Among the stack of documents, there was one that had just been delivered the day before—and it was marked urgent.
The symbol on the file indicated that it involved an issue that could potentially have a negative impact on the company.
Takayuki immediately opened it and took a look. Inside was a printed screenshot of a web page.
It showed a post from the Facebook social network, where someone had shared an incident from their daily life.
Takayuki immediately recognized the device in the image—it was Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's latest game console, equipped with some of the most advanced processors in the world.
It was precisely because of this console that Takayuki had been able to go all out developing Cyberpunk 2077.
And it was because of this console that he had the confidence to ensure most players could enjoy the game at the highest possible level.
However, in the screenshot, the user explained that they had been playing Cyberpunk 2077 on this console when, suddenly, the screen went completely black and the system stopped responding.
The player was understandably confused and posted online to ask others what might be going on.
In the comments below, two or three other players reported experiencing the same issue.
"My console blacked out too, and I think I can faintly smell something burnt… Did the console actually fry itself?"
Takayuki frowned as soon as he read that.
The console… fried itself?
A quality-control incident?
That would be a major issue for any hardware product.
Without hesitation, Takayuki picked up the phone and called the engineering development department.
Sawazawa Airi and several senior hardware executives arrived at his office almost immediately.
"Takayuki, you finally came back. I was actually thinking of visiting your place yesterday, but then I figured we could handle this ourselves if needed—just replace the affected players' consoles with new ones."
Takayuki asked seriously,"Have you been able to determine the cause of the console failures that were posted on social media?"
"That… will still take some time. We haven't yet obtained the damaged consoles themselves. However, we've already contacted those players. Some of them are willing to send their consoles to us, and we'll replace them with brand-new units free of charge."
Takayuki nodded."That approach is fine. But how soon can you get those damaged consoles? I'm worried this might not be an isolated case."
"It shouldn't be… We've tested the consoles many times. In theory, there shouldn't be any major problems."
Takayuki shook his head."We can't afford to be optimistic. Hardware failures might be rare accidents—but they can still have serious repercussions."
He had originally planned to review a few more documents and then visit the game development department.
Clearly, that was no longer possible.
Right now, there was something far more important to deal with: identifying the problem and figuring out whether it could be resolved.
A console failing suddenly—and apparently due to internal components overheating to the point of burning—was extremely serious.
From a player's perspective, losing a console might be painful, but what hurt even more would be the potential loss of saved game data.
Although Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had been actively promoting cloud save services, some players still weren't very familiar with them.
Many people played games purely for fun and didn't like fiddling with settings or researching features.
Because of that, cloud saves hadn't been universally adopted yet.
If any of the affected players happened to be those without cloud backups, then hundreds of hours of hard-earned progress could be permanently lost.
That kind of blow could be devastating.
Takayuki understood this deeply.
In his previous life, one of his consoles had suffered a hard drive failure due to quality issues. Even though the manufacturer replaced it for free, he still found it difficult to return to those games for a long time.
Every time he saw them, he was reminded of the hundreds—sometimes thousands—of hours of progress he had lost, along with all the resources he had painstakingly grinded for.
"President, I think I may know the most likely cause of this failure."
At that moment, a senior manager responsible for console hardware development spoke up.
Takayuki immediately turned to him."Go on."
"I checked the players' recent network activity logs. They all share one common factor—they were playing Cyberpunk 2077."
"Cyberpunk 2077?" Sawazawa Airi frowned. "You're saying the game caused this? But it's just a game—it shouldn't be able to damage hardware."
"Director Sawazawa, you might not fully realize this," the manager replied."Cyberpunk 2077 pushes hardware utilization to the absolute limit. It squeezes every last drop of performance out of our newest console. I suspect the console's performance headroom was completely exhausted, causing certain chips to overheat and burn out."
"But we have hardware protection mechanisms," Sawazawa Airi countered."It shouldn't escalate to the point of burning or failure."
"They can provide buffering and warnings," the manager said, "but if players insist on continuing despite those warnings, we can't completely stop it."
Takayuki fell into deep thought.
"You believe Cyberpunk 2077 is the cause?"
"I can't say for certain," the manager replied, "but it's the most likely explanation."
"Then contact the chip manufacturers and bring them in," Takayuki said decisively."And get those damaged consoles here as soon as possible for teardown analysis. Also, issue an official notice advising players to be cautious when playing Cyberpunk 2077. If performance warnings appear, recommend that they stop playing temporarily."
"Understood. I'll arrange it immediately."
Sawazawa Airi quickly gathered her team and left.
Takayuki's expression remained grim.
It was clear that he took this issue very seriously—if mishandled, it could indeed lead to severe consequences.
His previously relaxed mood had vanished entirely.
For now, similar incidents were still rare across the network.
But Takayuki knew one thing for certain:
This kind of problem had to be crushed at the very beginning—otherwise, the consequences would be endless.