Satō Hideki very much wanted to throw Tetsu Kobayashi out immediately.
However, Tetsu Kobayashi was not his subordinate, and he had indeed made an appointment beforehand. For a moment, Satō couldn't think of any legitimate reason to expel him.
And worst of all—
Nakayama Hayao was clearly showing interest in him.
"Kobayashi Puzzle… ah, I should have realized sooner. I didn't expect the developer to be this young."
Nakayama glanced at Satō Hideki.
"Since Satō-kun has work to do, I hope you don't mind if I observe from the side."
Satō swallowed.
"N–No problem at all."
He silently picked up the phone and urged his assistant. Soon, several employees pushed in an arcade cabinet on a trolley.
If they were installing it formally, it would've taken a long time. But just for testing the game, only simple wiring would do.
Normally this would be done in a specialized testing room, but he was the one who claimed he would "personally verify the port," so now it had to be done here.
Tetsu Kobayashi installed the main board and explained, "Since this is a ported game, the gameplay hasn't changed much. The goal is still to clear matching lines. But because the arcade version supports more colors and sound channels, I made some modifications."
"This modified version—I call it Kobayashi Doctor!"
He launched the game and began demonstrating.
Although he appeared to be presenting to Satō, he was unmistakably explaining everything to Nakayama Hayao.
"There are three types of enemies. You clear them by matching capsules. Each cleared virus tile deals damage. Once all viruses on the field are eliminated, the stage ends."
"The number of capsules per stage is limited. This allows for multiple difficulty settings. On the easiest setting, you get hundreds of capsules—enough to clear the stage. On the hardest setting, you must plan every move to succeed."
"Now I'll start the game."
He pressed the start button and began operating the SG's terrible joystick.
At this moment, Tetsu Kobayashi wanted to shout—why hasn't the hardware team replaced this useless joystick yet?!
But of course, the design was personally ordered by Satō, intended to make arcade ports easier. Unless Satō himself approved changes, no one dared touch it.
Tetsu demonstrated as the two men watched.
The background music kicked in—energetic, hypnotic, and relentless.
Don-don da-du-du, don da…
Don-don da-du-du, don da…
Nakayama leaned forward, elbows on the table, clearly absorbed.
Satō felt dread.
At this point, he didn't know whether he should slap the chairman, slap Tetsu, or slap himself.
No—he should definitely slap himself.
The first stage cleared easily. Soon they entered stage two.
Nakayama suddenly went, "Hm?"
"The music… changed?"
"No, not really. It's the same song, just transposed. The game only has one track, but I made three different pitch variations. Combined with the speed-up mechanic, it sounds different in each stage."
As he spoke, Tetsu pushed the joystick toward Nakayama.
"Would you like to try it yourself?"
"Idiot!" Satō barked. "Do you know what you're saying?!"
Nakayama raised his hand. "It's fine. I'll try."
For a man of his age, the game was slightly difficult.
But playing it personally was very different from watching it. Before long, Nakayama's cloudy old eyes began to shine.
He was impressed—far more than he'd expected.
The game was polished to an astonishing degree.
It could easily pass inspection.
In Nakayama's view, it was good enough to stand alongside Sega's flagship first-party titles.
"Satō-kun, I think this game is excellent."
"Y-Yes."
Satō swallowed the bitter pill.
It was excellent—but this wasn't how things were supposed to go!
"Creating a timely arcade port shows your reaction speed has improved. Good." Nakayama praised him. "I believe we should urge the arcade division to start manufacturing and distributing this game. You've been doing well lately—especially the optimization work on the SG."
Tetsu suddenly said, "That was my father's work."
Nakayama looked at him.
Tetsu continued, "The SG1200 optimization plan was made by my father, Kobayashi Tetsu—Kobayashi Kentarō. The idea came from something we encountered at IBM. I still have the original code on my computer. I originally planned to use it for Kobayashi Puzzle, but it didn't fit the memory limits, so we adapted it for hardware optimization instead."
Satō clutched his chest.
It hurt.
It hurt so much.
Why did this kid have to say that here?!
Nakayama did not respond immediately. He simply nodded lightly.
"But it was still done under Satō-kun's supervision, correct? Very well. Young man, you should go."
Tetsu shrugged, said nothing more, and left the main board behind.
Since it was a port—and since he coded the port himself—the follow-up contract had to be negotiated with the arcade division. He could collect two streams of income: the sales of the original game and royalties from the arcade release.
Tetsu didn't even bother to read it.
What he made now were simple games—repetitive, short titles.
The day he created something like Green Beret, Salamander, or Contra, then he'd need real funding.
After he left, Satō tried to speak, but Nakayama raised a hand, signaling him to wait.
What is yours will still be yours.
Satō finally breathed again.
"Well then, I should get going. Satō-kun, pay more attention to the home console division."
"Yes, sir!"
Satō stood straighter than a soldier, feeling a wave of loyalty surge through him.
Nakayama left calmly, showing no emotion—yet in his heart, he had made his judgment.
He believed strongly in the future of home consoles.
Nakayama had always been convinced that home consoles would become just as important as arcade machines—if not more.
For now, he was only chairman—honorary, with no real power.
But when he became president—
Nakayama thought to himself—
When that time comes, the home console division must be filled with my own people.
…
…
Tetsu Kobayashi delivered the main board to the arcade division, explained the port specifications, and finally received the publishing contract.
Between the license fee for the original game and the revenue share for the arcade release, he would receive 15%.
Arcade units didn't sell in huge numbers—maybe only a few thousand, maybe ten thousand.
But arcade machines had one defining trait:
They were expensive.
Very, very, very expensive.
A single arcade cabinet cost more than a good home console—often tens of thousands of yen.
Even if the game only sold a thousand units, Tetsu could still earn over a million yen.
Tetsu Kobayashi felt—
This was confidence.
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