game trailblazer

Chapter 290 RealTown Proje
September 9th is the day when the Sega Dreamcast mainframe seized the North American market. Although the previous "Hollywood Movies and TV" experience activities did not get the expected good response, the Dreamcast mainframe is ready to launch.However, Sega's painstaking preparations were not in vain. At least within one day, they were still very successful. Before the sales started, they had already achieved nearly 9 pre-orders.

With the ultra-low price of 199 US dollars, coupled with a strong lineup of 18 first-time games, the Dreamcast host has set off a small climax of panic buying in the United States, and many sales stores that open at midnight have long queues. There are even many teenagers with food and tents among them.In just 24 hours, Sega made $78604618.09 in revenue, breaking the 24-hour record of $4800 million for the release of "Star Wars." A new myth in history.

Chris Gilbert, senior vice president of sales of Sega North America, happily announced to the press: "We just announced the pre-order volume of 30 copies, which is three times that of Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation game console, but we didn't We expected the response from customers to be so enthusiastic. Our original plan was to sell 3 million Dreamcast consoles in North America before the end of this year, but now it seems that this plan will undoubtedly be greatly revised..."

"Either Sega is crazy, or I'm crazy," said a Dreamcast console retailer.

Faced with such an unprecedented achievement, Sega North America held a grand celebration party in Los Angeles on September 9th. It seemed that President Shoichiro's heart had been relieved. Unfortunately, he hadn't had time to be happy for long. The blows ensued.

That was the first half of the year when the Dreamcast console was announced in North America. 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. Strong counterattack.However, Sega's senior executives didn't take this seriously, and even said: "September 99, 9 will be completely controlled by Sega. There is no doubt about it. It would be better if other companies are willing to help promote September 9, 99. Glad they came to celebrate this Sega-only day..."

Sony Computer Entertainment's counterattack turned out to be just a legend. Nintendo also seemed to be obsessed with the return of N64 games and the lucrative GameBoy at this time. However, it appeared on the DreamBox8 game console not as a PS game, but as a remake, and the entire North American game industry was shocked for a while.Shoichiro Izumi had already realized that he would encounter difficulties before this, but he did not expect that the difficulties would come so fast and so big.

Marked by the remake of "Final Fantasy 8" DreamBox128 game console, the sales of Dreamcast consoles in North America began to decline, while the sales of DreamBox128 game consoles began to soar again, firmly holding the top spot in the sales list of game consoles in North America.The same is true for game sales. With the accumulation of nearly two months, many DreamBox128 games have broken into the sales rankings.In the list of the most anticipated gifts in North America, the DreamBox128 game console has also entered the forefront.

Regarding this situation, Sega President Shoichiro Izumi was very helpless after receiving the report. In fact, he did not fail to work hard. In order to allow the North American market to develop according to their predetermined plan, even Sega North America’s CEO Bonnie Shoichiro Talal has been turned on, but who made the Dreamcast mainframe be full of disasters since its birth.When seizing the RB market, there was a problem with NEC's display chip. It was hard to get rid of this trouble, and a new problem of game outages appeared, which caused Sega a headache for a while.After careful preparations, they planned to make a comeback in the North American market. Who would have thought that the DreamBox 128 game console would be given the lead, which not only destroyed Sega North America’s Dreamcast console experience plan, but even directly used "Final Fantasy 8" to remake the game? Platemaking stabbed the Dreamcast console when it landed in the North American market.

For the current situation, Shoichiro Nieko doesn't know what to do. It can be predicted that under the pressure of the DreamBox128 game console and Sony's legendary PS2, the future of the Dreamcast console will not be easy.And those slick game developers are mostly guys who see the wind and the wind. If the wind is favorable, they will definitely come to share a piece of the pie, but in the face of adversity, don't even think about it.

"Why don't you stop being a game console, and just turn into a game developer?" Nieko Shoichiro spoke his mind to the think tank sitting in front of him.

Ken Taragi, 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. It exploded.Judging from the current superficial situation, Sony's PS game console market share is still the largest, not only the newcomer who launched the DreamBox128 game console can't compare, even the established companies like Nintendo and Sega can't compare, but Ken Kutaragi also understands that the PS game console is already at the end of the day, and it can last for another one or two years at most. If a new generation of game consoles is not launched as soon as possible to take over, maybe within one or two years, Sony has already captured Market share will be handed over to others.

According to Ken Kutaragi's latest idea, it would be perfect if PS2 could be launched in September. It can not only snipe the crazy performance of the DreamBox9 game console, but also suppress the unlucky Sega by the way, but this is just a thought. The research and development of the PS128 was carried out relatively late. Although with the assistance of Toshiba, some necessary procedures still cannot be skipped. Let the PS2 hit the market before.However, due to the advance launch plan, many original game development plans cannot keep up. Except for four or five games developed by the first and second parties of Sony Computer Entertainment, the rest can only be queued to the back. up.

