On September 9th, Sega Dreamcast console grabbed the North American market, although the previous "Hollywood film and television" experience activities did not achieve the expected good response, but the Dreamcast host has to be released. However, Sega's painstaking preparation was not without results, and at least for this day, they were successful, achieving close to 300,000 pre-orders before sales began.

With an ultra-low price of $199 and a strong lineup of 18 launch games, the Dreamcast console has set off a small rush in the United States, with long queues forming in front of many stores that open at midnight, including many teenagers with food and tents. In just 24 hours, Sega earned $78,604,618.09, breaking the Star Wars record of $48 million in 24 hours at the height of its launch, and without the DreamBox 128 console, Jewel would have had a chance to create a new myth in the history of the entertainment industry.

Chris Gilbert, Senior Vice President of Sales at Sega North America, happily announced to the press: "We just announced 300,000 pre-orders, which is three times the original number of Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation consoles, but we didn't expect such an overwhelming response from our customers. Our original plan was to ship 1 million Dreamcast consoles in North America by the end of the year, but now it looks like that plan is going to be significantly revamped......"

"Either Sega is crazy or I'm crazy. One Dreamcast console retailer said, "I've never seen such a large flow of purchases, never seen such a grand launch......"

In the face of such an unprecedented achievement, Sega North America held a grand celebration party in Los Angeles on September 10, and President Shoichiro Iriko seemed to have some peace of mind, but unfortunately he didn't have time to be happy for long, and a series of blows followed.

It was just in the first half of the year when the North American release date of the Dreamcast console was announced, and Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it would release the US version of Final Fantasy 8 on the same day, supplemented by a series of big-name masterpieces, which was a powerful counterattack to Sega's action. However, Sega's senior management was so unimpressed that they even said: "Sega will be completely in the hands of Sega on September 9, 99, there is no doubt about it, it would be better if other companies were willing to help promote September 9, 99, and it would be nice for them to celebrate this day that belongs only to Sega......"

Sony Computer Entertainment's counterattack was eventually confirmed to be just a legend, and Nintendo seemed to be still indulging in the return of N64 games and the lucrative GameBoy at this time, but the worst thing is that "Final Fantasy 8" basically landed in the United States as scheduled, but not as a PS game, but as a remake on the DreamBox128 game console, and the entire North American game industry was shocked for a while. Shoichiro had already been aware of the difficulties before this, but he didn't expect the difficulties to come so quickly and so greatly.

Marked by the remake of Final Fantasy 8's DreamBox 128 console, sales of the Dreamcast console in North America began to decline, while sales of the DreamBox 128 console began to soar again, firmly holding the top spot in North American console sales. The same is true for game sales, with nearly two months of accumulation, a number of DreamBox128 games have broken into the sales charts. In the list of the most anticipated gifts in North America, the DreamBox128 game console also entered the top spot.

For this situation, Sega President Shoichiro Iriko was very helpless after receiving the report, in fact, he didn't work hard, in order to make the North American market develop according to their predetermined plan, even Sega North America CEO Boni Starral gave it up, but who made the Dreamcast console have been full of disasters since its birth. When it first seized the Japanese market, there was a problem with NEC's display chip, and it was not easy to press this trouble, and a new problem of game disconnection emerged, which gave Sega a headache for a while. After careful preparation, I planned to make a comeback in the North American market, but who would have thought that the DreamBox128 game console would take the lead, not only ruining Sega North America's Dreamcast console experience plan, but even simply using the Final Fantasy 8 remake to stab the Dreamcast console when it landed in the North American market.

For the current situation, Shoichiro Iriko no longer knows what to do, and it can be expected that under the attack of the DreamBox128 game console and Sony's legendary PS2, the future of the Dreamcast console will not be easy. And most of those slippery game developers are guys who see the wind and rudder, and they will definitely come over to get a piece of the pie when the wind is down, but in times of adversity, don't even think about it, and it's already good if you don't fall into the ground.

"Why don't you stop being a game console and just turn into a game developer?" said Shoichiro Iriko to the thinker sitting in front of him.

Ken Nagatari, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment, is also in a bad mood at the moment, he feels that his current position is like sitting on a dynamite bag, and the DreamBox128 game console is the fuse, maybe it will blow him up in the sky at any time. Judging from the current surface situation alone, Sony's PS game console market share is still the largest, not only the new Ding that launched the DreamBox128 game console can not be compared, even old companies like Nintendo and Sega can't compare, but Kuta Ragi Ken also understands that the PS game console has been in the twilight, at most it can hold on for another one or two years, if you don't launch a new generation of game consoles as soon as possible, it's not good that in this or two years, the market share that Sony has captured will be handed over to others.

According to Ken Kuta's latest idea, it would be perfect if the PS2 could be launched in September, which could not only snipe the crazy performance of the DreamBox 128 game console, but also suppress the hapless Sega, but this is just a thought. The development of the PS2 was already relatively late, and despite Toshiba's assistance, some of the necessary procedures could not be skipped, and no matter how anxious Ken Kutaragi was, the R&D team could only promise to put the PS2 on the market before the year-end business war. Due to the advance of the listing plan, many of the original game development plans could not keep up, except for four or five games developed by Sony Computer Entertainment's first and second parties, the rest could only be put behind.

