Game Development Giant

In fact, there are several producers like Satoru Iwata in the huge Mars Entertainment studio system who are confident that their games can stand out from various masterpieces at the launch of Dreambox 3.

It's just that they are not as famous as Satoru Iwata.

They also all have their own games participating in the launch of Dreambox 3 this time. They are both looking forward to and a little worried about the launch day getting closer and closer. They hope that their games will be successful, and they are also worried that no one will care about their games. However, At least judging from the previous game promotions, Kirby is not one that no one cares about. There are still many people who are interested in this cute style game.

But compared to those masterpieces, it is not that popular.

After all, although Mars Entertainment is rich in resources for promotion and publicity, the allocation to each project is completely different. For Dreambox 3 itself and those games that are extremely optimistic about the company, naturally a lot of financial resources have been invested in promotion, and for For a game like Kirby, if it is normal, it will be enough, and the publicity may be increased.

After all, this game deserves promotion too.

But now, at this time, it can only be said that there are not many promotion resources. Who is to say that there will be a big crowd at this time.

Moreover, when Dreambox 3 was first released, it was actually not conducive to the release of this traditional 2D game, because the selling point of Dreambox 3 this time was its extremely powerful 3D processing capabilities. It was completely different from the PS2 era, and in 2D image processing Above, it is not as powerful as the Sega Saturn. Of course, it is a 32-bit game console after all, and the 2D graphics are still much better than those on the 16-bit console.

As the release date of Dreambox 3 gets closer, many predictions about the future fate of this console suddenly fell silent.

It is true that although Dreambox3 was promoted with great momentum before. Despite the overwhelming number of games and the suffocating lineup of starting games, there are still a lot of people who are not optimistic about the fate of Mars Entertainment's new console this time. For no other reason than because they released it a full year later than their competitors, and this is also the key to the success or failure of a product.

Indeed, Dreambox3 is more powerful than Sega Saturn and PS2. However, this outstanding performance did not achieve a crushing effect. It was at most half a generation ahead of their opponents.

This gap is acceptable in the eyes of many players.

In addition, the price of Dreambox 3 is almost fifty dollars higher than that of its two rivals. This will inevitably make players hesitate when purchasing a game console, especially for some light players who have just come into contact with video games. Say, since they are all 'similar' hosts, why don't I buy the cheap one instead of the expensive one?

Besides, Sony products. Among these people, there is still extremely strong appeal.

Including the first-party games that Mars Entertainment and Jester value most and are promising. In fact, judging from the promotional videos that Mars Entertainment has released one after another for each launch game, this time they have taken the lead again and again. Everyone's ahead, especially Jester's game, but of course other games as well.

However, whether it is Sega or Sony. Although their R\u0026D lineup is not as strong as Mars Entertainment, they do not have someone like Jester who can feel the pulse of the times.

Although in the beginning of the game, you have to lag behind the opponent.

However, these people are also top players in the industry. Their learning ability cannot be underestimated.

It is foreseeable that after a short period of time, it may be three months, it may be half a year, and the longest will not exceed one year. They will absorb enough knowledge from Mars Entertainment and Jester’s games. nutrient. Then they developed games that were not inferior to theirs at all. They had done this before. Look at how these people did it in the Dreambox and Dreambox2 era.

That’s it.

The opponents of Mars Entertainment are not NPCs who are unaware of progress.

The most important thing is, can Dreambox 3 really complete the reversal in sales and share before Sega or Sony catch up in games?

Many people are not optimistic about this.

Of course, there are also a lot of supporters. This is entirely the result of Mars Entertainment’s invincible performance in this industry since it started to save video games from the quagmire of Atari’s impact, and Jester’s success in gaming. A blind trust that develops the omnipotent ability above.

In the past few months, they had fought again and again on the Internet with people who didn't think Mars Entertainment could reverse its sales, but neither side could convince the other.

In fact, for Jester, he has become a little more relaxed as the release date gets closer.

A few months ago, when he just announced Dreambox 3, he was really worried about Dreambox 3. But as time goes by, as his first-party game camp gets ready to go, this worry has become more and more serious. The less, now, there is almost no need to worry about the fate of Dreambox 3. Jester believes that with the performance that completely surpasses the opponent and the support of the game camp, so what if it is released a year later?

Isn’t it just behind the sales volume of five to six million units?

When Sony's first-generation miracle machine PS2 was selling at its peak, five million units were shipped in a month. Even if I couldn't do what the original PS2 did in history, it wouldn't be a big problem to defeat my two opponents. of.

In fact, the best selling of a game console is nothing more than what Jester said before. The first point is that the function must be powerful. The biggest advantage of this is not only that first-party games can be produced as much as possible. The greater benefit lies in the fact that third parties can express the same game in a more outstanding way when developing games.

For first-party games, since only you own them, there is no way to compare them with other consoles.

But third-party games are completely different.

