The Legend of Zelda is a great game, even in Jester's opinion, there is no doubt about this, and he knows that the game has sold very well in the history he was familiar with, with FC selling in the top 10 all-time sales, and this game is even enough in the history of Shigeru Miyamoto to be compared to the superhorse that is unlikely to be reproduced in this world.

In later generations, it became one of the three treasures of Nintendo's town, whether it is the Japanese game circle or the European and American game circles, the Zelda series is even more respected.

But Jester still didn't expect that once this game was released, it would cause such a frenzy.

Just after "FAMITSU" published an article in the name of a great game to introduce "The Legend of Zelda", especially Japanese players, they looked forward to this game, and after nearly a month of testing and final modifications, Nintendo did simultaneous promotion in Japan and the United States in this month.

Towards the end of June, The Legend of Zelda was officially released.

It is worth mentioning that this is the first time in the game industry that the same game has been released in Japan and the United States at the same time, whether it is Atari, Mars Entertainment or Nintendo, it is the first version of one of them, and seeing that the sales of this game are good, it is very popular with players, so it will be released in another language.

And this time, Nintendo is obviously full of confidence in this game, directly on the release day, in Japan, the United States held a release at the same time, because of the time difference, and Nintendo needs to deepen the intimacy of North American players to them, so the United States release will be during the day, and the Japanese release will only be at night.

Compared with Japan in the early hours of the morning, the release of "The Legend of Zelda" was extremely hot, and even the Tokyo police had to dispatch police forces to maintain law and order at the scene, but in the United States, although it was in Times Square, the most crowded time, or in the morning, the best time, Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda" press conference was also good.

It can't be said that there are few people, although the coverage rate of NES is only a fraction of that of Dreambox, but there are many people who like Nintendo games, especially Western fantasy-style RPGs, one of the favorite game genres of European and American players, and it can attract many people who are not Nintendo gamers to participate.

But it can't be said that there are many people, compared to the press conference of "Dawn" opened by Mars Entertainment not long ago, this is still an arcade game, players can only have a simple trial after the press conference, and cannot buy it directly, but even so, the number of people who came to the meeting at that time was really beyond Jester's expectations, even if the New York police were found to maintain order, but it still caused congestion and congestion in Times Square.

However, the reason why classics are classics is that they can be transmitted by word of mouth.

It's like the classic theory 'ロコミ' that old man Yamauchi said. 口 here is the Chinese character, which refers to the meaning of the mouth, and コミ is the abbreviation of communication, which roughly means hearsay, or there is an amount that can be understood as the meaning of gossip.

This is a very classic effect in the game industry, first proposed by the head of Nintendo, Yamauchi Pu, everyone should know that the effect related to social phenomena is different from the effect of science, the effect of scientific phenomena is calculated by the precise numerical formula of the real yàn and then the precise number formula, but the social effect, is not the case.

It's not that precise, it's just a habitual thing that happens when the conditions are met.

"ロコミ" means that some excellent works were not noticed by the world at the beginning of the release, but over time, the good reputation of players has gradually made it popular. More classic things like "Resident Evil I" on PS, "Pokemon Red/Green" on GB, "Taiko Tatsujin" on PS2, and "Made by Wario" on GBA.

However, as far as Jester knows, the first game to cause this effect on a large scale was Final Fantasy, or FF, the game that brought Square Enix back to life.

In the history of Jester's experience, after the completion of "Final Fantasy", Square Enix went all out to bombard audiovisual media such as television and magazines, and although it sold less than 100,000 cartridges in the first week of its release on December 18, the game's high quality triggered a word-of-mouth "ロコミ" effect, and finally the game sold a staggering 520,000 copies, although it still can't compare with "DQII", which debuted in the same year. BUT IT WAS ENOUGH TO BRING THE DYING SQUARE BACK TO LIFE.

This is a living example of 'ロコミ'.