But even so, Kutaragi Ken still relies on his own authority to strongly stipulate that PS2 must be launched before the end of the year, not that he doesn't know the risks involved, but he has no choice, according to the crazy performance of the DreamBox128 game console in the first week, or even according to the performance that gradually stabilized after that, it is not impossible to break through 10 million within the year, or even 20 million, if he doesn't want to stop it, maybe there will be no way to suppress the DreamBox128 game console in the future。 If the PS2 game console is launched earlier, although there will be a shortage of game software, it should be able to get through this difficult time by relying on the PS game compatibility function, at least you don't have to let DreamBox128 be the only one.

……

While Sony, Sega's president Ken Nataragi and Shoichiro Iriko were struggling with the DreamBox128 game console, Zhang Lexing, as the initiator of this matter, stayed in his spacious and comfortable office, drinking coffee, while browsing the game development management system that had been connected, according to the weekly habit, looking for rejected game creative proposals on it, although often nothing was gained, but occasionally one or two omissions could be checked.

For example, two months ago, Zhang Lexing once saw such a game idea, intending to create a completely free urban game scene, players can freely decide what they want to do in the game, they can either shrink their heads and be a good person, or they can directly mix with the underworld, leading their younger brothers to smash the opponent's field, and the reason for the rejection is also very simple, just from the draft game idea, it can be seen that this is a violent crime game, which is full of a lot of uncomfortable content. However, after reading this idea, Zhang Lexing always felt a sense of déjà vu, if it weren't for the last creative provider DMADesign instead of the Rockstar he knew, he would have thought that this was the legendary Vice City 3 (GTA3).

Zhang Lexing remembers that "Vice City 3 (GTA3)" has achieved more than 10 million sales on the PS2 platform, and it is just this game, unlike some games that rely on the accumulation of series. In line with the mentality that he can't miss it, Zhang Lexing still plans to provide development funds for this creative draft, but he has to make two adjustments. First of all, the development platform naturally went to the DreamBox128 console, and it had to be an exclusive game. Secondly, the creative part has been slightly adjusted, replacing the protagonist from a gangster in prison to an undercover police detective, and then designing both good and evil ways, correcting his reputation among NPCs according to the decisions made by the protagonist in the game, etc. In short, I want to be able to occupy the game, but I also hope to slightly improve the reputation of the game itself.

On this day,Zhang Lexing didn't gain anything when browsing the game creative recycle bin,From the beginning to the end,None of them can be seen,Just when he was about to exit the system,Suddenly there was a "ding dong" prompt sound from the speaker,This means that another game idea that has just been eliminated has entered the recycle bin。 He clicked the refresh button, and a new item called "RealTown" appeared in the information area in the upper right corner.

It turns out that this "RealTown" In short, the project is a real town project, according to the idea of the creative provider, they hope to simulate a town on a computer, and it can operate like a real town, not only the people (NPCs) in the town can live in the town like real people, have their own schedule, have their own things to do, have their own lives, even cats and dogs and other animals must be able to have their own ideas or AI systems, when the player controls their own characters, they can communicate with the people in the town and cats and dogs like an outsider, and the creative provider even hopes to include plants if the system performance can be achieved, you can water flowers and plants, you can plant saplings with your own hands and watch them grow.

When there is no player intervention, the creative provider hopes that the town can become an independent autonomous body that can grow independently, such as AI simulated outsiders to settle in the town, and the people in the town have normal birth, old age, sickness and death. The town's buildings and surroundings can change due to human actions, such as the decline of vegetation due to too many loggers, the appearance of new buildings due to the increase in population, and so on.

The whole "RealTown" project feels a bit like a composite of SimCity and The Sims, and goes even further. According to the creative provider's plan, if you complete the simulation of a small town, you can also hope to expand the scope of the simulation even further, such as simulating two small towns that interact with each other, or a noisy city, or even an entire planet.

In the end, Zhang Lexing understood why the project was cut, because according to the requirements of the creative providers of the "RealTown" project, it was not possible for ordinary computers to achieve it at all, at least for now. And more importantly, this project is in the wrong place, because in the whole idea, there are many layers of technical description, and the part involving the game is almost all brushed off, basically "the player can operate the AI simulator provided by the computer and interact with the town as an outsider" or something like that. It is conceivable that this kind of unqualified creative manuscript falls into the hands of the game review team, and naturally there will be no good evaluation, the key is that I don't know what is interesting about this "RealTown" project, and it is difficult to experience the daily trivial life again in the computer.

However, in Zhang Lexing's view, this "RealTown" project still has a shining point, at least the real virtual technology mentioned in it will always have the opportunity to be used after a few years, maybe at that time, every new game is a new world, players can enter the new world experience as long as they connect between the worlds, and they can also create a virtual world of their own, and even invite others to enter their own world to adventure. To paraphrase the futuristic fashion, maybe this is the so-called Game 2.0 (player creates game content).

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