With the arrival of the new year, ga developnt was back on track. Takayuki already had several ga plans laid out on his desk.
Among them, Resident Evil was the main short-term project. At the sa ti, other developnt pipelines also had to get moving.
The second project requiring his attention was the Pokémon series. The last title had been Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire released on the GBA.
That generation had three entries or so.
In his previous life, the Pokémon series eventually got sowhat stagnant—resting on its laurels without much innovation.
Takayuki didn't want that to happen in this world. Even if it was just for profit, he wanted Pokémon to make money with dignity.
So he decided to slow down the developnt cycle and aim to add more gaplay elents and features to the existing frawork. Even without major innovations, adding more Pokémon would never be a problem.
For most players, Pokémon was a childhood dream. As long as the foundation wasn't destroyed, its popularity wouldn't be shaken.
...
It was also ti for the GSL to launch the next-gen Pokémon series—the fourth generation, Diamond and Pearl.
GSL had touchscreen capabilities, and the graphics for Pokémon could be pushed to a new level.
This project would be handed to the 4th Developnt Team.
Takayuki ticked that off on the paper and moved to the next project.
The third was a new Monster Hunter. With the experience of the first ga, developnt of the sequel would be more refined, and overall costs would be lower. Takayuki would just need to oversee quality at the final stage—no big problem.
The previous title had required over a thousand people to develop, but this ti, a single team plus a motion capture crew of about 400 people would be more than enough. The developnt tiline could be extended to 1.5 to 2 years.
Then ca the fourth project—this one gave Takayuki a headache.
He wanted to develop a Dynasty Warriors series.
It was a classic IP, and its popularity had always been high. Many people loved imrsing themselves in the Three Kingdoms setting. In fact, it was Dynasty Warriors that introduced the world to China's Three Kingdoms history.
But... there was a small (or maybe not-so-small) problem.
In this world, many of the historical details of the Three Kingdoms were different from the ones Takayuki knew in his previous life.
Maybe this was just one of those alternate world differences. While the general trajectory of the Three Kingdoms remained similar, the character nas were completely different. The world had no Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, nor Cao Cao, Dong Zhuo, and so on.
Actually, this applied to much of ancient history in this world. While the historical events were mostly the sa, the people involved were all different.
It wasn't until more recent tis that key historical figures started lining up again with the ones from his past life.
This made Takayuki feel conflicted.
He genuinely wanted to recreate the original Dynasty Warriors as he rembered it.
But with all the nas changed, his enthusiasm waned.
Takayuki was a nostalgic guy, and if the characters weren't the sa, he wasn't really interested in making it.
Yet abandoning Dynasty Warriors altogether also didn't sit right with him. So he was stuck—torn, and unable to move forward with developnt.
Otherwise, he would've already started. It was one of his own childhood mories—those nights spent with his ga-loving dad, one controller each, playing for hours. It was such a warm mory.
Takayuki looked at the proposal and finally shook his head. He decided to shelve it for now.
This was a personal ntal block—maybe he'd get over it one day, and developnt could begin then.
Of course, he could always do other types of musou-style gas, like One Piece Warriors or Hyrule Warriors, but after thinking it over, he gave up on that too.
Having set that plan aside, Takayuki felt that just three projects weren't enough.
This was a key mont of competition. He needed more flagship titles. There were still plenty of well-known franchises to draw from—so... what about starting Half-Life or the GTA series?
That could work, but given Japan's cultural context, developing such Western-style gas might be awkward.
It might be better to expand overseas developnt teams in preparation for future large-scale productions.
Still, GTA and Half-Life held a special place in Takayuki's heart. He wanted to wait until his team had more experience—so those series could launch at their absolute peak.
Right now, the teams weren't quite at the standard he envisioned.
If worse ca to worst, he could always start developnt on Final Fantasy IX, though it didn't have as much fa as others. That would just be fulfilling a personal regret. Between that and IX, he'd rather make Final Fantasy X.
But Final Fantasy VIII hadn't even released yet. Thinking about sequels now was premature. Rushing might harm quality. Better to wait.
Dragon Quest had similar issues. It was already on its ninth entry. Its popularity was slowly declining, as its gaplay was now considered quite old-fashioned. Modern players preferred fresh, exciting experiences.
That was the nature of history—it couldn't be altered by human will.
Whatever. There's no way to figure it all out in one day—he had plenty of ti ahead. For now, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt still held the advantage. There was no urgent pressure.
Takayuki casually set the proposals aside and began reviewing recent data reports and executive emails.
The data covered ga sales figures, licensing revenue, and hardware sales numbers.
Thanks to Takayuki's insistence, even though the SFC had stopped production, the FC console still had two production lines running nonstop. With modern advancents, the FC had been miniaturized. The new FC cartridges could hold far more data, and so models even had save functionality.
Despite that, the FC's manufacturing, packaging, shipping, and sales costs still didn't exceed 1,000 yen per unit. It remained the core of Takayuki's "gas for the masses" strategy.
Because of its affordability, the FC sold well worldwide. Nobody could refuse sothing cheap and fun.
Especially in low-inco countries and regions, the FC was even more beloved.
To date, the FC had sold over 300 million units—a staggering number. Even in his past life, no console ever crossed 200 million. This FC had hit 300 million—it was like a cheat code. Even though it barely made any profit now, Takayuki insisted on continuing sales. Any other company would've abandoned such an outdated product long ago.
But whenever Takayuki saw pictures online of players in poor regions happily enjoying the FC, he felt it was all worth it. Gas shouldn't be luxury items—they should be affordable experiences for everyone.
Not even Gastar Electronic Entertainnt would be able to beat the FC's sales record. It would forever be a legendary Chapter in gaming history.
Other companies probably felt sick just looking at those numbers—how could anyone compete with that?
Takayuki then glanced at the ga sales data again, and his eyes stopped at a particular set of figures:
Sales data from the European region.
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