Myron Keyes was never going to fall in love with Fortnite in such a short time.
But he truly had begun to take an interest in the game.
With two top-tier players carrying him, he could lie back and reap all kinds of rewards.
Of course, that was entirely because he had spent one hundred thousand dollars hiring people to play with him.
Still, afterward, he decided he would play this game more often.
Even if he still wasn't genuinely interested in it, he needed to appear interested.
This time, he finally started taking the player community seriously.
If you could win over the player base, that meant tens of millions of users—no company would ever underestimate numbers like that.
So the very next day, Myron Keyes personally contacted Nintendo's headquarters.
He requested a face-to-face meeting with the CEO, Mr. Nintendo.
Myron Keyes promised that this time he would come with genuine sincerity and use the best possible contract to negotiate Fortnite's authorization.
If he could even persuade Nintendo to make Fortnite exclusive to the Mikuford platform, that would be even better.
Of course, that was just wishful thinking—Nintendo would definitely never agree.
But that didn't stop Myron Keyes from fantasizing a little.
When Takayuki saw how urgently Myron Keyes was requesting a meeting, he immediately knew this was the game department head's doing.
Once the acquisition was complete, that person's contribution would need to be recorded as another major merit.
In truth, if Mikuford were on the same scale as Apple in Takayuki's previous life, no matter how popular Fortnite became, it still wouldn't have made Myron Keyes bow his head.
That man was proud—like Jobs.
Arrogant, domineering, yet undeniably gifted.
Unfortunately for him, he had run into Takayuki.
A time traveler from a parallel future had cut off Myron Keyes' path.
In this world, Mikuford's scale was, at best, comparable to Meizu back in China—not quite top-tier, not quite bottom-tier either. It had some style, but style was about the only thing it could show off.
Only under these circumstances would Myron Keyes lower his head.
Otherwise, nothing else would have worked.
The Myron Keyes of this world would never become another Jobs.
This time, Takayuki agreed very readily to Myron Keyes' request.
He could come—but there would be a time limit. Takayuki wasn't going to wait around endlessly.
Myron Keyes had to bring enough sincerity.
Myron Keyes was unusually agreeable this time and raised almost no objections to Nintendo's conditions.
If he knew that Nintendo himself was actually Takayuki, who knew how he'd feel.
But Takayuki had no intention of letting him find that out.
The meeting was scheduled directly for the next day, during the daytime, at Nintendo's headquarters.
This time, Myron Keyes truly swallowed his pride.
He had always carried himself with maximum "prestige," but now he completely lowered himself, bowing his head for Fortnite's massive user base.
After receiving Nintendo's agreement, Myron Keyes had his legal and marketing teams draft several different contracts overnight.
Each contract offered increasingly generous terms.
They would use them to carefully negotiate cooperation with Nintendo.
Especially the final contract—it was practically humiliating, but Myron Keyes didn't care.
Fortnite had become his lifeline.
That night, Myron Keyes even had trouble sleeping. Still, in order to be mentally sharp the next day, he forced himself to rest.
As soon as the morning sun rose, he jumped out of bed and began endlessly rehearsing the details of his upcoming talks with Takayuki.
"Hello, Mr. Nintendo. We've come with full sincerity. Please take a look at our contract."
"Mr. Nintendo, this is our final concession. Please, you must agree."
"Alright then, Mr. Nintendo—we can still make further concessions."
Myron Keyes played out countless bargaining scenarios in his head, preparing for a head-on clash with Mr. Nintendo.
At the same time, he was curious about what this Mr. Nintendo really looked like.
His identity had always been a mystery; the only thing anyone knew for sure was that he was likely Japanese.
To be honest, Myron Keyes didn't care much about anything else—but the fact that Nintendo was Japanese made him a little uncomfortable.
After all, he had once been utterly crushed by a Japanese man.
As he thought about it, that younger man—superior to him in almost every way—appeared in his mind.
Takayuki.
Myron Keyes quickly shook his head, pushing away the thought of that ill-omened name.
Today was his chance to secure more benefits and resources—there was no point thinking about unpleasant things.
As the meeting time drew closer, Myron Keyes finished his preparations and set off for Nintendo.
Along the way, he continued drafting contingency plans, imagining every possible line Mr. Nintendo might use.
But when he finally saw Nintendo in person, he almost forgot all of his preparations.
Because sitting across from him was someone wearing an oversized smiley-face mascot head.
And the other party introduced himself very simply.
"I am Nintendo."
…What the hell.
This guy didn't even take off the mascot head to negotiate contracts?
That level of secrecy was ridiculous. Was that really necessary?
Myron Keyes was speechless.
"Um, Mr. Nintendo… why are you still wearing the headgear at a time like this?"
"Oh, this? I'm just used to it. You don't mind, do you?"
"No, of course not."
Myron Keyes felt helpless.
He truly couldn't understand Nintendo's way of thinking.
But it didn't affect the contract negotiations, so he deliberately ignored the strange smiling mascot head.
"Mr. Nintendo, regarding Fortnite's platform launch, we at Mikuford have come with sincerity. This time, I'm personally here to negotiate with you. Surely that makes things easier to discuss?"
"So before, you weren't really taking it seriously?" Takayuki replied calmly.
"Well… yes. I honestly didn't expect Fortnite to have such a huge impact. I have to admit—I underestimated the influence of video games."
"As far as I know, Mr. Myron Keyes, you didn't used to think very highly of video games."
"People change," Myron Keyes said.
Takayuki silently thought: Yeah, right.
If Myron Keyes claimed he'd truly changed his view of games, Takayuki would rather believe Qin Shi Huang had come back to life.
"Mr. Nintendo, please take a look at the contract we've prepared. This is our most preferential offer. We'll only take a five percent revenue share. Of course, this will be under a confidentiality agreement and won't be disclosed publicly. In addition, Mikuford will use all of our channels to fully promote Fortnite."
"That," Takayuki replied leisurely, "isn't really necessary. We were always going to launch on Mikuford eventually. You don't actually need to be this anxious."
I'm anxious as hell, Myron Keyes thought.
Seeing Facebook's and the Morgan Group's user numbers skyrocketing recently had driven Mikuford crazy.
According to surveys, the recent growth in Facebook's and Morgan Group's users was directly related to Fortnite.
He didn't care much about increases on console platforms—there was no direct competition there.
But Facebook? Watching Facebook's smartphone user base grow was something he absolutely couldn't tolerate.
Fortnite had to be secured—no matter what.
"If optimization is the issue, we can directly send a team to help optimize the game and get Fortnite onto our platform as quickly as possible. How about that?"
"Hm… that does sound sincere."
"Right? We really are sincere. Honestly, I had prepared many different contracts with varying terms, but the moment I met you, I knew I couldn't play tricks. I had to show enough sincerity right from the start."
"However," Takayuki said calmly, "please forgive me—but I have to refuse. Right now, I'm not lacking Mikuford as a platform."