the newspaper.

It was a relatively prominent advertisement position in the newspaper.

If he remembers correctly, this advertising space costs 10 million yen per week, more expensive than TV commercials. When he heard this price, he immediately gave up on advertising in the newspaper.

However, at this moment, a piece of electronic equipment appeared in this advertising space.

The device has a simple gray square shell, and there are two controllers. On those controllers, Takayuki saw the familiar buttons.

On the left are four buttons arranged in a cross shape, which seem to represent the four directional buttons, and on the right are three buttons arranged in a triangle, with each button colored in red, blue, and yellow, respectively.

"The most advanced and high-end electronic entertainment game console product: PN type electronic game console is now available for pre-order!"

In addition to the newspaper, there is also an advertisement taken from a webpage, also promoting this PN game console.

"President Takayuki, someone has started to copy our game console. I think we should immediately mobilize the legal department to prohibit their sales activities."

Yasutaka Natsume said solemnly.

He is an old hand in marketing.

Once a product similar to their own appears on the market, it means that users will immediately be diverted. At this time, Yasutaka Natsume knows that there is only one way to solve the problem to a certain extent, and it needs to be done quickly!

That is to warn the other party of patent infringement and be prepared for a long-term legal battle, which can delay the opponent's progress.

Now that Gamestar's development is on the rise, if there is a similar game console competing with theirs, it will definitely be a big trouble.

Yasutaka Natsume takes this matter very seriously.

In his imagination, when Takayuki sees this news, he will probably be nervous for a moment. After all, he looks like he's in his early twenties, so that's normal.

However, to his astonishment, after Takayuki finished reading the news, he did not seem nervous or flustered at all. Instead, he looked... somewhat excited?