Chapter Thirty-Five: Cooperation

  Jester quietly listened to the terms brought by Sega's Yu Suzuki.

  Overall, Sega's conditions were within his acceptable range, and Sega also understood the information that Artdink had failed to acquire the home console rights for "American Block" in the past, so this time they did not have any excessive demands.

  Actually, Arakawa couldn't shake off the feeling that something was off after he left. The price he offered was high enough and his attitude was good enough, except for the fact that he had Mars Entertainment join as a bottom card in the Hell's Rights Plan, this was almost his highest offer, but the other party seemed to be completely indifferent to it, not even considering it before rejecting it, which was really too unreasonable.

  And what's more, getting Mars Entertainment to join the royalty program that Ren Jiyu was setting up was something he had managed to wrestle out of his father-in-law with great difficulty, but the other party hadn't even given him a chance to reveal it.

  It wasn't until then that Akawa's persistence began to pay off as he started gathering intelligence on Mars Entertainment, and it was this collection of information that finally made him realize.

  Especially after he saw that Mars Entertainment had taken over the entire R&D team of Atari VCS 7200 and had also recruited dozens of other hardware R&D personnel, even a fool would know what Mars Entertainment was going to do.

  After learning the true situation, Arakawa Akira suddenly became furious, thinking of how he was toyed with during negotiations and that the other party had clearly been trying to extract information from him about whether or not Hell has released a home console in America. And he stupidly hadn't been on guard at all - who would have thought that a company that's only made one game would have the guts to make a home console in this industry climate?

  It's worth noting that in the same industry, news spreads very quickly. At the same time as Ren Tianyou knew, Sega, who also had a strong interest in "Merrill Lynch", basically knew too.

  It's impossible to say that Sega didn't want the rights to Tetris, as their latest home console, the Sega 1000, was being soundly defeated by Nintendo in Japan and was almost a stillborn, forcing them to start developing plans for next-generation consoles, with most of their previous investments going down the drain. Wouldn't Sega want to get Tetris to turn this situation around?

  No, it's because Sega knew this was impossible.

  The quote from Ren Diyu is already good enough, the quote from Ren Diyu is something Sega absolutely cannot match, because their platform occupancy rate is far lower than that of Ren Diyu, so the price Ren Diyu can offer, Sega cannot afford.

  But they still came, and they didn't just focus on the home console version, but also looked at the agency rights of "Puyo Puyo" in Japan. You know that before Sega entered the home console industry, they were indeed a giant in the arcade industry, producing countless classic arcade games that sold well worldwide. However, their arcade market share has been severely lost under the pressure of old rivals such as Namco and Capcom, especially since the company just received accurate intelligence that these two companies will release two excellent games in the second half of the year, while their own company doesn't have enough excellent games to compete with them.

  Even the other party has done a great job in keeping this confidential, and all that is known is that they are vertical scrolling shooter games, but nothing is known about their gameplay or settings.

  Sun Yat-sen had already thundered several times at high-level meetings about this.

  Suzuki Yutaka deeply knew this point, and he came this time without allowing failure.

  "Are you guys going for the Japanese and European arcade rights of 'Mortal Kombat'?" Jast asked with a smile.

  "Yes." Yu Suzuki nodded in agreement.

  "So, how to divide it?" Jester indeed had the intention of selling the agency rights of his game machine, because he himself just started wanting to do publishing, and it was difficult enough for him to manage North America, let alone expand overseas. First, he didn't have the energy; second, he didn't have the ability; third, he didn't even have the production capacity.

  Even including these three new games, he didn't have enough production capacity after completing them. He had previously asked Atari if they would manufacture the three games for him, but they demanded a share of the profits.

  This is absolutely unbearable in Jester's eyes. At first, he was unknown and Atari took advantage of him, blackmailing him mercilessly. He endured it then, but now his wings have hardened - do you still think you can blackmail me?

  Facing Atari's demands, Jester sneered inwardly, I'm out of here.

  It's not just Atari that can mass-produce arcade games in the world, isn't this Sega in front of us one?

  Obviously, Sega's investigation was also very detailed and they are well aware of the current difficulties faced by Jester's Mars Entertainment.

  Suzuki Yu didn't mince words, directly pulling out a stack of documents from his briefcase and handing them to Jester with both hands. "We Sega are very sincere," he said. "Not only will we pay $20 million upfront to purchase the agency rights for 'American Block' in Japan and Europe, but we'll also offer 30% of the pure profit as your share. All production and promotional expenses will be borne by our side."

  Before he could even look at the document, Jester's head suddenly lifted in surprise as he stared at his opponent. It was impossible for him not to be shocked in his heart. This quote was really good beyond his expectations.

  To know, the entire Japanese and European markets combined can barely be compared to that of the United States. This is still an exaggeration; in reality, even when combined they are far inferior to the United States.

  An arcade game that could sell 20-30 thousand units in Japan was considered unbelievable, but in the US it could reach 600 thousand units or more.

  Although Europe is large, the market share of games is less than that of Japan.

  "Could Sega be in some kind of trouble?" The thought suddenly popped into Jester's mind, and then it uncontrollably expanded, causing him to recall the Sega from this period that was etched in his memory...

  For several minutes, Jester remained silent, staring at the expressionless Suzuki Hiroshi sitting there.

  He couldn't think of any major crisis that Sega was facing at this time, in his impression, Sega had only suffered a crushing defeat on the Sega 1000 in the TV game field they had just entered, but Sega had already accepted it, and the development process of MS should have started long ago. If not, then there must be problems with their arcade business...

