CH101 - Corporation

When the target appears on the television screen, the player with the light gun aims and pulls the trigger to directly shoot the target on the TV.

This technology may seem advanced, but it already existed in the 1960s.

The inventor was Gunpei Yokoi.

"Wow... this is really... unbelievable..." Evelyn exclaimed.

She didn't expect Nintendo to be so impressive.

As Ethan narrated, curiosity arose in her, "Ethan, how do you know so much about this?"

While asking, she also offered her own speculation, "Could it be that you were already paying attention to them when you worked at Magnavox?"

"Well, kind of," Ethan smiled at his sister.

"Then do you mean you choose Nintendo?" Evelyn continued to inquire.

The next moment, she raised another question.

"Why did Sega and Nintendo appear at the same time? Buying the rights to 'Snake Game' simultaneously? What's strange about their simultaneous appearance?"

"I'm not sure why Sega appeared at this time, but I think... Nintendo's appearance may be related to Magnavox," she speculated cautiously.

"After all... you just disgusted them?"

Evelyn frowned slightly, making a careful guess.

With such words, Ethan laughed, "Oh, sister, I think you're overthinking it."

"Magnavox doesn't have that ability; they don't have the power to control Nintendo as you said."

In fact, the consecutive appearance of Nintendo and Sega puzzled Ethan.

He didn't understand why these two companies coincidentally appeared at the same time and approached him to buy the game publishing rights.

But after clearing his memories from his past life, he felt that it was probably a coincidence.

Because in his previous life, he learned about Nintendo in a course on financial investments. The teacher introduced them to the long-held outstanding stocks of various national government pension funds. When talking about profits, the teacher specifically mentioned Nintendo.

For many years, Nintendo was a money-making machine second only to Toyota within the country.

When an exaggerated P/E ratio appeared year after year, analyzing their development history naturally became something financial professionals liked to do.

There was no choice. Finance is an industry where people try every means to find patterns in the absence of regularity.

In the teacher's analysis, Ethan also understood why Nintendo was successful.

In fact, this success could be summarized in one sentence—

Hitch your wagon to a good horse.

Because the founders of Nintendo, the Yamauchi family, started out with the Mitsui conglomerate!

Later, when selling Hanafuda cards, they directly hitched their wagon to the Mitsui Tobacco King, Yoshibei Murai!

When Ethan recalled this fact, he knew he was overthinking it.

Magnavox was making noise, but it couldn't move Nintendo!

Because Nintendo was a monopoly business of Mitsui even if they didn't make games!

Could Magnavox control it?

That's as likely as making a key for it!

Does it even need a key?

As for Sega...

They had just been sued by Magnavox, how could they happily cooperate?

Of course, Ethan couldn't tell Evelyn about these things.

He could only express that the probability of Magnavox manipulating the entire situation was very low.

And as for Evelyn...

She wasn't interested in this kind of business gossip.

After Ethan had paid attention to these things, she stopped overthinking and simply nodded in understanding, then said directly, "If you think it's okay, then you make the decision yourself. Just let me know when you need me to sign."

"Are you sure?" Such a simple response was actually within Ethan's expectations.

Because he knew Evelyn hated this kind of business negotiation.

But at the same time, he half-jokingly said, "Aren't you afraid I'll sell you out?"

"Do you dare?" Evelyn rolled her eyes and extended her left hand, clenched her fist.

"I don't dare."

"Hmph~" Evelyn snorted twice, as if celebrating victory.

With Ethan's concession, he also put away his playful thoughts and stated his plan:

"Evelyn, this is what I think."

"Give the publishing rights for 'Snake Game' to Nintendo and give the rights for regions other than North America and Japan to Sega."

"If they accept, that's the best news. But if Sega doesn't accept..."

"Then we can only strategically give up on the markets in other countries and regions."

"After all, North America and Japan together already occupy over eighty percent of the global electronic game market. Choosing Sega for the remaining scattered markets is not cost-effective."

