Game Development Giant

Within half a year, the total sales of Dreambox 3 exceeded the combined sales of PS2 and Sega Saturn.

Although neither Sony nor Sega has announced their console sales through official channels since 1996, it is not difficult for third-party statistical agencies to make such statistics.

Although it is impossible to count specific sales data, it can still be estimated in general, and the error will basically be maintained within a small range.

In the GAME at the end of June, a statistical table of the sales statistics of this new generation of consoles was announced. Dreambox 3, which has only been released for half a year, has become the best-selling next-generation console, and its leading advantage is very large. Basically This is equivalent to the combined sales of PS2 and Saturn. This report caused an uproar among the player community.

Although in the past few months, many people have vaguely felt that the sales of Dreambox 3 are unprecedentedly hot this time, while the other two consoles have fallen into unsustainable cold reception - according to the statistics of GAME, Dreambox 3 only It took seven months to increase sales to 10 million units. This number took them a full year and one month to develop Dreambox 2!

Almost doubled sales.

Everyone is surprised by the unprecedented dominance of Mars Entertainment in this generation.

According to various sources, both Sony and Sega have begun the research and development of their next-generation consoles. What is certain is that Sega has formed a huge development team specifically for their new consoles.

The head of this development team is Yu Suzuki, who once participated in the development of King of Heroes and completed the architecture of the combat system of King of Heroes. The entire development team is said to have as many as 150 people, according to Sega's internal statement , this time Sega will develop a game that is not inferior to The Hero, and Sega fans are still looking forward to it.

Sony has announced that it is starting to develop a new console, but there is no particularly big news.

They are still acquiring small studios around the world that have great potential. After receiving investment from Sony, some studios have produced very amazing games.

For example, there is a 3D action puzzle game that is doing very well. When the PS2 only sold less than 6 million units, this game actually sold 1 million units. This is a very amazing result, which also makes Sony attach great importance to it. It is said that their investment in the next sequel is more than twice that of the previous one. It is for this reason that many players buy PS2.

The PS2 did not lag behind in the Japanese market.

After all, DQ gave them a platform, even before the release of FF7 in the first half of this year. The PS2 even has a slight advantage in the Japanese market. This is all because of the strength of DQ in the Japanese market. Their release this year even allowed Sony to rely on the Japanese market to make their console sales surpass Sega's Saturn. , which also made Sega's executives very angry.

However, most of Sega's games are arcade transplants, and these hardcore games are indeed not very popular among Japanese players.

Their market positioning is also mainly in Europe and the United States.

Moreover, according to Jester's memory, after Sega announced its withdrawal from the console market, Europe and the United States remembered their players. There are many more players than in Japan who remember them. In the final analysis, it is still the same sentence. If you succeed in an arcade, you will fail in an arcade.

Sega was able to forge ahead in the early home console market by relying on a large number of arcade transplants.

Being able to play arcade games on your own TV is simply a dream for many players. This situation lasted until the PS2 era in history. During this period, the quality of home console games was low. The graphics and gameplay completely surpassed arcade machines. On the other hand, the arcade market, especially small and medium-sized arcade machines, has begun an unstoppable decline.

After losing the killer feature of arcade porting. Sega does not have as many third parties as Sony, nor does it have as strong a first-party home console as Nintendo.

Just relying on their own strength, failure is inevitable.

Many people blame Sega's failure on Shenmue. It is true that Shenmue did occupy a large amount of Sega's liquidity, but with such a small amount of money, it is impossible for a well-developed game company to completely decline like this. In the end, Isao Okawa, the president, even had to pay for it himself to keep this legendary game company going.

The biggest reason is that Sega is in overall decline, and Shenmue is just the straw that breaks the camel's back.

It is now June of 1996, and in the middle of the month is the E3, the largest annual event in the gaming industry. However, at this E3, Mars Entertainment has basically announced that they will not have any particularly major news to break. Yes, because in the first half of the year, Mars Entertainment basically released two top-level masterpieces a month, which is why Dreambox 3 was able to sell so well.

There are more than a dozen top-level masterpieces in the escort, even if it is PS2 or Sega Saturn, they can sell very well.

But the result of this is that the current Mars Entertainment is somewhat exhausted. Game development is not an assembly line production. Games cannot be continuously produced as soon as the machine is turned on. Even the COD that was later called a New Year's product It also takes two years to complete - as for why a game that takes two years to develop is released once a year?

It’s a very simple truth!

Because COD is developed separately and simultaneously by two studios.

It is worth mentioning that although COD12 has received a lot of praise, its sales volume has indeed continued the tradition of the COD series. It sold 550 million US dollars on the first day. It seems that no matter how bad the reputation is, it can be done. Make money based on feelings.

Although this time at E3, Mars Entertainment may not be as frequent with various masterpieces as in previous years, but Jester will promote the game he is developing at E3 - for players and the media, as long as Jester ster introduced his new game, then Mars Entertainment is undoubtedly the most talked about at the E3 exhibition.

Although companies such as Sony, Sega, EA, Activision and Ubisoft from Europe are preparing many highly anticipated games.

But Jester’s brilliance cannot be shaken by anyone.

