"Haha, what a pair of father and son that makes one love and hate them at the same time."
After listening to Aoki Haruhi recount what happened between the Miyazaki father and son, Tsuda Nao couldn't help but laugh out loud.
"So childish, these two men."
"Uh-huh," Aoki Haruhi chuckled, "One of them simply has no time to look after his son; even now, Miyazaki-senpai is completely in the dark, having no idea that Goro Miyazaki was egged on by Suzuki-san to create original art for Pokeni.
And as for Goro Miyazaki, he insists on making the male protagonist wear black-rimmed glasses and, on top of that, forces a tragic ending.
Truly a 'filial' father and son relationship."
Hearing Aoki Haruhi's words, Tsuda Nao couldn't help but roll her eyes and let out a soft laugh, "How is that 'filial father and son'? You're misusing idioms again."
"And you're supposed to be half-Chinese."
Aoki Haruhi clicked his tongue, indicating that he wasn't misusing it.
It's just that this meme hasn't become popular yet.
By the way, the guy who created this meme is still working a minor role in the Pokeni project team.
Aoki Haruhi clicked his tongue and said, "I'm not using it incorrectly. It's just that the meme hasn't become popular yet. Come to think of it, the guy who created that meme is still just tagging along in a Pokeni project team. I wonder when Hidetaka Miyazaki will finally mature. When that time comes, should I have him make Sekiro first? Or Elden Ring? Hmm, though given the current hardware capabilities, neither seems possible."
The two strolled through the park for a while, then held hands and sat down on a wooden bench. At this moment, the wind blew through the treetops, making a rustling sound. They closed their eyes and listened quietly for a while. Aoki Haruhi quite enjoyed this white noise; he even felt like lying down on Tsuda Nao's lap and having a sweet nap in this environment.
This is how a young man and woman should be spending their time, right? Sitting on a park bench with an old man like Toshio Suzuki as he had done before—that would have been just plain weird, wouldn't it?
"I don't know if my son will treat me like that when he grows up," Aoki Haruhi said with a smile. "Seeing Goro Miyazaki, I've decided I'm going to be a good father."
"Hmm, it's good to have that kind of realization," Tsuda Nao said.
"But I can really understand Goro Miyazaki. If you have a genius director father like Hayao Miyazaki, the pressure must be enormous; no matter what you do, you're watched by the outside world and compared to your father.
Once you fall short, you get slapped with labels like 'talentless' or 'not as good as your father.'
It's actually very cruel."
Aoki Haruhi said, "I suppose that's also why Miyazaki-senpai didn't want Goro to enter the animation industry, right?"
But to some extent, who doesn't hope their child can be successful and inherit their mantle?
Goro Miyazaki is not without talent; it's just that compared to Hayao Miyazaki, he seems too mediocre.
Aoki Haruhi couldn't help but frown and wonder, if his future child didn't have top-tier talent, would he still want them to work in the game industry?
Oh my, is this the agony of being a genius?
Seeing the self-intoxicated expression on Aoki Haruhi's face, Tsuda Nao silently rolled her eyes.
She had no idea what this guy was fantasizing about.
But...
Tsuda Nao blinked, her eyes welling with clear tears as she sighed softly, "Actually, there's nothing wrong with reconciling with one's father. Sometimes, once you miss the chance, you might never get it again."
Tsuda Nao's words struck a chord in Aoki Haruhi's heart.
Although he knew very little about her and had never asked about her past, he had learned from a newspaper some time ago—
The former president of the DUN Corporation, who was also Tsuda Nao's father, had passed away.
It seemed he had been sent to the hospital years ago due to a stroke and had remained in a coma; holding on until now hadn't been easy for him.
Of course, it probably hadn't been easy for Tsuda Nao either.
Thinking of this, Aoki Haruhi felt an impulse to pull her into his arms.
He acted on the thought.
Aoki Haruhi reached out and pulled Tsuda Nao into his embrace.
"What are you doing?" Tsuda Nao asked with a faint, amused push. "I'm not the kind of girl who relies on others' pity."
"Can't it just be that I wanted to hug my girlfriend?" Aoki Haruhi retorted defensively.
Tsuda Nao saw right through him and didn't believe his nonsense at all, just gazed at him silently with a smile in her eyes.
He felt a bit embarrassed under her gaze.
However, Aoki Haruhi didn't let that bother him much, and forcefully reached out to pull her into a tight embrace.
Since he had already done this much, he might as well go all the way.
Tsuda Nao struggled for a moment, but unable to break free, she simply leaned her head on his shoulder.
"You really are a bad guy."
The two sat on the bench, leaning against each other and looking ahead.