But even so, Kutaragi Ken still relied on his own authority to strongly stipulate that the PS2 must be launched before the end of the year. It’s not that he didn’t know the risks involved, but he had 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 the 2000 million or even 128 million mark within the year. If he doesn't want to stop him, maybe he will never be able to suppress the DreamBox2 game console in the future.If the PS128 game console is launched earlier, although it will face the shortage of game software, relying on the PS game compatibility function should be able to overcome this difficulty, at least it can not let DreamBox[-] to focus on the front alone.

……

Just when Sony and Sega's presidents Kakutaragi Ken and Nezuko Shoichiro were struggling with the DreamBox128 game console, Zhang Lexing, the instigator of this matter, stayed in his spacious and comfortable office, drinking coffee while Browse the game development management system that has been connected, and search for rejected game creative proposals on it according to the weekly habit. Although there is often no gain, but occasionally one or two omissions can be detected.

For example, in the past two months, Zhang Lexing had seen 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. You can directly join the underworld and lead your younger brothers to smash the opponent's field. The reason for being rejected is also very simple. It can be seen from the draft of the game idea that this is a violent crime game, which is full of a lot of people. Inappropriate content.However, Zhang Lexing always felt a sense of deja vu after reading this idea. If it wasn’t for DMADesign and not the Rockstar he knew, he would even think that this is the legendary “Sin City 3 (GTA3)” ".

Zhang Lexing remembered that "Vice City 3 (GTA3)" had sold more than 2 million on the PS128 platform, and it was only this game, unlike some games with more than [-] million that relied on the accumulation of the series.In line with the mentality of not being able to miss it when passing by, Zhang Lexing still intends to provide development funds for this creative draft, but he has to make two adjustments.First of all, the development platform will naturally be transferred to the DreamBox[-] game console, and it must be an exclusive game.Secondly, the creative part is slightly adjusted, replacing the protagonist from the gangster who has been jailed with an undercover police detective, and then designing two ways of doing things, good and evil, and modifying the protagonist's in-game behavior based on the decisions he makes in the game. Wind reviews among NPCs, etc.In short, it is necessary to be able to occupy the game, but also hope to slightly improve the reputation of the game itself.

On this day, Zhang Lexing found nothing while browsing the game creative recycle bin. From the beginning to the end, there was nothing that could be seen. Just when he was about to log out of the system, a "ding dong" prompt sound came from the speaker , which means another game idea that was just eliminated has entered the recycle bin.He clicked the refresh button casually, and a new project named "RealTown" appeared in the information area on the upper right corner. He moved the mouse and clicked on the "RealTown" project, and related content soon appeared in the content area below.

It turns out that this "RealTown" project is a real town plan in short. According to the idea of ​​the creative provider, they hope to simulate a town on a computer and operate like a real town. People (NPCs) can live in small towns like real people, have their own routines, have their own things to do, and have their own lives. Even animals such as cats, cats and dogs must have their own thoughts or AI systems. , when the player manipulates his character, he can communicate with people in the town as well as cats and dogs like an outsider. The idea provider even hopes to include plants when the system performance can be achieved. You can water the flowers and plants, and you can plant saplings by yourself and watch them grow.

When there is no player intervention, the idea provider hopes that this town can become an independent autonomous body that can grow independently. For example, outsiders simulated by AI will settle in the town, and people in the town will also have normal life, old age, sickness and death.The buildings and surrounding environment of the town will change due to human actions. For example, too many logging people will lead to the decline of vegetation, and new buildings will appear due to the increase of population, etc.

The whole "RealTown" project feels a bit like a composite of "Sim City" and "The Sims", but it goes further.According to the plan of the idea provider, if the simulation of a small town is completed, it is hoped that the scope of the simulation can be further expanded, such as simulating two small towns that communicate with each other, or a noisy city, or even the entire planet.

At the end, Zhang Lexing understood why this project was cut off, because according to the requirements of the creative provider of the "RealTown" project, it is simply not something that can be achieved by ordinary computers, at least for now.The more important point is that this project was cast in the wrong place, because in the whole idea, there are many levels of technical description, and the parts related to the game are almost all mentioned in one stroke, basically "the player can operate the AI ​​simulation provided by the computer. , interacting 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 comments. The key is that I don't know what is so interesting about this "RealTown" project. Experience the trivial daily life again.

However, in Zhang Lexing's view, this "RealTown" project still has its bright spots. At least the real virtual technology mentioned in it will always have a chance to be used after a few years. Maybe by that time, every new game will be 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 take risks.To put it in a fashionable way of the future, maybe this is the so-called Game2.0 (players create game content).

(End of this chapter)