On March 1, 1990, it seemed to be an ordinary day, but in the game circle, an extraordinary thing happened.

IN KYOTO, AT NINTENDO'S HEADQUARTERS, NINTENDO HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE, DURING WHICH NINTENDO RELEASED ITS OWN SUCCESSOR TO THE GAME & ATCH SERIES, THE SUCCESSOR TO THE GAME WATCH SERIES, THE GAMEBOY.

This machine uses an 8-bit CPU and an 8-bit graphics accelerator, and unlike the GAME&ATCH series, the new GAMEBOY is no longer like the GAME&ATCH series, because with a printed LCD screen, no matter how much a machine moves around, it can only make two games at most.

The all-new GAMEBOY uses a dot-matrix LCD screen and supports replacement cartridges.

Jing Junping held up a small handheld and said, "This will be an epoch-making product in the era of mobile video games!"

Yokoi Junhei held a small handheld and drew a semicircle with his body as the central axis. The cameras of the reporters in the audience kept clicking the shutter, and the flashes were like lightning on a thunderstorm.

As the head of the first development department, Yokoi Junhei is the absolute protagonist of this press conference, of course, the more protagonist than him is the GB host in his hand.

Q&A session.

"Hello, I'm Minoru Ogawa, a reporter from the weekly Wenchun, may I ask Mr. Junhei Yokoi, you said that the GAMEBOY console is an epoch-making portable video game handheld, and it can change the game cartridge like a red and white machine, can this game console play games on the red and white machine?"

After hearing the reporter's question, Yokoi Junhei bowed slightly, and he said, "Unfortunately, due to various reasons, the GAMEBOY console will not support the direct insertion of the red and white machine cartridge, but I hereby assure you that the first party of Nintendo will go all out to develop the game of the GAMEBOY console!

The reporter of the weekly magazine Wenchun, who received a satisfactory answer, sat down, and the question session continued, and the remaining reporters raised their hands one after another, hoping that Junhei Yokoi would be able to ask questions.

With a light touch of Yokoi's hand, he clicked on a reporter, and the field staff below handed the microphone to the reporter, "Hello, I am a reporter real estate agent of "Video Game Entertainment News", may I ask Mr. Yokoi Junhei, Sega's MD 16-bit console sells very well in the United States, when will Nintendo's 16-bit console be released?"

Yokoi Junhei said with a serious expression. "I'm sorry! TODAY IS THE LAUNCH OF THE GAMEBOY HANDHELD, AND I CAN ONLY SAY NOTHING ABOUT NINTENDO'S SIXTEEN-BIT CONSOLE PLAN. ”

At the same time, Yokoi Junhei made a slight gesture, and the person in charge of recording below quietly blacklisted the reporter called a real estate agent, as well as the "Video Game Entertainment Newspaper".

Of course, being on the blacklist just means that there will be no deeper cooperation in the future.

The media is such a thing, the uncrowned king. It is the medium through which the general public has access to information.

If there is no great hatred, for example, the "Gamer's Heart" issue will not be among the invitations to Nintendo's press conference. Otherwise, in the vast majority of cases, manufacturers will not engage in a bad relationship with the media.

It doesn't matter if the media is like a dog skin plaster, or what the media is.

One of the great things about the media is that when you provoke it, you get a lot of bad reviews.

Moreover, the current video game media ecosystem is definitely not healthy. In addition to major magazines such as "Gamer's Heart" and magazines dedicated to the company's game services.

The rest of the small and medium-sized magazines, for a game, are not good or bad, not whether the game is really fun. It's about whether the manufacturer has recharged.

If you know the boring readers, you will often find that the previous issue and the next issue of the same magazine may have two completely opposite conclusions about the evaluation of a game. This is because it was topped up. In other words, the manufacturer's balance is insufficient, and the manufacturer is forcibly recharged.

Manufacturers don't want to spend such unjust money, but manufacturers can't do anything about it.

According to the current business model of home game platforms and arcade game platforms, the word-of-mouth of a game released has a decisive impact on the sales of a game.

Therefore, no matter how big or small the magazine is, as long as the number of subscriptions reaches an order of magnitude, it has the qualification to blackmail manufacturers.

In order to prevent their games from dying violently because of the deliberate blackening of the media, the manufacturers can only pinch their noses and recharge.

Speaking of which, this is the sadness of the manufacturer and the sadness of the player at the same time. When a game is freshly released, players know how good or bad the game is, in addition to word of mouth, the rest is mainly through magazines to learn about the quality of a game.

As an opinion leader, the preference of the magazine will determine the reader's preference, which in turn will affect the reader's consumption choice.

Although Nintendo is not the first manufacturer to enter the video game industry, it is undoubtedly the most influential ID video game manufacturer in this era.

IN ADDITION, NINTENDO, WHICH HAS DEEP POCKETS, IS NOT A GRAVEYARD AVERSION TO RECHARGING, SO IN THE WEEK FOLLOWING THE HANDHELD PRESS CONFERENCE, ALMOST ALL MAJOR GAME MAGAZINES, AND EVEN MAINSTREAM MAGAZINES, REPORTED ON NINTENDO'S GAMEBOY.

At the same time, Nintendo also began to put up posters of GB in stores that sold red and white phones. The propaganda offensive is wave after wave, some hard and some soft, and the purpose is to brainwash and consume players, so that players can buy GB handhelds.

Nintendo's reckless investment in advertising is due to the commercial nature of handhelds or game consoles.

Only when there are enough hosts can there be manufacturers willing to come over to make games and sell more consoles.

Therefore, the publicity at the expense of the early stage is to be able to have a good initial holding.

If the investment in R&D and advertising are counted, Nintendo's handheld at this moment can be said to be a loss when selling one, and the loss will not end until more than one million units are sold, and the hardware can start to make a profit.

Of course, this is not the case. Selling hardware and games at the same time, for Nintendo, the profits of first-party games are terrifying.

If you are a GB handheld, you can reach the kind of red and white machine, and there are eight games on one machine, and three of them are counted as Nintendo First Square.

As long as 200,000 GB handhelds are sold, and the matching cassette sales reach 1.5 million copies, the loss period of GB handhelds will pass.

And the sales of 200,000 units are a drizzle for Nintendo.

Just a week!

Gunpei Yokoi believes that in just one week, the sales of GB will exceed 200,000 units! If it were not for the limitation of production capacity, it would even be even higher!