After a while, Aoki Haruhi spoke up, "Should we have a baby?"
"Who would want to have a baby with you?" Tsuda Nao rolled her eyes.
Aoki Haruhi didn't care about such details and quietly leaned into her ear, "Otherwise, tonight won't be..."
Tsuda Nao's cheeks instantly turned red.
***
The next morning, Aoki Haruhi left Tsuda Nao's home and headed to the company, in an exceptionally cheerful mood.
It wasn't because anything strange had happened with his girlfriend; it was mainly because the two major games, CLANNAD and LIFE-LINE, were now in their final stages.
The project team members were also very excited.
To ensure these two games were done well, Aoki had people include a lot of CG content in them.
The Sega Mega Drive now also had a CD-ROM add-on, allowing the use of both cartridges and discs.
The game capacity had suddenly jumped from the previous few dozen megabytes to over 500 megabytes.
This was simply a qualitative leap.
The Pokeni employees said they had never encountered such a luxury before.
"Can you believe a game can actually reach 500MB?"
After a decade of harsh winters, it never occurred to me that the landlord's surplus grain would suddenly fill the warehouse to the brim. It's like going from eating 3 steamed buns a day to 30.
Yeah, that's about the feeling.
"It really is. I never imagined we'd suddenly become so wealthy. You don't even know what to do with that extra 400MB."
"We used to be so frugal when making games. We'd compress images over and over again; it didn't matter if they were blurry, as long as you could tell what they were. And now? We're using movie-quality graphics directly. It's like our presbyopia was suddenly cured.
Even then, it feels like we still can't use up all 500MB."
"It was our president's brilliance that decided to stuff animations in there. That finally bottomed out the storage."
Ahem, Aoki Haruhi walked by and felt rather embarrassed hearing everyone's praise.
But come to think of it, is this even a compliment?
***
However, Aoki Haruhi didn't have time to worry about that. Game file sizes had now taken a qualitative leap, jumping from the previous 50-plus megabytes to over 500 MB, which was a huge shock to those guys.
But for Aoki Haruhi, this wasn't even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.
You have to know that future games would be at least one or two gigabytes, with many being over a dozen, or even hundreds of gigabytes.
They hadn't seen anything yet.
A bunch of people who had never seen the world.
Just as he walked into the president's office, the little HR, Ayase Akane, immediately hurried over, clutching a notebook and diligently recording many pending tasks.
"President, why are you only just arriving?"
Ayase Akane looked at him with a face full of complaints.
"What's wrong?" Aoki Haruhi looked at the wall clock in surprise. "It's 10 o'clock in the morning. Don't I always come in at this time?"
The main thing was that he had been sleeping at Tsuda Nao's place, and he really couldn't get up.
Fortunately, Aoki Haruhi was a relatively self-disciplined person, and Tsuda Nao also had her own things to keep busy with; otherwise, he would definitely be like Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and never hold court again.
"From last night until now, your office phone has been ringing off the hook," Ayase Akane said, frowning.
"Huh?"
"Let me see," Ayase Akane opened her notebook and read aloud, "Sega Corporation President Nakayama Hayao called wanting to invite you to dinner. Then 3DO also wants to meet with you, Kutaragi Ken from Sony has something urgent to discuss, and SNK is also trying to set up a meeting..."
Aoki Haruhi listened to her while puzzledly placing his briefcase on the desk, then sat down in his chair.
What was going on?
"Also, what is this 3DO company?" Aoki Haruhi wondered.
After an explanation from Ayase Akane, Aoki Haruhi learned that 3DO was an American game company.
Its founder was actually quite famous, named Trip Hawkins—yes, the one who created Electronic Arts, the legendary EA.
3DO was a subsidiary established by Hawkins together with other investment firms, specifically to develop game consoles.
Last January, 3DO partnered with Japan's Panasonic Corporation to launch the REAL-3DO.
The full name was REAL 3DO INTERACTIVE MULTIPLAYER, a real 3DO interactive multimedia game console.
This is the pioneer of next-generation home game consoles: the first 32-bit console.
It officially went on sale in the US on October 7th.
And it just landed in Japan on March 20th of this year.
The 3DO uses a 64-bit RISC POWER PC 602 CPU manufactured by Motorola, with a clock speed of 66MHz and a resolution of up to 640×480, delivering brilliant and realistic CG and movie playback effects.
Overall, its performance in every aspect is incredibly powerful.
The only drawback is—
It's too expensive!
A single 3DO game console costs 699 US dollars!
Yes. You read that right, US dollars.
When Aoki Haruhi heard this figure, he was stunned.
You have to realize that over at Sony, the upcoming PS this year only costs 39,800 yen, and Kutaragi Ken is even preparing to price it at 299 US dollars in the West.
