On November 27th, the Dreamcast console officially began to be sold in the Japanese market, and gamers who had been waiting all night on Tokyo's Akihabara Electronic Street finally got their long-awaited dream new console. The number of Sega's first batch of sales was about 170,000 units, and the players who pre-ordered and snapped up on the spot were already running out in just one morning, and the Dreamcast console sales stores scattered throughout Japan began to be in a hurry from noon, and the premiere of Sega's new console can be said to be relatively successful.

However, before Shoichiro had time to rejoice, a new problem came out, and the Dreamcast console, which had a good sales momentum, was out of stock, not only did the seller have no stock, but even Sega's own inventory was running out. Shoichiro is in a hurry, even if he doesn't care about the current hot sales, but next month is the golden time to grab money for the year-end business war, how can the Dreamcast console be out of stock.

Shoichiro Iriko immediately picked up the phone and called Nakagawa Li, who was in charge of the Dreamcast host project, and asked him repeatedly: "Nakagawa-kun, why is the Dreamcast main machine out of stock, and why are we so little in stock?"

Who knew that Nakagawa Li on the other end of the phone was also bitter, and after an explanation, Shoichiro finally understood the crux of the problem. It turns out that the Dreamcast host image processing chip uses the PowerVR2 specially designed by NEC company, and the production of the PowerVR2 chip is mainly located in a branch of NEC in the Philippines, who admits that it was involved in the local military rebellion at this critical time, the current production of the Philippine branch is basically stagnant, and the inventory in the early stage cannot be sent out for the time being, so it is anxious to wait for the Sega company to use the Dreamcast host to open the market After taking out the first batch of products, it is embarrassing to find that it has fallen into the dilemma of waiting for the rice to be cooked, facing the urgent documents that come from all directions like snowflakes, but he could only watch him in a hurry.

After yelling at the phone, Shoichiro Iriko gradually calmed down, he knew that the key to solving the problem now was still on the side of NEC, and only when their PowerVR2 chips were restored could the Dreamcast host be able to catch up with the critical moment of the business war at the end of the year. Thinking of this, Shoichiro Iriko picked up the phone again and called Akinobu Kanesugi, vice president of NEC's PowerVR2 chip business.

"Kanesugi-kun, excuse me. Although he knew that the other party couldn't see his expression, Shoichiro Iriko still said into the phone with a smile on his face.

"Oh, it's President Akira Iriko. Kanesugi Mingxin heard the voice in the call, and he immediately understood the other party's intention.

"Yes, exactly. Jin Shanjun, I'm sorry, I have something to bother you again. ”

"President Akira Iri, you should know that the current shortage of PowerVR2 chips is not an immediate solution, even if the assembly lines of other factories are adjusted to produce, it will not be a matter of time and a half. ”

"Kanesugi-kun, I understand this, but it's almost the end of the year, you have to solve some of it anyway, otherwise we won't even be able to get a Dreamcast host by then. ”

"President Akira Iriko, I'm really sorry for the trouble. In this way, I will help you think of a way, and strive to help you transfer a batch of PowerVR2 chips, although the number is not too much, but it can last for a while. In the Philippines, we will also find a way to resume production as soon as possible, and we will definitely be able to solve the problems that plague us when the time comes. ”

"Kanesugi-kun, thank you so much, let's go to the club in Ginza another day, hehe......" Shoichiro Iriko glanced at the closed door of the president's office, and the smile on his face became lewd.

As expected, from the other end of the phone, there was also a knowing laugh from Kanesugi Mingxin, with a certain tacit understanding of the man.

……

"President Radaki, I'm ready. The host of the press conference made a gesture of invitation, motioning for Ken Kutaragi to come to the speaker's seat.

Kutaragi Ken nodded slightly, greeted the media reporters in the audience with a smile on his face, and slowly walked to the speaker's seat. After standing still, he looked at the audience with a smile and said, "First of all, thank you all for your appreciation...... If there is any question, you can ask it now. ”

A beautiful woman sitting in the front position stood up and asked: "Hello, President Kutaragi! I'm Asami of the Asahi Shimbun, some time ago the "Japan Industrial News" and some online media broke the news that Sony and Toshiba will jointly develop a new generation, is this true?"

"MS. ASAMI, WE DO HAVE PLANS WITH TOSHIBA IN THIS REGARD, AND IN THE NEW GENERATION OF PLAYSTATION, WE WILL INTRODUCE MORE ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL SURELY BRING CONSUMERS A BETTER ENTERTAINMENT EXPERIENCE. ”。

The reporters in the audience roared, and immediately became excited, and they raised their hands to indicate that they had questions, and some of them were anxious and even wanted to rush to the stage to ask.

Seeing the excitement of the audience, the host hurriedly came out to maintain order, and when the reporters calmed down a little, he took the microphone and pointed with his hand and said: "Mr. from the fifth from the left in the third row, please ask questions below." ”

The reporter who was called immediately stood up, took the microphone from the staff next to him, and asked, "President Kutaragi, when will your next-generation Playstation be released?"

"When the time is right, but not now, okay for the next question. Kutaragi Ken replied with a smile on his face, standing behind the speaker.

At the host's suggestion, another reporter stood up again: "President Kutaragi, I'm Hiroi, a reporter from Kyodo News, what are the specifications of the new generation of PLAYSTATION, what performance parameters are there, and what kind of storage media will be used?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hiroi, because this involves company secrets, so it's not convenient to disclose it for the time being, but I can responsibly say that the new model will be more than 100 times more powerful than the current PS console. ”

"What, how is this possible?" Many reporters in the audience couldn't believe what Ken Kutaragi said, more than 100 times the PS game console, wouldn't that be 10 times that of the Dreamcast console, and wouldn't Sega want to have cups again. But then the reporters were happy again, at least when they went back today, they didn't have to worry about writing no content, whether it was "Sony's new console = 100 PS game consoles", or "PlayStation2, Dreamcast's nightmare", I believe it will attract the attention of readers.