  At this time the arcade industry...

  At this point, Jester suddenly lit up in front of his eyes, and he remembered.

  Sega was indeed in trouble at this time, but it was also at this time that Yu Suzuki stood out and joined the development department to take charge of the situation, which led to Sega's later glory.

  This legendary designer first created the world's first somatosensory game "Motorcycle Frame" in 1985, and then released Japan's first 32,000-color game "Space Harrier" in the same year. As for "Motorcycle Frame", later players should have seen it, that is, a large-scale realistic motorcycle game that allows players to ride motorcycles and play. Jester remembers it very clearly, and at a time when one yuan was equal to eight coins, this game required two yuan to play.

  These two games helped Sega regain its market share in the arcades, so who did they take it back from?

  Jester suddenly revealed a strange smile, which startled Suzuki Hiroshi who had been quietly observing him. He opened his mouth and asked somewhat puzzled: "President Li, what's wrong?"

  "Haha, nothing much. I just heard from my Japanese friend recently that your old rival Namco is developing a brand new game. I heard it's almost complete and the news I got was that this game is extremely shocking, seems to be called something like X... Xevious, right? Is that correct?" Jest said with a curious expression on his face.

  Xevious is the legendary "Iron Plate Array", the ancestor of vertically scrolling shooter games, a milestone game.

  Suzuki's expression didn't change, but his heart was churning like the waves. This was a bit too unbelievable - how could this person from America possibly know that they had just received the intelligence?

  Are they more familiar with Japan's intelligence system than we are, a company born and raised in Sega?

  "Oh, right! I also heard that Capcom is making a similar game called 1942, which will be released soon. It's also a vertically scrolling shooter, just like this one." Jester continued to speak, bringing up another classic game that was released this year and caused a gaming craze.

  This time Suzuki Hiro finally changed color, he looked at Jester with some incredulity.

  No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't figure out how the other party knew the type of these two games that they had been trying to find out. The other party even knew information that Sega hadn't even investigated? Weren't they still in the process of establishing their Japanese branch? Their R&D director Mark Cerny had just asked his friends at Sega to help with this matter... But how could they know more than he did himself?

  Suzuki Hiroto's eyes widened in shock as he stared at Jester, his lips drying up: "L...Li President, is your news true?"

  Jester didn't admit it directly, he just smiled and said: "Mr. Suzuki, I've only heard it from Japanese friends, whether it's true or not, I dare not guarantee."

  "Ali Gado!"

  Suzuki Yu listened to Jester's words, first silent for over ten seconds, then suddenly bowed ninety degrees towards Jester and said in a extremely respectful tone, "Thank you, President Li, Sega is eternally grateful."

  "Then let's discuss the authorization price..." Jester also stood up immediately, walked forward and helped Suzuki Yu up. To be honest, he had great respect for this future ace designer. It was him who led Sega against the hellish conditions, never giving up or admitting defeat. Moreover, the classic game he produced in '99, which combined Chinese mythology, martial arts elements, sandbox maps, called "Shenmue", was Jester's all-time favorite back then.

  This game was absolutely the best in terms of quality at that time, not inferior to any masterpiece, unfortunately it didn't meet its time and the final result was not ideal.

  Later on, this game topped a Famitsu poll, beating out FF and DQ, as the game that players most wanted to see a sequel for.

  For this game, this little honor is well-deserved, and of course it can only be a little comfort.

  After all, at that time, Sega's glory no longer existed.

  Just as Jester was about to continue, Suzuki Hiro stepped in with a serious expression and interrupted him: "President Li, you don't need to say any more. Sega can make further concessions!"

  "No, no." Jester also understood that the other party might have misunderstood his meaning, so he immediately explained, "I didn't mean to haggle over the price. In fact, I was very satisfied with the previous quote. We at Mars Entertainment always treat our friends with sincerity and would never take advantage of them."

  Jester's tone seems very sincere.

  When he heard this, Suzuki Yutaka's eyes flashed with a hint of surprise. The person he had previously understood was not like that, vengeful and opportunistic. The young man in front of him was not someone who hadn't done such things before.

  The four distributors who helped him release "American Block" in the United States can hardly be found anywhere in the industry to discredit Jester and Mars Entertainment.

  Even if Suzuki Yutaka saw Jester's demands on the four agents at that time, he felt a bit excessive. If it wasn't for being forced to do so, no agent would be willing to sign such a humiliating treaty of surrender.

  "We'll put the issue of price aside for now, so Mr. Suzuki, are you interested in taking a look at our latest developed new games?" Jest saw the other's expression and didn't think much of it, he originally had an objective and wasn't concerned about the other's random thoughts, he just needed to let the other know that temporary cooperation would be beneficial for both parties.

  "New game?"

  Thinking of that one game where he unknowingly became engrossed, Suzuki Yutaka's face also involuntarily revealed a curious expression. Although he had received news that Mars Entertainment was developing a new game, he hadn't gotten any concrete information, only knowing it was another elimination-type game.

  Seeing Jester's face with such a confident smile, Suzuki Yutaka couldn't help but wonder if that one "American Block" was already perfect. Could the other party still play out some tricks in elimination-type games?

  Then, Suzuki Yutaka nodded and followed Jester to the R&D hall of Mars Entertainment.

  PS: The Iron Plate Corps was actually released in 83 for the Japanese version and 88 for the US version. I moved it to 84 due to plot requirements, please forgive me. However, Sega's difficulties at that time were real.