Spring goes to autumn, and time flies quickly.

Mars Entertainment has been growing steadily for the past three years, and everything has gone as Jester expected.

GTA3 was quietly launched on consoles after half a year of release on the PC version, and it didn't do much publicity at the beginning, but the popularity that was accumulated on the PC in the first half a year made this game just listed on consoles, and the sales were very good.

On PC, in the world of half a year, GTA3 sold a total of more than one million copies, and after the console version was launched, although there was no large-scale publicity, in two months, more than one million units were also sold.

For a little-known studio, half a year for the PC version and two months for the console version, a total of eight months to sell more than two million units is a very good result.

If you're lucky.

Maybe three million copies will be sold in a year.

Three million copies!

This is not a small number, and many games that have spent countless promotion expenses don't know if they can sell this number.

However, Jester knows, the people at Mars Entertainment, and even the people at other game companies, that three million is definitely not the limit of this game - because this game has not been widely promoted, and if it has been widely promoted, and if it can be released at the same time, the game can even sell tens of millions of copies a year.

Of course, this is also a trade-off for Mars Entertainment.

They are willing to give up GTA3 sales to boost Dreambox 4 sales, and of course they have a more suitable plan in their eyes.

Indeed, as Satoshi Iwata envisioned, his housewife strategy was very successful, and Dreambox4 built a very good image in the minds of these housewife mothers, and Sony was well prepared for the Christmas war in the second year of its release. They've already reduced their share of the PS3 to just 10 percent of the Dreambox 4.

They hope that by taking advantage of the Christmas war, they will be able to further reduce their share.

Catching up, I didn't dare to think about overtaking Sony.

All they want is to reduce the gap to five percent, and the gap is one step at a time, and they can't eat it into a big fat man.

Ken Kutaragi and the people of Sony know this deeply, after all. Sony has been playing the electrical war for decades, so it won't be clear about this, and the PS3's DVD strategy, coupled with the many Japanese-style games, is indeed a lot of people who have never been exposed to video games, and they are attracted to play, which can be regarded as opening up a new market.

However, the sales of the Dreambox4 at the Christmas War are simply amazing.

Especially some family moms who prepare Christmas gifts for their children. Many of them chose the Dreambox4 almost without much thought, and in their eyes, it was a perfect gift for their children.

Their kids love consoles, and the Dreambox4 lives up to their expectations, especially the somatosensory, which is simply tailor-made for their kids.

So, inside the Christmas War. With the efforts of these family mothers, Mars Entertainment did not let Sony's plan succeed. Not only did they not narrow the gap in market share, but they also pulled the market share to almost three percent.

And after GTA3 was sold on consoles for two months without any publicity, Satoshi Iwata also felt that his Dreambox4 positioning had basically been determined, and the news of one or two games couldn't shake them at all, so, slowly. Start promoting the game.

Of course, for a game that was more than half a year ago, the role of large-scale publicity will not be very large.

After all, this is what Jester personally told Satoshi Iwata, and this is a game that can sell at least 10 million. In Iwata's view, he doesn't dare to think about 10 million sets now, but a few million sets of console versions may be able to bring hundreds of thousands, or even millions of console sales, which is not a small number.

Besides, GTA3 has won the support of many players by virtue of its own reputation, and even many industry insiders have a different view of this game.

"It's not just a violent game, and there's a lot of things about this game that all designers should learn from."

The advantages of GTA3 are almost inexhaustible in the eyes of many designers, and it perfectly inherits the idea of sandbox games mentioned by Jester, his design method, and the many technologies he embodies in it, which make many designers have a feeling of worship.

There are even many people who say that this game is a well-deserved game of the year.

However, there are some people in the industry who do not see it that way.

It's not that the game is bad, purely in terms of the game, in addition to the theme, and the spirit of GTA3 preaching, but as far as the game is concerned, this game basically can't find any shortcomings.

But a game of the year isn't just about a game that's done well.

So, although both VGA and GDC have nominated this game as a candidate for Game of the Year, in the eyes of many industry insiders, GDC, which is voted for by the designers to choose Game of the Year, is unlikely to choose GTA3 as Game of the Year.

However, the VGA jury is not so much about the major game media awards, and judging from their reports, it is very likely that they will choose GTA3 as Game of the Year.

However, when the final results were revealed, some people were taken aback.

VGA's Game of the Year was indeed given to GTA3, which many people had guessed before, and this game was indeed well deserved.

But the most amazing thing is that GDC's Game of the Year award was also given to GTA3.

You know, many industry insiders have said that they will never vote for GTA3, but the results are completely different from the previous survey.

Finally, some media interviewed the organizing committee of GDC.

Their answer is not hidden, and the answer is simple: "It is true that there are many people who disagree with GTA3 for the Game of the Year, but the problem is that those other games cannot be judged together with GTA3." ”

And with the momentum of being elected Game of the Year. Coupled with the slow afterburner of Mars Entertainment, the sales of this game also came to a blowout after the selection of the game of the year, with monthly sales, just the console version exceeded one million sets, and the PC version also had more than 100,000 sets, you know. This is a result for the PC version when it has been on sale for almost a year.

