Japan, Kyoto.

As the most prosperous video game company in Japan today, Nintendo's market value has surpassed several competitors such as Konami, Sega and Namco, and has long been the largest video game company.

Nintendo, like other companies in this era, has developed rapidly with tenacity and hard work, not only in Asia, but even in the United States, and the battle with Arida is inseparable.

Although Nintendo is far behind Ardida in arcade games, they are catching up in home video game consoles, and their current market share has exceeded 20%, which is a very remarkable number!

The hegemon of arcades and video game consoles in the United States is still Arida.

Arida isn't actually that comfortable.

Their market share in arcades is as high as 68%, but this year, a "Xiangjiang Cube" launched by the Japanese game console company alliance helped them seize 22% of the market share in half a year, which is really menacing.

The alliance of game companies, which previously provided Arita with a variety of games, did not only focus on arcades, but also ported "Xiangjiang Cube" to their Sega console, which also helped them occupy 10% of the market share.

If this momentum continues, and Arida has no countermeasures, I am afraid that they will have to hand over the first throne of the United States, the number one game company.

It is said that the next step of the Japanese manufacturers is to go to the other back garden of Arida, the European region, which makes them even more anxious.

Arida is anxious, and Nintendo is also a little bit anxious.

The three companies, Konami, Sega and Namco, knew that they couldn't win Nintendo alone, so they integrated together and attacked together to occupy the outside market, which brought great pressure to Nintendo.

As the head of the product development department, Gunhei Yokoi is under the most pressure, and in recent months, he has been constantly convening meetings with designers in the hope of colliding with new and good games.

Yamauchi Pu gave this henchman the greatest trust, asking people to give people and money to money, that is, hoping that he would be able to make another show as soon as possible and trample the competitors under his feet.

But today, Yamauchi Pu made an internal call to Yokoi Junhei, and asked Yokoi Junhei to go to his office quickly in a panicked tone, which made Yokoi Junhei, who was thinking about the game idea, feel inexplicably uneasy.

When he came to Yamauchi's office, Yokoi Junhei saw Yamauchi standing in front of the window with his hands and arms crossed, his face solemn.

"Chairman, what's wrong?" asked Yokoi cautiously.

"You look at the papers on the table. Yamauchi Pu said word by word, with a strong anger in his tone.

Yokoi Junhei thought that the development of his department was slow, which made the boss unhappy, but he picked up the document and looked up and was stunned.

"Reply of the National Patent Application Office on Nintendo Corporation's patent application. ”

Patent application?

Yokoi Junhei's brows furrowed, and when he picked it up and flipped it over, his face suddenly changed.

"No way!, this can't be!!"

With a city like Yokoi Junhei and a heart, he actually said two impossibilities in a row, which shows how big the horror in his heart is.

"This is what I came up with! This is what I conceived! Before that, no one knew at all, how could this be the case? Who leaked it to him? Is it the ghost of the people in the club?"

No wonder he was angry.

The patent application returned by the Patent Office is the design of the D-pad key, which was designed by Gunpei Yokoi for the small handheld game console Game&atch.

Because this small game console is not suitable for large controllers, so in 1980, Yokoi Junhei designed such a cross button for Game&atch, which allows players to control the movement of up and down, left and right with one hand, which is very convenient.

Because of such a genius design, Game&atc*** "Donkey Kong", which was released in January at the beginning of this year, gained great popularity in Japan, and then entered the American market, and it was also like a bamboo, easily gaining millions of sales, bringing great reputation and super profits to Nintendo.

In this era, I already attach great importance to patents.

Before Game & atch was released, Nintendo had already compiled these patents into a book and sent them to apply for patents.

This point in time was in late June 1980.

The first stage of the patent application was 18 months, and now after 18 months, the results of their application are reviewed.

The reply of the Patent Office was that "in view of the fact that a natural person, Yin Jun (Xiangjiang), has already applied for the relevant patent before your company, we will reject your company's request in accordance with the patent law of Japan and Japan......"

Yokoi Junhei knows Yin Jun.

