"Mikufu came knocking first? I hadn't even gone to them yet, and they already showed up on their own."
Takayuki's expression was a little strange.
But he quickly understood what was going on.
Clearly, Nintendo's decision to delay launching on the Mikufu platform had made them anxious.
Maylon Case looked down on video games on one hand, yet needed them on the other—an oddly conflicted man.
Still, that worked just fine.
Since the other side had taken the initiative, Takayuki now held the advantage.
Nintendo's U.S. headquarters was located in Silicon Valley, only a few streets away from Mikufu.
As soon as Takayuki agreed to talks, Maylon Case immediately arranged for people to negotiate, hoping to get a clear answer on Fortnite's launch on the Mikufu platform.
Soon, several Mikufu representatives arrived at Nintendo's headquarters, hoping to speak directly with the actual controller of the company—"Nintendo is freaking the World Overlord."
Nintendo Headquarters, United States
Several Mikufu negotiators arrived, intending to personally discuss with Nintendo's CEO about bringing their game to the Mikufu platform.
"Gentlemen, I'm very sorry," Takayuki's hired secretary said politely."Our CEO is extremely busy right now. He's personally overseeing game development, and his workload is very heavy."
"The CEO is directly responsible for game development?" one of them asked, surprised.
"Yes. We're still a small company, and our first game is something the CEO personally followed through from start to finish. It's his passion project, so he likely doesn't have time to meet with you."
"Couldn't he spare just a little time? I assure you, the price we're offering is extremely generous!"
"I'm sorry."
With an apologetic smile, the secretary didn't waste any more words and left.
The negotiators looked at each other in silence.
They hadn't even managed to see Nintendo's CEO.
"What now? How do we explain this to the boss?"
"Let's go back first. Report everything honestly and let the boss decide."
They had technically completed their task—at least they had shown up.
The rest was up to Maylon Case.
So the group left Nintendo's headquarters awkwardly.
Meanwhile, Takayuki stood by a third-floor window, calmly watching them leave.
Sending a few employees instead of coming personally?
That clearly meant Mikufu still didn't take him seriously.
Maylon Case's sincerity wasn't enough.
No problem.
In a few days, he would become more sincere.
Back at Mikufu's headquarters, Maylon Case frowned deeply after hearing the report.
This Nintendo boss was hard to deal with.
For a moment, he even felt like going there personally.
But that would make him seem too eager.
Once your posture drops, your momentum collapses—and that would be disastrous in negotiations.
He needed Fortnite.
A high-quality game like that could instantly attract a massive player base.
But it wasn't absolutely irreplaceable.
Lowering his own "tone" just for one game didn't seem worth it.
So he decided to set the matter aside for now and leave Nintendo hanging, waiting to see how they reacted.
Even so, Maylon Case couldn't help opening Nintendo's official website.
Right there was Fortnite's real-time revenue data.
Updated daily.
Clear, direct, impossible to ignore.
Watching Nintendo rake in nearly ten million dollars a day, he couldn't hide his envy.
About 60% of that was pure profit.
A terrifying margin.
By comparison, Mikufu's hardware division had only about 30% gross margin.
With Facebook's aggressive competition, Mikufu's annual profit hovered around three billion dollars—respectable, but most of the real money was swallowed by Facebook.
This game was literally printing money.
Why hadn't his own game division ever achieved margins like this?
If he could skim even 30%, that would mean hundreds of thousands of dollars a day—over one hundred million a year.
Gamestar Electronic Entertainment must have made a fortune from this too, right?
Forget it.
Out of sight, out of mind.
He closed the page and focused on researching Mikufu's latest hardware products.
Still, he decided he'd keep checking Nintendo's revenue numbers daily.
Nintendo's decision to make its earnings fully public was… convenient.
It was clearly a way to attract capital—and also a sign of absolute confidence in their product.
Maylon Case still couldn't understand what made a game like this fun.
To him, the most enjoyable game was still Tetris—the game he admired the most.
Unfortunately, that belonged to a competitor.
A few days later, Fortnite's first season came to an end.
To maintain player engagement, the game would periodically refresh its seasons.
But this wasn't just a simple reset of seasonal points.
Each season introduced new features:
Some new mechanics replaced old ones
Some older modes were temporarily taken offline
With development complete, the team now had more free time.
Takayuki simply arranged for them to maintain regular updates while adding classic shooter modes.
100-player team deathmatch
Superpower brawls
Building-based tower defense and offense
Basically, any proven, popular shooter gameplay was fair game.
And then came the core experience—the new battle royale season.
Season Two introduced dimensional rifts and added actual story elements to Fortnite.
The amount of new content was comparable to one—or even two or three—large-scale games.
Thanks to Unreal Engine's mature framework—and the fact that Nintendo was using Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's internal, customized Unreal Engine, not the standard commercial version—the results were even stronger.
The game was optimized so well that even computers from over a decade ago could run it smoothly.
Every Nintendo employee shared the same feeling:
They hadn't even worked that much overtime.
Yet their efficiency was several times higher than other game companies.
They didn't know how much credit belonged to the engine.
They attributed everything to their boss—Mr. Nintendo.
Don't be fooled by the fact that he used to be an indie developer.
When it came to leading a team, he was decisive, experienced, and sharp—like a top-tier producer with decades in the industry.
Building a blockbuster with just a hundred people?
That wasn't something just anyone could do.