Their main selling point is high cost-performance.
Thinking about it, Aoki Haruhi felt that the Americans were just too greedy, and that it made sense for Sony to win the console war.
But...
Why is 3DO looking for me?
Do I really have to call the United States?!
Fortunately, after asking carefully, it turned out that 3DO's partner in Japan is Panasonic, and they have fully entrusted Panasonic with formulating the sales strategy. In other words, the point of contact here is a Japanese person at Panasonic.
That makes things a bit better.
So, Aoki Haruhi started calling them one by one.
"Hello, this is Pokeni, I'm the president, Aoki Haruhi."
"Aoki-san, why are you being so long-winded? It's not like we've never met before." Hayao Nakayama from Sega picked up the phone and started scolding him right away.
Aoki was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but laugh.
It was true, after all. The two of them had even been to a sauna together—they'd basically seen each other naked—and they had fought on the same side, so they could be considered old comrades.
"I wasn't sure if it would be you picking up the phone, President Nakayama."
"I've been waiting a long time for your call," Hayao Nakayama said loudly on the other end.
He sounded full of energy, not at all like a man in his sixties.
"I'm very sorry, I just arrived at the company."
"Nobody answered when I called your house either!"
"Ah... well, I didn't go home last night," Aoki Haruhi explained, feeling embarrassed.
The person on the other end was stunned for a moment, then chuckled quietly, lowering their voice.
They were both men, and both had been young once; Nakayama Hayao naturally understood what "didn't go home" implied.
"Well, Aoki-san, you should still take care of yourself. Don't overexert yourself."
"Yes, yes, same to you, President Nakayama. Health is important."
"Yes, thank you. Actually," Nakayama Hayao paused, then said straightforwardly, "the thing is, Sega is developing a new game console, which we're temporarily calling the Sega Saturn.
We expect to release it at the end of this year.
I was thinking that since Pokeni has been a partner of ours for many years, I'd like to invite your company to develop a game for this new console.
If you have some time, why don't we have a meal and discuss it in more detail?"
"We can even go to a sauna after the meal," Nakayama Hayao added.
Aoki Haruhi was slightly taken aback, feeling a bit dazed.
Is the Sega Saturn being released this early?
"If it's the end of this year, I'm not sure if there's enough time to make a new game," Aoki Haruhi responded.
"We can talk about that later. Let's set a time."
"Okay, how does this weekend sound?"
***
After finishing his conversation with Nakayama Hayao, Aoi Haruhi hung up the phone, and almost immediately, the phone on his desk rang again.
"Hello, this is Pokeni."
"Um... is this President Aoi Haruhi? We're from the Panasonic game console R&D department. My name is Nakano Yasushi, and I'm currently in charge of 3DO sales in Japan."
"Ah, hello, hello. This is Aoi Haruhi."
"President Aoi, hello. Here's the thing, I'm not sure if you're familiar with the 3DO, but it's a console with extremely powerful performance developed by a game manufacturer in the US..."
The person on the other end spent over ten minutes introducing it.
The more Aoi Haruhi listened, the more it sounded like a door-to-door pyramid scheme salesperson. If Ayase Akane hadn't explained the situation beforehand, he would have rejected him with one sentence: "We're not interested, goodbye."
After finishing the introduction, the person earnestly invited him, "Would Pokeni be interested in partnering with us to develop new games for the 3DO platform? Of course, we would provide sufficient compensation for the collaboration. If you don't mind, President Aoi, how about we meet for a meal privately?"
"Hmm... well, let me think about it."
After finishing the call regarding the 3DO, Aoi Haruhi went on to call SNK.
It was much the same content.
SNK had just released the Neo-Geo CD this year.
It was another console, this time adding a CD-ROM to the existing Neo-Geo foundation.
The shift from cartridges to CDs had already become a major trend in the Japanese gaming industry.
In order to make their console more competitive in the market, SNK had extended an invitation to Pokeni, hoping that Aoki Haruhi would create a new game for the Neo-Geo platform.
"Um... let's discuss this in more detail another time. Thank you very much."
Aoki hung up the phone.
He fell into a daze.
What was going on?
Had Pokeni suddenly become the hottest thing around?
Why were so many console platform holders coming to them to make games?
Could it be because Patema Inverted had scored the first perfect review?
Ayase Akane, watching from the side, saw everything clearly and couldn't help but feel a surge of happiness; finally, the world had recognized the value of their company.
Was Pokeni about to reach its peak from here on out?
Just then, she saw the President snap out of his shock and suddenly let out a sigh:
"It's over, I've become Lu Bu!"
Huh?
Why Lu Bu?
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