Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

With Howard included, GAMENOVA now had four major third-party studios under its banner. Looking purely at the lineup, they no longer seemed inferior to Nintendo's roster of veteran developers.

Of course, it would still take some time before those studios could actually deliver their games. Until then, Ethan naturally had to return to GAMENOVA's own development work.

Around noon, his flight landed in Los Angeles. Without wasting any time, Ethan headed straight to the hardware division in Santa Clara.

Sam and Gerald were currently huddled over a palm-sized machine, studying it closely. The moment Sam heard Ethan had returned, he immediately abandoned the discussion and hurried over, grinning from ear to ear.

"Did everything go smoothly?"

From the very beginning, Sam had been one of the strongest supporters of the RPG studio recruitment campaign. After all, what game nerd hadn't once been moved by Ultima, one of the foundational masterpieces of RPG history?

Even now, with all the experience Sam had gained, Ultima's visuals seemed primitive and outdated. Yet it still held a permanent place in his heart.

"Of course it did."

Ethan chuckled and handed over several signed contracts.

"Take care of the remaining paperwork for me."

Then his gaze shifted towards the table. Beside Gerald sat several small, rectangular devices.

"By the way, did you get what I asked for?"

"I had a buddy bring them all the way from Japan," Sam said proudly, thumping his chest. "Authentic, guaranteed."

Only then did Ethan step closer and examine them carefully.

These were GAME & WATCH units. The world's second handheld gaming device. The first game system to feature a truly practical LCD screen.

Released by Nintendo in 1980, it had been designed by none other than the pillar of Nintendo's hardware division, Gunpei Yokoi.

Ethan picked one up. Its body was a simple rectangular slab. At the center sat a tiny LCD display with a resolution of only 40×35 pixels. Two red circular buttons were positioned on either side. This was the original model.

Ethan had no idea where Sam had dug it up from, but it had undoubtedly saved them a great deal of trouble.

"This one is the improved 1982 version."

Gerald picked up another device and held it out. Compared to the crude original, the difference was immediately obvious.

"A D-pad..."

Ethan murmured as he tapped it with his thumb. The rocking-pad structure delivered exactly the right tactile feedback.

This directional pad design, later known worldwide as the D-Pad, was Nintendo's, or more specifically Gunpei Yokoi's, greatest innovation.

It would shape the entire history of gaming. It established the standard control scheme for future game controllers. Gunpei was unquestionably a terrifying opponent.

Setting the handheld down, Ethan looked towards Gerald.

"Did you figure out its specifications?"

"More or less."

Gerald nodded and handed him a spec sheet.

"To be honest, it's actually pretty simple."

There was no boasting in his tone. From a hardware perspective, GAME & WATCH really was astonishingly simple.

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Its true greatness wasn't in its specifications. It was in the revolutionary idea behind it.

It inherited the fleeting concept of portable gaming and successfully turned it into reality. A genuine milestone that transformed gaming to such a large degree.

As for the hardware itself, well, it was painfully primitive.

"Good lord. A 4-bit microcontroller?"

Ethan nearly lost his composure after reading the very first line.

Sharp SM5xx Family. A 4-bit processor manufactured by Sharp… not even 8-bit. The rest of the components looked like relics dug out of prehistory. Then again, this was a handheld device from 1980, so that much was understandable.

"Ethan, when Nintendo released this thing, the hardware was good enough. But compared to modern games, I honestly don't think it's something we need to worry about."

"I'm not worried about this thing."

Ethan tossed aside the spec sheet and rubbed his forehead. GAME & WATCH wasn't much of a threat anymore.

"What I'm worried about is Nintendo's next handheld."

He looked at Gerald.

"Do you really think Nintendo will abandon the handheld market?"

"The next generation..."

Gerald's expression stiffened. The success of the Famicom had been so overwhelming that he'd almost forgotten Nintendo wouldn't simply stand still.

GAMENOVA wasn't the only company making new games and new hardware.

But no matter how much Gerald imagined the future, he couldn't possibly possess the same vivid certainty that Ethan did. Because Ethan already knew the name of Nintendo's next handheld.

Game Boy.

A symbol of an entire era.

There had even been photographs of a certain future First Lady of the United States playing one aboard a private jet.

Countless companies would later challenge its dominance.

Sega would release the Game Gear, Atari would launch the Lynx, SNK would create the Neo Geo Pocket, and every single challenger would fail.

The only thing capable of defeating the Game Boy…. was another Game Boy.

Only when the 32-bit Game Boy Advance arrived at the dawn of the new millennium would Nintendo's absolute rule over the 8-bit handheld era finally come to an end.

Ethan knew very well that this wasn't an opponent that could be defeated merely with the advantage of future knowledge.

"Any updates from Vivian?"

"Not yet," Gerald replied, shaking his head.

"But it should be done by the end of the month at the latest."

MicroNova was currently operating at full capacity on a graphics card personally specified by Ethan.

Its codename was NovaWonder. The goal was compatibility with the industry-standard EGA specification.

"According to Vivian, performance targets have basically been met already," Gerald reported.

"It significantly outperforms IBM's display hardware."

After summarizing the graphics chip progress, he added, "Zilog also sent a reply yesterday. Based on the architecture diagrams you provided, they've completed the first batch of prototype chips, Z80Y."

"Not bad."

Ethan nodded approvingly.

"In that case, let's start development on the NovaPocket as soon as possible."

"Ethan..."

Gerald hesitated before flipping through the specification sheets Ethan had previously left behind.

"The games..."

Compared to a home console, the biggest issue with a handheld was obvious. It couldn't include a floppy disk drive like the NovaBox, so storage capacity would become a major problem and porting large-scale games would be nearly impossible.

Ethan immediately understood. He nodded and fell silent for a moment. Storage media truly was one of the most troublesome obstacles.

By the time the Game Boy arrived, NAND technology had already begun taking off. Storage development would soon enter a period of explosive growth.

That technological shift was also one of the major reasons Sony's UMD format would eventually fail on the PSP. Without NAND storage, developers were constrained by the tiny capacities available today.

With only around 64 KB of storage, game development would become severely restricted.

Super Mario Bros fit within 64 KB thanks to tile-based maps, extreme asset reuse, and relatively small stage sizes.

But neither Harvest Moon nor The Legend of Zelda could possibly fit into 64 KB. And without floppy disks, they'd lose one of their greatest advantages.

Save functionality.

At this stage, rushing into the handheld market seemed more harmful than beneficial.

"Cartridge capacity is definitely a problem," Ethan admitted.

"But as for save functionality, I actually have a solution."

He walked over to a whiteboard and wrote a short phrase across it.

Battery-Backed Save Technology.

"Battery-backed saves."

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