Because it is a full-platform game, there are three console versions of a game, and your console has better performance. Then third parties can develop better, with better graphics, higher frame rates, stability, etc. In short, this can be felt by players. For example, The Witcher 3, its effect and smoothness on PC are completely beyond that of console.

It is because the configuration of high-end PC machines is much stronger than the performance of host machines.

After all, a 970 graphics card is as good as a game console.

Except for The Witcher 3. In fact, Alan Kates, the designer of Star Wars: Battlefront who conducted a test at the end of 2015 and attracted 9 million people to participate in CETA, said this. The situation at that time was the same game Star Wars: Battlefront. 》, but why is the picture on XBO only 720P, while the picture on PS4 is up to 900P?

When Alan explained at that time, he did not save any face for Microsoft. The designer said unceremoniously: This is because XBO is too far behind PS4 in terms of technology, and they will always lag behind in this generation. It's irreversible because the hardware is not as powerful as the hardware of the PS4. It's not that good.

And when someone asked whether the DX12 that Microsoft has been boasting about can reduce this gap, and whether this new API can change the current situation.

Alan said bluntly: I don't think so. It can't reduce the gap that much. User trust alone is not enough to change reality. The hardware strength of Xbox One is lagging behind.

Although these explanations are ugly, to Jester's ears, they are all true.

In fact, the situation between PS4 and XBO is very similar to the situation between XBO360 and PS3 at the beginning of the previous generation.

The performance of PS3 is indeed extremely powerful. Sony once claimed that its IBM CELL processor can simulate the world. The CELL architecture was too weird. During development, designers had no way to perfectly bring out the performance of this too powerful console. As a result, during the initial console war. Their performance actually lags behind that of the 360. To be honest, if the three-red problem of the 360 ​​had not been serious at the beginning, and the repair rate at that time was as high as 50%, then the PS3 might have completely collapsed in the previous generation.

certainly. After the performance of the PS3 was fully exploited in the later period, with the increasingly powerful first-party exclusive games, the PS3 still completed a reversal of the 360 ​​in terms of final sales.

But this possibility does not exist for XBO. Their PS4s all have the same X86 architecture.

And this backwardness is irreversible.

Therefore, after having so many examples for reference, Jester is not too worried about his Dreambox 3. With leading performance and leading game lineup, in Jester's view, it is basically possible to complete a counterattack in terms of sales. The above is a sure thing. The only question now is, how long will it take for me to complete the counterattack against the Sega Saturn and PS2 in terms of sales?

By the time it was December, Jester was completely relaxed.

He has been improving the two games he has in hand from time to time. Monster Hunter is something he plans to start developing after GDC, and he has not yet decided whether to develop another Kanji-style work.

The review of Monster Hunter did not encounter any trouble as Jester thought. In their eyes, although their boss's plan for this game is very big, it is still within their acceptance range. Within the required development funds and developers are not too outrageous, although a development team of one hundred people is rare in the world.

However, within Mars Entertainment, there is currently a development team of 100 people.

This time for Jester, it’s not a big deal.

As long as it's not like The Heroes, which had more than 300 professional developers at its peak, it's fine. Moreover, the investment of only five million US dollars is really nothing after comparing it to The Heroes. , Moreover, this hunting-style game designed by their boss is indeed very new to them.

Moreover, just from their boss's written description, it gave them a very strong sense of involvement.

The release date of Dreambox 3 is the first weekend of December. After entering December, the entire game industry seems to have suddenly become silent. Sony and Sega, which were previously competing with Mars Entertainment, have also begun to The excitement died down, and the extremely motivated players who had been arguing before also stopped arguing. It seemed that they were all waiting for the release day to come.

But Jester took advantage of this time to attend an Apple board meeting.

After spending nearly one billion U.S. dollars on the acquisition of Apple shares for more than half a year, he controls nearly one-third of Apple's shares. As Apple's largest shareholder, he is certainly qualified to convene the board of directors.

He had also contacted other shareholders of Apple before, and they all agreed to let Jobs come back to take over Apple. In fact, for many Apple shareholders, Apple's current market value is only more than 4 billion US dollars, no matter how low it is. How low would it be, and if Steve Jobs comes back, no matter how bad it is, it won't be as bad as it is.

The entire board meeting was uneventful. With Jester's strong support, Jobs once again became Apple's CEO, and Jester became Apple's chairman of the board.

And after the board meeting this time, a brief press conference was issued to announce the news to the public.

Immediately, this news caused an uproar. Apple's stock price was affected by this good news and rose by 5%. However, many people also did not understand Jester's behavior, because anyone with a discerning eye could not understand it. It can be seen that Apple is basically at the end of its rope now. Why does Jester still spend a billion dollars to invest in Apple?

And the first thing he did after investing in Apple was to recall Jobs. Is it possible that in Jester’s eyes, Jobs is worth a billion dollars?

More importantly, when Jester suddenly announced this when Dreambox 3 was about to be released, does it have any meaning? Or is it that Jester is not optimistic about Dreambox 3 this time and is preparing to leave a way out for himself? (~^~)