These things were more than two years ago.

Jester is actually just a spectator of these things, after he resigned from the senior position of Mars Entertainment, he no longer cares about the affairs of the company, and puts all the power in the hands of Satoshi Iwata, at most at the later high-level meetings, he will attend and listen, but basically do not express his own opinions, but the game development matters, he is like usual. Participate when you have nothing to do or when you don't have much to do, and post your profile.

However, as the development of WOW became more and more intense, Jester rarely participated in things that were not related to WOW development.

In the past four years, Satoshi Iwata has done a very good job in the position of president, and finally, at a board meeting held by Claudia as the chairman of the board of directors a few days ago, Satoshi Iwata was nominated to be the CEO of Mars Entertainment, and it was finally unanimously approved.

Everybody knows. Claudia's appointment must have been Jester's meaning.

But. Jester's WOW has been basically developed, and in four or five years, the full picture of the game has finally been revealed to everyone.

Four invitations to the closed beta, each time it caused an uproar on major forums, and each time it was better and better. Eventually, Jester finally announced in a forum post answering player questions that WOW would be running an open beta in November '04. The beta will last for one to two months.

If there are no other problems, then after the end of the open beta, after a short period of no more than two weeks of final correction, WOW, a game that has been expected by countless players for five years, will be officially launched.

The announcement of this news also caused an uproar.

Of course, it's more about the reluctance of the players.

Because they remembered what Jester said when he was developing WOW, this game will be his last game, and after developing this game, he will officially retire from Mars Entertainment, and he may not be involved in the front-line development of the game in the future.

So, Jester was immediately asked if he really planned to retire after the World of Warcraft launch.

Jester unexpectedly didn't answer directly this time, he said that there would be a World of Warcraft open beta press conference in a few days, and he would answer this question at that time.

This slightly perfunctory answer once again made many players have a surprise in their hearts.

Because Jester didn't admit it directly.

You must know that he personally said this matter at the beginning, and this time someone asked, it was just a casual question, and he didn't have any hope.

Moreover, judging from Jester's behavior in the past four years, he no longer cares about Mars Entertainment, and he will not even attend the carnival, according to people inside Mars Entertainment, even the high-level meeting, Jester will not attend.

All of this is enough to show that Jester's idea of retirement has been decided.

But this time, Jester was confronted with whether it was true that he would retire after developing WOW, but he didn't admit that there must be other reasons in it.

Therefore, many players are extremely eager to expect what miracles will happen at the time of the WOW open beta conference.

For example, Jester said that he recently had a new inspiration, and he decided to develop another game, and he promised that they players had never seen it, just as he led the side-scrolling, 3D and somatosensory in the past, although Mars Entertainment and Sony have competed with each other over the years, Dreambox4 and PS3 are very good consoles, and the share of the two was the lowest when Mars Entertainment was chased by Sony to 8%.

On both consoles, there are a lot of great games on sale.

However, players are still looking forward to Jester's games, and they all expect Jester to find some inspiration in the past four or five years of WOW development, and once again develop a groundbreaking game on a new console.

After all, the battle between Dreambox4 and PS3 consoles has lasted for four years, and according to the life of a console, it is about five to six years, and now the next-generation consoles of the two should have begun to develop, but both sides seem to be confident, and they are secretive about their next-generation consoles, and the outside world can't hear any news.

Finally, it's the day of the WOW open beta press conference.

The date is seven days after the end of the launch, in early November, which is also the Monday after the end of the Mars Entertainment Carnival.

The way to qualify for the Open Beta is simple, but not everyone can get it.

Because of the server, only some people are able to qualify for this.

Except for those who participate in the carnival, they can directly obtain a test card with the carnival admission card, and other players, if they want to obtain this qualification, can only apply when the official application is open.

The application is not a lottery system.

Instead, players are directly given the test qualifications in the order in which they apply.

Of course, each person can only get one test qualification, not according to the account, nor according to the IP, but according to the machine code, that is, each PC, can apply for one qualification.

A total of 150,000 qualifications.

It's all gone.

The duration of the test is one month and fifteen days.

Of course, Jester also said at the press conference that it will consider whether to release more test qualifications according to the specific situation of the test.

Even if no more qualifications are developed in the middle of the test, a stress test will be conducted in the last few days of the test, and the exact timing of the stress test has not yet been decided.

Of course, for many people who are interested, he also answered the question of whether Jester's WOW will officially retire after the development is completed.

"This question...... I said a few years ago, and I still think so, that I will retire when WOW is developed to the point where I feel fit, but it doesn't mean that I will retire as soon as WOW is released, in my vision, I will almost have to develop a WOW follow-up expansion before I can leave the industry where I have worked for 20 years. (To be continued.) )