Chereads / Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo / Chapter 253 - Production bottleneck

Chapter 253 - Production bottleneck

"President, this is the weekly sales data just sent from the United States."

"Alright, set it aside. I'm still in an online seminar; I'll look at it later."

"Understood."

The secretary left the office, and Takayuki resumed typing on his computer.

A chat window appeared on the screen.

Currently, there's a quite mature chat software. Recently, Takayuki mainly used this software to communicate remotely with people from the United States and other departments.

They were usually busy with work, so it wasn't feasible to have meetings every day. Therefore, they could only communicate through this method.

Currently, Takayuki was primarily promoting the video game "Doom." He not only wanted to release "Doom" on gaming consoles but also wanted to launch it for personal computers (PCs).

In the current US market, the PC market held a considerable share.

Moreover, this was a market where anyone could join and rapidly establish themselves. He planned to directly emulate the model of the original world's Steam and create a PC content platform. However, it had to be done step by step.

The original Steam was initially used only as a platform for verifying and playing "Half-Life" and multiplayer games. It gradually evolved into a diversified gaming platform.

For first-person shooter games, using a keyboard and mouse was more convenient. Takayuki had to admit this fact. Even though the world's Microsoft had created the world's best game controller, it still couldn't compare to the superior experience that a keyboard and mouse provided for first-person shooter games.

With a mature game engine and a good idea, everyone, including the engineering development team, knew how to create it. Takayuki only needed to control the critical aspects.

For example, how "Doom" should be presented and whether it should be overly violent. If it was too violent, it might stimulate children, and then they would have to consider implementing a game rating system to ensure self-regulation within the industry.

If the industry didn't discipline itself, it would inevitably face government intervention, which would be quite burdensome.

Therefore, Takayuki had always been very attentive to this point.

At this point, "Doom" development was already halfway through. The programmers had worked hard to build the game's framework, and now it was about filling it with various content to enrich the game world.

"Doom," in simple terms, was a game about killing monsters with excitement. At the beginning, the game's story wasn't described in much detail. It was a gameplay-focused game, where as long as it was fun, it was acceptable.

This was the tone set by Takayuki from the beginning, to prevent any deviations from the intended direction.

At the current development pace, and considering the development speed of the GS1 gaming console, "Doom" probably wouldn't be officially released until next year. However, Takayuki believed that the moment "Doom" was released, it would definitely explode in the market.

After finishing the online meeting, Takayuki casually glanced at the Male Game Network.

This website had become more mature, and Takayuki had developed a habit of checking it at least once a day.

After briefly scanning through the day's gaming industry news, Takayuki closed the webpage.

However, he was slightly concerned about whether there were too many advertisements.

It seemed that in a few days, he would have to find an opportunity to contact Ichiro Murakami and ask if he needed money for maintenance and operation. If he needed some, Takayuki could support him anonymously.

Then he picked up the weekly data report submitted from the United States.

It had to be said that the US market was truly a terrifying one.

They could swallow as much supply as you could produce.

Currently, the production speed of the SFC gaming console on their side had reached 100,000 units per day. This meant that over 30 million gaming consoles could be produced in a year.

Approximately 50,000 units were allocated to the Japanese market, while another 50,000 units were directly shipped to the United States.

Every day, various supermarkets and department stores in the United States were able to sell as much as they stocked, making gaming consoles the best-selling products.

On the gradually emerging online shopping platforms, there were also posts selling gaming consoles at high prices.

Takayuki felt somewhat helpless about this.

It wasn't that he didn't want to increase production.

It was just that he had already started planning some of the GS1 production lines, and the OEM factories were ready for production line upgrades.

Additionally, FC had been occupying a small portion of the production line all along. Even though SFC and GB were currently the profitable mainstream, it wasn't feasible to expand further in the short term.

This kind of thing had to be done gradually. It wasn't that Takayuki didn't want to increase production; it was just that Americans were really big spenders.

Currently, the weekly sales volume of gaming consoles and game cartridges was stable at over 300,000 units.

This peak was reached around May, encountering production bottlenecks.

Also, around May, the combined sales data of SFC in Japan and the United States reached tens of millions. Of course, a celebration was in order. This once again caused quite a stir in the industry. Selling over ten million units of an electronic product within two years was truly remarkable.

According to the market research conducted by Matsubashi, only by increasing the SFC production line to a daily output of 200,000 units could they barely meet the demand in the United States.

Moreover, besides the United States, there were other overseas markets, such as the European Union, Canada, Mexico, and other countries.

Although the United States was relatively wealthy, the purchasing power of other countries in the European Union and elsewhere was equally not weak.

In this case, even a daily output of 200,000 units might not be sufficient.

It seemed that he would have to find some people specifically to handle this matter.

The basic sales data of their own games was mostly impressive.

Among them, the most outstanding wasn't "Street Fighter" or "NBA Jam," but the second-generation "Duck Hunt" game.

The sales of this game had already surpassed four million in the United States, almost equivalent to the number of SFC units sold in the United States. It was quite terrifying.

After reading this data, Takayuki noticed that there were a few more pages at the end. He opened it and found sales data from competing products that they could investigate.

Currently, there were over ten gaming console brands in the United States, indicating that many industries had entered the gaming field.

Moreover, there were even more companies entering game development. Currently, there were over three hundred companies, all working for different platforms, developing games of various sizes.

After a rough look, the sales data of these gaming consoles could only be described as somewhat mediocre. But compared to Gamestar Entertainment, they were quite weak.

However, Takayuki slightly furrowed his brow.

Because he saw some very familiar names.