Originally, this person was working on the super comic weekly "Kirin Weekly", which has a lot of interesting comics.

So the boss Yamauchi Pu went to Yin Jun with great interest and wanted to cooperate.

But in the face of such a win-win cooperation, I don't know why, in the end, Yin Jun actually refused, which made the boss very angry when he came back, and declared that he would block Yin Jun's development in the video game industry.

But unexpectedly, only half a year later, Yin Jun launched a hit game that shocked the video game industry - "Xiangjiang Cube", which deeply captured game fans with its simple graphics and simple game rules, as well as the fun of eliminating endless accumulation.

Nintendo has not yet made up its mind whether to buy the rights to this game, but it doesn't want to be preempted by Sega and their alliance, so they buy it directly at a high price, and then go to the front.

Yamauchi Pu has been annoyed for a long time about this, if "Xiangjiang Cube" was bought by Nintendo, then with their original game, the situation in the United States will definitely be even better.

For the "Xiangjiang Square" designed by Yin Jun, Yokoi Junhei is very respectful.

In the past, people said that Yin Jun was a genius, and Yokoi Junhei was not convinced, but as soon as this game came out, it was simple but classic, and he never got tired of playing, which was definitely a genius in the video game industry.

The most important thing is that Yin Jun is not from a professional class, he is from writing TV drama scripts, and he can achieve such a great achievement with a casual shot in the video game industry, how can people not be envious?

But!

Now that such a thing suddenly happened, which made Yokoi Junhei feel bad about Yin Jun all of a sudden.

No one knows better than him the origin and inspiration of this cross-key.

This thing that came up from his own head could not coincide with Yin Jun's thoughts at all.

Now that Yin Jun has applied for it in advance of himself, there is only one possibility, that is, he must have obtained the information of the cross key through some channel, so as to preemptively register the patent of the cross key.

It's so bad!

It's so shameless!

After calming down, Yokoi Junping thought about it and said to Yamauchi Pu: "President, we can't just forget it, we must immediately hold a press conference to expose the face of Yin Jun, a villain! We want everyone to know that he is a thief!"

"Do you have any evidence?" asked Yamauchi coldly without looking back.

"I ......" Yokoi was speechless for a moment, but quickly replied, "Isn't this thing invented by me?"

"But they can't prove whether you stole it from Yin Jun or not. Yamauchi turned around, "Although it sounds ridiculous, the invention and creation of this appearance is the most impossible thing to prove! It is not as good as a technology patent, we can take out a lot of research and development progress before, as well as various drawings and drafts as proof, these are impossible for them to imitate and fake." ”

"Then my D-pad design, I also have these draft drawings!" said Yokoi Junhei eagerly, "It's all kept in the club!"

"These are too simple, if Yin Jun applies in advance, he can draw a few more design drawings at will, it will be easy. "And you also know that this kind of design patent, because it has no technical content, it is all based on thinking, and it has always been whoever registers it first." Even if we come up with evidence that Yin Jun stole it, it has no effect on the patent application. ”

Yokoi sat down on the sofa dejectedly, "Then forget it?

Yamauchi Pu looked at him, "Yokoi, what we care about now is not this...... You should think about it, what will our Game&atch do in the future? You know, this D-pad patent will soon enter the public stage! Once Yin Jun files a lawsuit, not only will we have to recycle everything we sold before, but we will not be able to use similar designs in the future! This is the most serious problem!!"

Yokoi Junhei was shocked.

Game&atch is a small handheld game console that he is in charge of development.

Although there is only one Donkey Kong game in it now, Nintendo has been developing other games on this platform.

If the D-pad of Game&atch is filed for a global ban by Yin Jun for patent infringement, it will be terrible, and many design languages will have to be replaced!

The D-pad has been recognized as the most convenient and convenient operation procedure, and if you want to replace other control keys, it will be a very big problem.

What's more, game fans are already very accustomed to using the D-pad, once they suddenly make a change, what will happen to their habits? If Yin Jun sells the patent of the D-pad to Sega, will a large part of the game fans switch to Sega because of this......

These are all issues that need to be carefully considered!!