Sega's new console, Saturn, didn't have as much sales as Sony's PS2 in the beginning, but they had a lot of fans.

So in terms of sales, it has not been pulled down too much.

Of course, this is said in North America.

If you talk about Japan, then their sales are completely suppressed by Sony.

It's about a third of Sony's.

The most important reason for the poor sales in North America at the beginning was that Sega did not advertise the 3D effects and their 3D games on a large scale, in fact, it cannot be said that there was no publicity, because Sega's theory was different from Sony's, and they believed that instead of developing this kind of 3D game that was still a little rough now, it was better to concentrate on developing a truly flawless 2D game on a machine that could fully realize the ideas under countless 2D templates.

That's what Sega thinks, and that's what he does.

In fact, it's not that they can't see that the advent of the 3D era is overwhelming, in fact, they believe that it will take time for 3D to develop to beat 2D games, and this time, in Sega's eyes, is a gaming generation.

Originally, Yu Suzuki also agreed with this point of view, but after he returned from Mars Entertainment's participation in the 'Era' project, he found that their company's previous thinking was simply wrong.

He thought he knew how good the 'Time' project really was.

Although he also doubted that the 3D performance of Dreambox3, the last console of Mars Entertainment, was so good, because as a participant in the 'era' project, he knew too well how much impact this project would have on the entire game industry after it really came out, because in the eyes of Yu Suzuki, this was the game he dreamed of, the form of the perfect and ultimate game.

Of course. Although it is only a prototype.

But that's enough.

From what he recently learned about the restart of Dreambox 3 development, he knew that Jester's ambitions for the 'Era' project were that he would rather give up the console's first-mover advantage than develop a console that could fulfill his game vision first.

It is impossible not to be envious, but he also knows that this is not enviable.

Because, Sega is not his, and. There's no way Sega is going to develop a console that can run a game just for the sake of that game.

It's not realistic, and it's not the same as cleaning up.

Because this is definitely a loss of money, although analyzing the sales of this game, it may be possible for Mars Entertainment to achieve a balance between investment and income, but don't forget that this is a project with an ultimate investment of up to $300 million, and it is already a very big loss in a few years. What's more, in order to develop a new host, the project is restarted, and the money is wasted.

This one. It's hard to compensate.

Relying on the publicity effect of 3D, PS2 did have an advantage at the beginning of this next era.

Many gamers have a lot of interest in 3D games.

But Sony's problem is also here.

3D games are an emerging game genre. It is completely different from the development of 2D games, and even the thinking is not much value.

In the space of length and width, after an extra height. For game designers, it's not just as simple as a high level, in terms of the complexity of game design, in the complexity of level design, it is almost more than double or twice as difficult.

It takes a lot of time to get used to.

Or, someone needs to teach them how such a game should be done.

In the original history, it was FF7, Mario 64, and Zelda who took charge of this task, but in this world, it is unknown who will take charge of this task.

After two months, the 3D game is rough in production, and the shortcomings of the boring gameplay are reflected, although the first time I saw it, I thought it was very amazing, but it was also a temporary interest to play, far less fun than those 2D games carefully made by Sega, no matter how bells and whistles the game was, but after all, over time, it still needs to return to the essence of the game.

That's whether it's fun or not.

For example, in the later PS4 era of "Order 1886", the picture of this game can be said to be to a certain extent, reaching the CG level, and the modeling of the characters has reached more than 100,000 deformations.

As we all know, the number of polygons is related to the level of finesse of the modeling.

Although the picture of this game is up to the sky, the gameplay is monotonous and the plot is simple, so the evaluation is not very high.

The current PS2 games are almost the same, in the beginning, multiple people researched, but in fact, it was still Sega's 2D games that were fun.

Therefore, two months later, Sega's console sales quickly began to counterattack, not only in the North American market, but even in the Japanese market, Sony felt a little untenable.

Especially when Sega got "Donkey Kong", this game has a very wide audience in Japan, and for them, this game even represents Nintendo, which was forced to quit the game industry to a certain extent.

Sony's days are also not good.

Even Kutaragi Ken has been attacked a lot internally, and if it weren't for the strength of Norio Ohga, he might have to take the blame and resign.

After all, he had made promises that he would definitely replace 2D in the future of games.

This will become an unstoppable trend.

When the console was first released, it was true, but as time went on, it seemed that their 3D game strategy, in the face of Sega's 2D game strategy, was a little untenable, and the voice of attacking him within the group naturally sounded.

And Kutaraki Ken's explanation is also very accurate, he believes that the most important reason why Sega can suppress their console now is because they don't have a game that can set the benchmark for 3D games, and they can't make today's players think, I rub, 3D games can be done so hanging.

As long as they can do it.

Then the 3D era will naturally come. In fact, Ken Kutaragi is now more eager than anyone else.

Because he knew that there was not much time left for him, and from the time he released it, it was only about a year, and he had to make such a game within a year, so that players who support 3D games would accept them.