Of course, in fact, according to the essence, Jester's copycat "Tetris" and "American Cubes" also relied on this effect to be able to sell well.

And now, when "The Legend of Zelda" meets all the conditions for the formation of the "ロコミ effect", the word plus Nintendo's confidence in it, and the promotion of it with all its might, then the big sale of "The Legend of Zelda" has happened as in history.

Twenty years later, Minoru Arakawa, who was the head of Nintendo in North America at the time, was interviewed and recalled this period of the most classic and fierce era in the history of video games, he said with some emotion: "At that time, when our product NES first arrived in the North American market, because of the strength of our competitors, our games were not quite a few games compared to them, so the sales growth was very slow, and the market share was not even a quarter of our competitors, in this case, Although we are constantly encouraging ourselves, we are constantly motivating ourselves, and I believe that we will be able to turn over, but in the face of that gap in market share, the frustration of employees is inevitable. ”

Arakawa also has some nostalgia when he recalls this history, although he was later swept away from Nintendo by his father-in-law because of a failure in some things, but he is full of respect for his father-in-law, a figure who cannot be avoided in the video game world in any way.

After he finished this paragraph, he took a sip of water and moistened his throat, and then continued: "At that time, my father-in-law, Mr. Yamauchi Pu, kept calling me across the ocean, and kept telling me how good the game Miyamoto is doing now is, which makes me believe that we can definitely turn over, I just worked hard in that situation, no matter how hard I tried at the beginning, the increase in sales was very weak, and no matter how much advertising there were, especially for us to sell game consoles, it was in vain to have no good games, but when it came to " After the official release of The Legend of Zelda, everything became incredible. ”

Minoru Arakawa's tone became a little amazed, and he even showed an incredible look in his eyes, and the silver bar suddenly rose a little: "In the first week, the sales can only be said to be average, although all game magazines or media, TV shows have a very high evaluation of our game, and even "GAME", which is inextricably linked with Mars Entertainment, also rated our game as a high score of 39 points, and said that our game is a game that has created a new era of games, But our platform share is too small, even if everyone with NES buys a copy, the sales will not be good. ”

When it comes to this paragraph, in the few glorious years in the confrontation between Nintendo and Mars Entertainment, Arakawa is also talking about his eyebrows, because when future generations look back on this history that has just passed, Nintendo is too aggrieved.

"I remember very well at the time, "The Legend of Zelda" in Japan and the United States had two extremes, our game was very popular in Japan as soon as it was launched, it was very popular with players, and it sold nearly 400,000 copies in the first week, you know, this is a very, very uninteresting achievement, but it is not the case in the United States, I didn't even dare to tell my father-in-law the truth when I heard the number in Japan, I had to double the number to my father-in-law. At that time, I was talking about 120,000 copies, but in fact, it was less than 60,000 copies, and I thought at the time that this time it was a real failure in the Japanese market. ”

Saying that, Minoru Arakawa laughed too, "But to my surprise, just a week later, the sales of "The Legend of Zelda" suddenly began to blow out, without any warning, you know, we didn't particularly increase the promotion of "The Legend of Zelda" at that time, because we had done our best to promote this game before, in the major cities in North America at that time, even small and medium-sized cities, everywhere, you can see the "Legend of Zelda" posters, as for TV commercials, It is also broadcast every day by major TV networks. ”

"We only sold 60,000 copies in the first week, but by just over halfway through the second week, all the 400,000 cassettes we had prepared in North America were sold out, and I had to call Japan and ask them to deliver them immediately.

Minoru Arakawa smiled and continued: "I only reacted at this time, not only our new game "The Legend of Zelda", but even our NES suddenly started a blowout sale, in less than a week, it sold more than 200,000 units, you must know that we have not sold 500,000 units in the previous half a year, when the news was transmitted back to Japan, I later heard my father-in-law say to the other party's secretary that Mr. Yamauchi, who has always been strict, was so excited that he burst into tears like a child. ”R1152