The questions and answers continued, until the last question, "I heard that Sony's portable handheld PocketStation will be postponed, is it true?" and the last answer, "Due to the delay in the manufacturing cycle, the release of the PocketStation will be postponed next spring", the press conference also came to an end.

In the following days, many newspapers and online media reported on the press conference, especially the news that Ken Kutaragi personally confirmed that Sony and Toshiba jointly developed the next generation of PlayStation is a big book, and the "Japan Industrial News", which broke the news in advance, is also very proud of this. This news is tantamount to another slap in the face to Sega, which is still trapped in the supply quantity of PowerVR2, and many players who are waiting for the Dreamcast console are also a little hesitant, for a game console with 10 times the performance of the Dreamcast console, and has the performance of excellent games in the past, it must be hypocritical to say that it is not expected, so the sad Shoichiro Iriko broke two telephones, and even the gray hair on his head suddenly increased.

……

Yamauchi Pu, who also heard the news, smiled disdainfully, how did Kutaragi Ken's trick deceive people who are old and sophisticated, when the "Japan Industrial News" broke the news of the cooperation between Sony and Toshiba, Yamauchi Pu had already guessed Kutaragi Ken's intentions, but he just wanted to use a new console that didn't have to be used to contain the Dreamcast console that went on the market first, and this kind of trick was left over from Nintendo's play back then, but Sega was quite ate of this set.

Yamauchi didn't care who lived or died between Sony and Sega, and he even hoped that the two families would lose both, so that Nintendo could profit from it and re-establish its former glory. But now, Yamanuchi's eyes have crossed the ocean and landed on the land of America on the other side of the ocean, where there is a difficult Christmas battle to be fought.

Arakawa Minoru looked at the mountains of N64 cassettes in the aisle, and sighed slightly in his heart, the lack of games has always been the biggest shackle to the development of N64, in the past, he could only rely on a small number of masterpieces to support, and even when promoting, he could only be tied to a few masterpieces, but fortunately, these game masterpieces are still relatively competitive, at least in North AmericaN64 has always been in front of PS game consoles, and even sometimes it can be slightly better.

But I didn't expect that after so long, this situation still hasn't improved much, and now when facing the golden period of Christmas, Minoru Arakawa only has three or four games in his hands, such as "Mario Party" and "The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time", which belongs to the third-party development of only "The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time", which is very shabby compared with the huge lineup of PS games.

But who caused all this, every time I dreamed back at midnight, Minoru Arakawa couldn't help but ask myself, the answer is actually obvious, if it wasn't for the stubborn old man in Yamauchi who had to use some hellish cartridge, if he could have listened to his own persuasion and used more popular discs to store games, I believe Nintendo would never have fallen into today's situation.

It's a pity that every time Arakawa Minoru can only lose his temper in his villa, just because he is the son-in-law of the old man Yamauchi, so he knows that don't look at himself to open up such a vast world in North America, but inside Nintendo, the only one who really speaks is the old man Yamauchi, don't look at the ebb and flow of Shigeru Miyamoto and Juntai Yokoi, in fact, it's just the old man Yamauchi's turn of hands into clouds and hands for rain, as for his son-in-law, at least it's nothing now. The only thing Arakawa can do is to exercise well and persevere, and only by persevering can there be hope.

……

Baofeng Electronics Factory, Shekou Industrial Zone, Shenzhen, in the heavily guarded factory area, the factory director Duan Yongping was not here, at this time he was accompanying Tu Wen, deputy minister of the electronic entertainment division, to Wuxi, Zhejiang, to inspect the game console production base to be built, which will be the main production place of the domestic game console DreamBox128, which is in the same vein as the moonlight goddess No. 2 machine, and it is related to the future of the domestic game industry, so they dare not be sloppy at all, so they will personally go to the scene to inspect, so as not to drop the chain at a critical time。

Duan Yongping and Tu Wen were not idle, and Xu Yeming, the head of the electronic entertainment business, was not idle, and even the upcoming Christmas and New Year could not be cared about, so he flew to Japan from the air with his team, accompanied by Tian Ye, general manager of Asia Interactive Japan, and Yumi Renya, administrative assistant, and visited many more powerful game development companies in a low-key manner, such as CHUNSOFT, which once helped Square Enix OEM the "Dragon Quest" series, and SNK, which is famous for its action games. Xu Yeming recommended the DreamBox128 console to these companies one by one, and showed them a convenient game development system and exquisite game demo, so as to attract as many game companies as possible to join the development camp of the DreamBox128 console before the start of **S next spring.

The same thing is happening in North America and Europe, but the protagonist of the story is Yang Xinxin's right-hand man and the game publishing companies in the region, such as Activision in the United States and Eidos in the United Kingdom, as well as Ubisoft in France. They are also doing the same thing as Xu Yeming, but they have a little more time, because their main battlefield is the E3 exhibition in May next year.

……

After the business war kicked off at the end of December, facing Nintendo's N64 main software "The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time" Driven by the counterattack offensive, the solid foundation of Sony's PS game console still won by a slight advantage, while the hapless Sega still failed to solve the supply problem of the PowerVR2 chip, and as a result, the Dreamcast console had to give up the full distribution, coupled with many expected game delays, Sega had to watch the business opportunities slip away from its eyes.

At the end of December, Ken Nagataki, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, proudly announced at a press conference that "PS global shipments have exceeded 50 million units......

With the end of 1998, the battle for the hegemony of a new generation of game consoles led by Sega's Dreamcast console started with the Squibs of the Dreamcast console......

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