Because it can be seen from the external claims of Mars Entertainment and the clips that Mars Entertainment has displayed in some exhibitions. The man who seems to have an eye for the future in the video game industry must have gone further and further in 3D game development, after all, "Quake", which opened the window of 3D games to everyone, is his masterpiece.

It is necessary to make a game that can represent the future of 3D games before the console of Mars Entertainment is released, otherwise, I will spend so much energy on 3D games. The propaganda that the 3D era has come is really a wedding dress for Mars Entertainment.

Kutaragi Ken will not doubt whether Mars Entertainment or Jester has this ability.

Because Jester has never lost in the field of video games.

Sony has now acquired a lot of first-party studios. The investment is also very large, and the high salary is to poach which excellent game designers from which famous third-party studios.

Even Mars Entertainment Japan, North America, there are many people who quit their jobs and joined Sony's first-party companies.

For these, although many people in the company say that these people are ungrateful. But Jester feels that this flow of talent is a good thing for the entire game industry. Because of the flow of talents, the entire industry can prosper.

The video game industry is too big, even if it's not big enough now, but one day, it's going to grow big enough that it's impossible for a single company to dominate it.

In the months that followed, Sony also released a new 3D game, but nothing fundamentally changed, and players seemed to have lost the initial interest and expectation in this simple, divisional 3D game, and instead some of their third-party studios developed 2D games were well received.

Gradually, with the support of the Japanese market, it can be regarded as being able to compete with Sega.

At the beginning, Sony had Naughty Dog, and they made a generation of 3D action game masterpiece "Crash Bandicoot", but now they don't have Naughty Dog, a game studio with legendary colors, so their 3D games are still slowly dormant, maybe now in one of their studios, a secret project has begun, and it is unknown.

Jester has been under increasing pressure lately.

Because as time went on, the sales of Sega's Saturn and Sony's PS2 also climbed, and by the middle of '95, the sales of these two consoles exceeded three million, and it is not surprising that they both reached five million or even six million by the end of the year.

It was a lot of pressure to be five million units behind others from the beginning.

In fact, some of the internal games that are ready to be launched have also been produced, and the rest is said to be more systematically optimized, the prototype of the console is basically completed, and the design plan of the appearance has also been determined.

On the top of the selection of handles.

Jester proposed a twin-joystick controller developed specifically for 3D games, but the final decision was made after a long period of deliberation on the layout of the twin-joystick controller, and after a closed test with both North American and Japanese staff within the company.

Jester decided to give up, originally he remembered the history of the PS series console controller, the classic symmetrical joystick design.

Instead, the design of the asymmetrical joystick of the XBOX is placed.

In the feedback obtained from a large number of internal tests, this asymmetrical joystick design scheme is indeed more user-friendly, and the feel of playing games is also more smooth and excellent.

Indeed, in the original history, Microsoft's asymmetrical design is indeed an incomparably genius design scheme, completely breaking through the symmetrical design idea pioneered by Sony, and in terms of use feedback, it is also completely superior to Sony's DS controller.

Although Jester used to be a Suoqing, he never shy away from medical treatment in places that are not as good as Microsoft.

Mars Entertainment also announced that they will announce their console for the first time at this year's Cologne exhibition, and will announce the release date of their console at the Cologne exhibition - in fact, the most suitable release time was originally E3, but before E3, there were some problems in the development of the console, and there was no way to finally come up with a specific product.

So it dragged on all the time.

Cologne is not as well-known as E3 and Tokyo.

It is organized by several European game companies, as well as a number of game industry associations.

The purpose is to create a game exhibition that belongs to Europe, because at present, the two major game exhibitions, one E3 is the United States, and the other is the Tokyo exhibition, which is Japan, so there should be a large-scale exhibition between European companies, and of course, the European branch of Mars Entertainment is also involved.

The time of the Cologne exhibition is close to the time of E3.

In the middle of the E3 and Tokyo exhibitions, when the name of the exhibition was agreed, Jester also participated, and it was originally proposed to call it electronica Leipzig.

However, the name was directly denied by Jester.

Jester's meaning is very simple, the game show is a game show, not an electronics industry show, to do a professional transfer, not a show to do everything, moreover, many game companies, on this hodgepodge of exhibitions also have a lot of opinions, after all, the reason why there was an E3 exhibition in the first place, is also because of the unfair treatment they received at the GES exhibition, and exclusion.

Therefore, Jester's proposal was quickly proposed by all levels of the meeting.

The venue of the event was also decided to be held in Cologne, Germany, and the name is very simple, it is called Gamescom.

The way of the exhibition is the SHOW of the Tokyo Exhibition, rather than the form of the in-house exhibition of E3, and the experience of the players is still important.

However, because of the new exhibition, some game companies do not put their important information on the Cologne show very much, European and American manufacturers are still used to announcing it at E3, and Japanese manufacturers still prefer to show it in Tokyo.

This time, Mars Entertainment decided to unveil their new console at the Cologne show, and it was also a first for them.

Of course, this is not something that Mars Entertainment wants to do on its own.

If they had had time to launch it at E3, they wouldn't have delayed it until Cologne. (To be continued......)