However, according to people familiar with the matter, Jester does plan to appear at this year's E3 conference. It will indeed bring information about the new game, but the content may not make players look forward to it too much, because Jester is still selling off this time, he just wants to whet the appetite of players. There won't be much meaningful stuff released at all.

Because Jester plans to wait until the end of the year for the Mars Entertainment Carnival to put on the highlight.

In fact, many players have criticized it in recent years.

Because E3 is the largest game exhibition in the game industry, companies in the industry are also the most loyal, because it is mainly for the entire European and American market, even Japanese game companies, especially those large companies. E3 is even more valued than the Tokyo exhibition, because the European and American markets are much larger than the Japanese market.

But Mars Entertainment seems to be an outlier, because Mars Entertainment has its own carnival. In order to take care of its own carnival, Mars Entertainment has always announced a lot of heavyweight news at the carnival in recent years, and many of their masterpieces , and the development progress is also set around the carnival, so that the development progress and the release on the carnival form a good combination.

Although this does not mean that Mars Entertainment has not released major news at E3 in recent years.

But compared to the first few E3 sessions, the emphasis has obviously dropped. Many people are predicting that in a few years, Mars Entertainment will just go through the motions at E3.

Although this possibility is relatively small.

After all, Mars Entertainment is the initiator of the World Electronic Games Association and a member of the committee. The E3 exhibition is also an exhibition co-sponsored by the World Electronic Games Association. As a member of the committee, Mars Entertainment will not be absent in any case, but this kind of going through the motions at E3 In the eyes of players, it would be better not to participate.

Participating creates expectations for players, but actually delivers nothing.

Fortunately, there wasn’t much big news from Mars Entertainment at this year’s E3. But Jester's presence is enough for the players.

Jester, who has only made one game in five years, has just completed the legendary game Heroes, and it is obvious that he is itching. Before Heroes has been released. He announced that he would have a plan for a new game. Not long after the release of Gallant, he announced what he was going to do for this game. It can be seen that Jester has resumed his creation back then. High incidence period.

When Mars Entertainment was first established and the battle with Nintendo was fierce, almost half of Mars Entertainment's important works were produced. They are all produced by Jester. At most, Jester has been the producer of four or five games at the same time. Almost 80% of the games have Jester participating in the setting and construction. It can be said that at the beginning, Almost relying on Jester alone to compete with the entire Japanese gaming industry.

And in the end it was a brilliant success.

Americans just like the image of a lone hero who can turn the tide, and Jester is indeed worthy of this image.

When video games were about to die, the banner of video games was rekindled.

It has brought an industry back to life, and is even developing much stronger now than before.

While everyone is still speculating on what news Jester will use to perfunctory players and whet their appetites at the Mars Entertainment press conference at E3, the internal situation of Mars Entertainment is as usual, and there are no other game companies at E3. That tense atmosphere leading up to the opening of what is, after all, the biggest event of the year in the video game world.

This is something that all game companies should pay attention to.

But Mars Entertainment is different.

In fact, it is just like the predictions of outsiders. People within Mars Entertainment also have strong opinions on the E3 exhibition, because if they pay too much attention to it, it will make the annual Mars Entertainment carnival useless. You can't announce some insignificant news at the carnival, right?

Players from all over the world traveled thousands of miles to come to the Anaheim Convention Center.

Book your own hotel, buy your own tickets, just to see you for such trivial things? Of course this is impossible. Not only the players don’t agree, but even Mars Entertainment doesn’t agree.

But if you don’t participate in E3, as one of the initiators of the original E3 exhibition, doing so would be a bit too much. Therefore, the current internal opinion of Mars Entertainment is to gradually weaken the participation of E3. For example, this year’s E3, It is impossible to say that there are no heavyweight games under development in Mars Entertainment. There are more than ten or twenty development teams all over the world. Although some of them are being repaired, several heavyweight development teams are working intensively on development. among.

But these are all prepared to be taken out at the carnival to surprise the players who come to the carnival.

How could it be brought out at E3 for no reason?

From the perspective of Mars Entertainment executives, this is a bit wasteful.

Jester also agrees with this point of view, because this is an irreconcilable contradiction, just like Blizzard later. Since the advent of Carnival, Blizzard’s emphasis on E3 has been decreasing day by day. Even in Blizzard’s eyes, Some of their news that cannot be announced at the Carnival due to time issues would rather be released at Cologne than at E3.

This is of course not because Blizzard is not a big name. If they hold a large-scale press conference at E3, it will definitely attract everyone's attention.

But their stuff was announced at E3, so what will they show players at the carnival at the end of the year? And some news that is not announced at the carnival is usually of minor importance. These things will definitely not attract much attention in a place like E3 where major game companies gather.

But when it comes to Cologne, it's completely different.

For Blizzard, the annual carnival is the most important to them.

Mars Entertainment now has this kind of change.

Among the various game shows they hold throughout the year, the most important one is the carnival. Basically, when the carnival comes in November, everyone at the Mars Entertainment US headquarters is fully mobilized - a work service team of several thousand people and even Sometimes there is a shortage of manpower.

As for the game shows at other times, it is just to bring something casually to fool them, or some things that have to be announced at other exhibitions due to the limited time of the carnival.

Only then will it be announced at non-carnival exhibitions.

Generally speaking, there are still gains and losses in doing so. In Jester's opinion, the gains outweigh the losses. (~^~)