YOO had already fallen from the clouds.
That was the consensus among most people.
And even though YOO had completely fallen, to the average person it still remained a giant — just a dying one now.
The various industries once controlled by YOO were quickly redistributed, most of them falling back into the hands of the zaibatsu.
The YOO company itself still retained so value. The remaining leadership barely managed to hold the line, preserving their core asset — their internet portal. Everything else had to be abandoned, as those areas were simply too expensive to maintain.
Without any new capital injections, YOO simply couldn't afford to keep investing in so many ventures.
As YOO's business partner, Surei Electronics couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy.
But they quickly wiped their tears and took in more than half of YOO's ga developnt teams.
...
...
In particular, the teams that had developed the shooting ga and the FIFA-style football ga were absorbed 100%.
These now-rootless developers had lost their backing and had no choice. Being brought into Surei Electronics was probably the best outco for them.
Surei was generous even to those unfortunate teams who weren't formally absorbed — offering limited funding and better revenue-sharing contracts, inviting them to create exclusive titles for Surei. Of course, the funding was limited — at most, about a million dollars. That would be enough for a small team of twenty to thirty people to make a slightly higher-end ga. Surei couldn't do more than that. If those teams couldn't prove themselves, they'd be abandoned without rcy.
So of the bolder teams decided to cut ties altogether — choosing to emulate that mysterious solo developer known as "Nintendo Is the Damn Overlord of the World," the creator of Stardew Valley and Loop Hero.
If that guy could make two excellent gas solo, then with their years of developnt experience, they should at least be able to make a few decent-quality titles and scrape by — even if they didn't have his creative genius.
Now that BattleNet had beco a hot indie ga platform, it welcod them with open arms. The platform was open to any individuals or teams aspiring to create great gas. Submissions were welco, and Unreal Engine usage was free. Of course, if they earned a certain amount of revenue, BattleNet would take a share — but for these rootless developers, this was already the best possible outco.
Aside from those, another group was absorbed by Brown Entertainnt, a company dedicated to ga developnt.
Hack Brown had always been an ambitious man — calr and more conservative than Nagao. His company moved cautiously but steadily. Joining a company like that wasn't a bad choice at all.
Finally, around a dozen individuals were quietly taken in by the Morgan Group. These were recruited in total secrecy. They signed NDAs, and everything was kept under wraps. However, Morgan Group did inform their partner, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt. It seed Morgan was starting to take interest in the ga industry, especially intrigued by the user engagent potential.
And just like that, a gaming giant that had only recently risen to prominence collapsed overnight, and its remnants were absorbed by Surei Electronics, Brown Entertainnt, Morgan Group, and Gastar Electronic Entertainnt.
The video ga industry now appeared to be split among four powers.
The arms race in gaming seed to pause for a while, as each company moved into a phase of digestion and consolidation.
What the others were doing was unclear, but inside Gastar Electronic Entertainnt, a new round of intense preparations had already begun.
The GS1 console had been on the market for six or seven years. Sales had now reached 110 million units.
That was essentially the upper limit for a ho console.
The FC (Famicom) was a special case — that didn't count.
With the GS1 aging, its performance was beginning to lag behind current developnt standards. Developers now had to make compromises to work around the console's limitations.
That said, the GS1's price was no longer as high as it had been. You could now buy one for just $99.
Its market penetration had basically peaked.
According to data, the average ratio of ga sales to console sales had stabilized at 7:1, which was quite solid.
Overall, since the GS1's release — including ga revenue — it had generated over $5 billion in total profit for the company.
Now, players were starting to crave better-looking gas. They were no longer satisfied with what the GS1 could offer.
And it made sense. The GS1 was roughly equivalent to a PS2 in terms of performance. The only reason it had survived this long was because the video ga industry in this world had essentially started from zero.
If a better console didn't co soon, players would start jumping ship. Gars were notoriously hard to please — they could switch loyalties over a single ga. Rumor had it that so new companies were ambitiously working on higher-performance consoles, but the sudden internet bubble had disrupted their funding, and many of their projects were now stalled or delayed.
This was the perfect opportunity. It had beco absolutely necessary to develop a better console while the timing was right.
The engineering departnt had been working on this in secret for a while now. In fact, developnt had formally begun a year ago. Airi Hayasawa had even pulled multiple all-nighters because of it.
"Takayuki! It's done! Co look at my creation!"
Inside the new Gastar HQ, the engineering division occupied five full floors — more space than any single ga developnt departnt.
Everything built here was top-secret — the most important departnt in Takayuki's eyes.
Airi Hayasawa, the head engineer and pillar of the departnt, was also the board director in charge of engineering.
Only she could execute Takayuki's plans with such loyalty and speed.
In front of Takayuki now was an unhoused prototype of a brand-new console.
It used the most advanced processor available in the current world, and incorporated a variety of cutting-edge hardware innovations.
Its performance was roughly between a PS3 and PS4.
It couldn't support 4K, but at 1080p, it ran beautifully.
Takayuki picked up the controller and launched a built-in test ga.
It was a simple demo: a character walking around a city, able to attack pedestrians at will, steal cars, and drive freely.
Of course, it was an early test build, and many elents were still rough. Sotis the car would suddenly fly into the air. Sotis the character would stretch like a rubber band — with the head flying off the map while the feet remained planted at the original location. Bugs were everywhere.
But it was still a powerful showcase of the console's capabilities.
The new machine could render many more polygons, making characters look smoother and more lifelike. The sense of realism was on a whole new level. For this world, it could truly be called next-gen graphics.
Takayuki was very pleased.
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