In these two days, the morale of the employees at GameStar Entertainment headquarters was generally low.
The mandatory open-sourcing of the game consoles seemed to be a foregone conclusion.
It appeared that there was no solution in sight.
And this meant that the games they would develop next would be difficult to monetize.
So, everyone's spirits were down.
It's not that not making money meant the games were bad or that they lacked value, but there was still a sense of disappointment.
However, Takayuki was quite indifferent.
At least with Takayuki at the helm, these people wouldn't truly lose their composure.
If it were any other company, the boss would probably be starting to panic by now.
Seeing Takayuki staying composed did help calm their inner turmoil somewhat.
And today, Takayuki suddenly called everyone together.
Each head of the game development team seemed composed as well.
They were also the backbone of the employees. As long as Takayuki remained composed, they wouldn't panic either.
These people were now the main force of GameStar Entertainment, developing numerous games.
"The atmosphere seems a bit heavy," Takayuki said with a friendly smile in the conference room.
Takayuki said, "I know you haven't been feeling great lately, the open-sourcing of the game console source code is indeed a severe blow."
"President, isn't there any way to avoid making it public?"
"Of course there is," Takayuki nodded, "That would be to give up the US market and instead focus on developing in other countries, but it would be a shame to miss out on such a big pie like the US market."
At this point, Sayuri couldn't help but ask, "So Takayuki, what do you think?"
"The open-sourcing of the source code is quite bad, but in fact, we can use this opportunity to our advantage. Piracy and cracking can indeed affect the revenue of electronic games, but conversely, piracy and cracking can also expand the user base. Sometimes, you first win the hearts of users, and then you win their money. This is also a good strategy."
This is almost equivalent to the pay-to-win mobile games of later generations, entering for free, and then finding opportunities to exploit you.
But this statement is obviously not very acceptable.
"Actually, I've been wanting to say this for a long time. Our game consoles have slowly fallen behind the times. I've been waiting for this moment. Now, we should consider launching new consoles."
"President, are you talking about the GS1 and GBA?" Everyone was intrigued.
These two consoles have been developed for a long time and have been polished very well over the past year or two, but without Takayuki's permission, they didn't dare to release them casually. Everything was waiting for Takayuki's decision.
In fact, they have been looking forward to the release of the two game consoles for a long time.
Now, according to Takayuki's meaning, it seems that the time has finally come?
They were all reinvigorated.
"President, do you mean to completely abandon the old console market and open up a new one? But even if we open up a new console, what if the US imposes sanctions again?"
Takayuki smiled, "So, we have to wait until the new rules in the US are completely finalized and implemented. By that time, if the US wants to change the rules again, they will need to go through another round of major amendments to the law, which actually comes at a high cost. At the same time, to put it bluntly, the US government also cares about its reputation. Using somewhat underhanded means repeatedly against an entertainment company, they will lose face, and the public will question the government's management ability. This is the opportunity I want to seize."
"President, does that mean they won't do this kind of thing again?"
"At least not in the short term. Doing so would lower the status of a major country."
Takayuki was indeed prepared for the US sanctions, but he never directly told outsiders.
Because no matter how you listen to it, it sounds a bit like a charlatan's prophecy. How could Takayuki foresee that the US would impose sanctions?
Now, there's no need to explain anymore.
They just felt that Takayuki was very visionary.
"So, please rest assured, but until the new regulations in the US are completely implemented, our game consoles cannot be made public. During this process, we still need to try our best to make it look like we're making the most of our last chance to make money, so we may need you to work overtime."
Takayuki looked very serious as he looked at everyone.
"Thank you for your dedication to the company. The company will certainly not mistreat you. It will take some effort during this time. Of course, I will stand with you on the same line."
Takayuki's words encouraged everyone.
They had no idea what Takayuki's plan was before, they were just confused.
But now things were different.
Now that Takayuki had helped them clarify the direction and it sounded feasible, their hearts had stabilized.
As long as these key personnel in the company didn't waver, GameStar Entertainment wouldn't falter.
In recent days, because of the events at GameStar Entertainment in the US, Japanese newspapers and media outlets have been reporting extensively.
The general public's reaction was one of hostility towards the US.
They had been screwed over by the US before, which was considered a direct cause of the bursting bubble, and now the US was attacking their Japanese companies again, which aroused a certain sense of solidarity.
Since the US would soon be unable to make money, in order to prevent GameStar Entertainment, this rising star of a Japanese company, people began spontaneously buying GameStar Entertainment's game consoles and cartridges.
And it was even with a bit of retaliatory consumption mentality.
If you Americans want to crush our national enterprises, we absolutely can't agree.
As a result, sales of the two handheld consoles and two game consoles in Japan, which originally had about tens of millions of users in the Japanese market, began to skyrocket.
The subsequent growth was starting to slow down.
But because of this incident, the number of users began to surge.
The price of the game consoles itself wasn't particularly high, and normal Japanese families could afford it.
In the end, even the sales of those old games, like the initial games of FC, began to soar, and those first-party games that hadn't even broken a million sales consecutively broke through.
Because these games were now quite cheap, a cartridge was only five hundred yen, which was definitely not something you could get cheated on.
And when these people bought the games and experienced them a little, they would realize that electronic games were really fun. As long as you didn't get addicted, it was really cost-effective entertainment.
This was much cheaper than going out to Ginza for a drink or eating Japanese and French cuisine.
In such a state, GameStar Entertainment's inventory was rapidly being depleted, and some cartridges with lower sales volumes even went out of stock.