Ethan's choice had no objections from Evelyn.

So, the next day at work, Ethan dialled the phone number of Sega's founder, David Rosen.

When he presented his proposal, David Rosen was not pleased and bluntly rejected Ethan's leftovers, saying that all other terms were negotiable, except for the global agency. This was their bottom line.

This result disappointed Ethan.

Since they couldn't agree, they could only part ways. And when Ethan dialled the number left by Satoru Iwata, he found out that they agreed and would arrive in the Stanford Industrial Zone within half an hour.

"Oh, Mr. Jones, I'm glad you chose us at Nintendo!"

Satoru Iwata expressed his excitement to Ethan.

"Hope we can have a pleasant cooperation in the future."

Ethan reached out and shook hands with him.

Although Ethan had reached a consensus with Nintendo on cooperation, it would take three days for them to sign the contract.

The reason was simple—when signing contracts with Japan they liked to be very particular about the wording.

For unclear clauses, they always liked to make some written statements.

So, a contract that could be settled in a dozen pages instinctively turned into over a hundred pages when they were done, and as for this craftsmanship spirit...

Ethan was actually quite helpless.

However, he didn't need to personally get involved in this tug of war. They had hired an external lawyer specifically for this, and he only needed to browse through the contract after it was drafted.

This kind of relaxation during the waiting period was considered good news in the midst of bad news.

Of course, during the three days of waiting for the signing, Ethan wasn't idle.

Huddled in his office, he wrote down all the ideas for the game 'Pac-Man.'

From the gameplay to the design of the monsters, not only that, he also drew the corresponding game maps on draft paper so that Evelyn could make the game more easily.

And when he finished everything and handed the almost perfect project plan to Evelyn.

Evelyn, who had flipped through a few pages, suddenly widened her eyes.

"Oh, Ethan—Is this your new idea?"

"Yeah~ Isn't it amazing?" Ethan asked with a smile.

"Where the hell is amazing? This is extremely amazing!" Evelyn exclaimed loudly. "Oh my God—how can you come up with such ideas?"

"You're really a genius!"

This kind of praise made Ethan look pleased.

However, just when he thought the plan was finalized and game development was about to begin, Evelyn, who had flipped through a few pages, suddenly changed her expression.

"Evelyn, what's wrong? Is there a problem?" Ethan was a bit puzzled.

Evelyn raised her head again, looked at Ethan with a surprised expression, and said, "Ethan, are you sure this game can be made?"

"What?" Ethan was confused. He didn't understand why Evelyn would say that.

'Pac-Man' was a game of this era; of course, he was sure this game could be made.

His confusion made Evelyn scratch her head, think for a moment, and then say, "Ethan, there's a problem with the game you designed."

"Or to put it another way, from a technical perspective, the game you designed has a significant bug."

"If you have to describe it, it doesn't comply with the rules of binary."

"?" Ethan didn't understand.

TL Note:

Atari entered the console market in 1973, and by 1974, they admitted defeat and exited, selling the company to Namco for five million dollars. This is from the book "History of Silicon Valley."

Nintendo had success genes from the beginning. The Yamauchi family's ancestor was already a lime seller in Kyoto during the Edo period, backed by the Mitsui conglomerate, wealthy enough to marry off his daughter. Nintendo's founder, Fusajiro Yamauchi, was the son-in-law, originally named Fukui. During his time, their lime store, Gray Filial Piety, was already the exclusive dealer designated by Mitsui in Kyoto. A significant portion of the cement orders for Lake Biwa came from their store. This lime store still exists and is named Huitao. They have done many infrastructure projects for the government in Kyoto, including Kyoto University Hospital and Kyoto Aquarium.

Yoshibei Murai, known as the Tobacco King of the Meiji era. It is said that he made the first standard cigarette for Nintendo, and he had a close relationship with Fusajiro Yamauchi.

The patent for the light gun is indeed owned by Nintendo. Just relying on this, they earned thirty million dollars in a year in the 1970s.