Chapter 78. Completely Stunned
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Although Pokemon was a good game, its rise to fame was quite bumpy.
Kiyoshi Yuuma didn't believe he had stronger influence than Nintendo, so if he wanted to secure this major IP, he still needed to do some preliminary groundwork.
Currently, there were two problems to solve:
First, the handheld platform.
Pokemon's success couldn't be separated from Nintendo's handheld console.
Although Sega had always been strong in hardware, this disappointing company did terribly with handhelds.
Nintendo's handhelds were both attractive and lightweight, while Sega's handhelds were like heavy bricks.
He needed to find a way to convince Sega to develop new handheld products, otherwise Pokemon, relying solely on MD releases, wouldn't amount to much.
Second, anime adaptation.
Anime was crucial to Pokemon's impact. Even players far away in corner of the world were mostly influenced by the Pokemon anime.
So Pokemon must be adapted into anime.
For this, Kiyoshi Yuuma needed to find a reliable animation production company.
Of course, both of these prerequisites couldn't be separated from—
Money.
He had finally earned some money, but when Kiyoshi Yuuma calculated it, he found himself stretched thin.
...
At the same time—
July 3, 1991.
Chicago Consumer Electronics Show.
Pre-show press conference.
Lights flashed all around as Sony's senior development engineer Kutaragi Ken stood at center stage, demonstrating a new game console product for everyone.
"This product is the perfect collaboration between Sony and Nintendo, the famous game developer from Japan."
Kutaragi Ken looked excited, his white suit seeming to shine with light.
"As everyone knows, home game consoles have now evolved from 8-bit to 16-bit machines, with greatly optimized performance. However, the one drawback is—
Limited by cartridge capacity, games find it difficult to make further breakthroughs.
Currently, the largest FC game cartridge capacity is about 8MB.
Oh no, it should be around 50MB."
Kutaragi Ken corrected himself, mainly because a company called Pokeni had previously, in a mad move, added a chip to game cartridges specifically to handle memory issues.
They directly expanded game capacity from 8MB to 50MB.
It had to be said, this company's hardware engineer was simply a genius.
"But such cartridges also bring serious problems—adding chips significantly increases the cartridge's own cost."
Two years ago, Nintendo wanted to solve the problem of insufficient game cartridge capacity on the Famicom, so they invited Sony to develop a CD-ROM add-on component for the Super Nintendo.
It was tentatively named Play Station, or SFC-CD, or SNES-CD.
This thing was essentially the prototype of the future famous PS.
This exhibition was to showcase this game console.
"Sony possesses the world's most advanced storage technology, while Nintendo has the world's best games and the best players."
Hearing this, applause erupted below.
Kutaragi Ken smiled and continued, "This SFC CD-ROM and cartridge hybrid console developed in collaboration between Sony and Nintendo will become a very important milestone.
Using Sony's CD technology, we can directly transform 50MB cartridge capacity into CD discs with over 500MB capacity, or even more.
Under this premise, players will experience an unprecedented gaming feast."
"The inevitability of hardware development is being able to compress more information into smaller media.
And richer information and capacity will inevitably bring an overall leap in game quality."
Kutaragi Ken also demonstrated a small visual game that Sony had developed for demonstration purposes using this newly developed PS prototype at the scene.
As soon as it played, all the audience members were stunned.
Whether it was the game's graphics quality, sound effects, or performance in all aspects—it was enough to leave everyone dumbstruck.
After the demonstration, Kutaragi Ken's face showed a satisfied smile.
"I believe that the collaboration between Sony and Nintendo will bring a brand new change to the world.
Thank you for Nintendo's support, thank you for the players' favor. Thank you all!"
Thunderous applause erupted below.
Lasting and sustained.
Kutaragi Ken's gaze swept toward a seat below—Nintendo President Yamauchi Hiroshi wore sunglasses, the corners of his mouth smiling as he clapped.
Kutaragi Ken felt moved inside.
Thanks to Nintendo for giving him this opportunity—to be able to collaborate with a major company like Nintendo was truly fortunate.
...
However, just as Kutaragi Ken was immersed in his beautiful vision of Sony and Nintendo's future, something astonishing happened the next day.
The very next day, also at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show—
Nintendo President Yamauchi Hiroshi and Philips jointly announced the CDI format multimedia console at the exhibition.
"We will work together with Philips to develop a new multimedia game console.
The disc portion of the SNES-CD will be developed by Philips.
Philips is a company with very strong hardware capabilities. I believe this future game console will definitely shine brilliantly!"
What?!
Sitting below watching all this, Kutaragi Ken's eyes widened enormously, completely unable to believe what was happening before him.
Although a few days ago he had already heard some internal news that Nintendo would abandon Sony and instead collaborate with Philips—
The Sony side still believed Nintendo couldn't possibly betray them.
After all, considerable money and time had already been invested. A last-minute betrayal would not only lose sunk costs but also impact Nintendo's reputation.
But unexpectedly, it was all true.
President Yamauchi, disregarding the years of collaboration between Sony and Nintendo, rashly announced the collaboration with Philips at the pre-show press conference—this was undoubtedly a harsh slap in Kutaragi Ken's face.
At this moment, Kutaragi Ken was completely stunned, at a loss about Nintendo's sudden betrayal.