Building a Gaming Empire In 1984

Ethan and Gerald looked at each other. Then, almost simultaneously, they burst out laughing.

"Sam, you're a damn genius!"

Ethan immediately pulled out a blueprint and began sketching plans.

"Quick! We need to get the expansion-pack technology working before the King of Fighters project launches."

At the same time, he shouted toward Sam, "Sam! Go get Carmack from the apartment! We need to speed things up!"

"Got it!"

Sam hadn't expected his offhand suggestion to actually be viable. Instantly overjoyed, he rushed out the door towards the apartment. Gerald got moving as well.

The NovaBox itself couldn't read multiple floppy disks simultaneously, but it did have a reserved expansion interface. According to the hardware protocol Ethan had established, they could easily develop an external floppy drive attachment that would grant the NovaBox exactly that capability.

The production cost would certainly be high. But if successful, it would solve one of GAMENOVA's longest-standing problems, the storage capacity.

If graphics weren't good enough, they could compress textures and lower resolutions. If performance wasn't sufficient, they could spread the workload across multiple processors. If sound quality fell short, they could add enhancement chips inside the cartridge.

But storage? Until a major technological breakthrough arrived, storage capacity would continue limiting everything they wanted to do.

Now they finally had a workaround. Sell the game in pieces.

"If this system actually works..."

Ethan sketched another schematic while typing on his computer with his free hand.

"It won't just benefit fighting games."

"I know."

Gerald nodded and immediately pulled a preassembled development board from the parts inventory. The board already contained a Z80 processor, making it perfect for rapid prototyping.

"If this technology succeeds, we could separate maps from games entirely."

He was already thinking several steps ahead.

"The game is the game. Assets are assets."

"Just like in The Legend of Zelda."

"If this works, every dungeon could be as large as the entire current Zelda game. All we'd have to do is package each dungeon on its own floppy disk."

At that point, the only remaining limitation would be cost.

"An external floppy expansion drive would probably cost over a hundred dollars to manufacture."

Gerald quickly estimated the production expenses. After factoring in manufacturing fees, labor, transportation, warehousing, and countless miscellaneous costs, the final retail price would likely exceed even the NovaPocket, their flagship handheld.

And that wasn't even considering all the additional expenses it would create. Players would have to pay multiple times just to experience a complete game.

"Ethan, as for consumer willingness to pay…"

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"We can subsidize the drive."

Ethan nodded. They had already poured enormous amounts of money into the NovaPocket and NovaBox. One more hardware project wouldn't make much difference.

"As for whether players will accept it... " he smiled, "that depends entirely on game quality."

At the end of the day, players didn't actually hate paying for games. They didn't even necessarily mind paying for extra content. What they hated was paying premium prices for content that didn't justify the cost.

If an expansion pack delivered the equivalent of Blood and Wine for The Witcher 3 or a genuinely transformative expansion that breathed new life into a game, then most players wouldn't complain, they'd even celebrate it.

But if the expansion offered barely any meaningful content while still charging full price, then criticism was inevitable, so that was the real issue.

On this point, however, Ethan wasn't worried at all. An extra megabyte of storage opened up enormous possibilities. Beyond additional characters alone, there was a vast amount of content they could fit inside.

"If this works," he said, "then until NAND flash memory and optical discs become mainstream, storage capacity won't be something we need to worry about."

"Ethan, we've got a reply from Satoshi." Sam raised a telephone receiver and called out from across the room.

"Coming!"

Ethan answered. He glanced toward the motion-capture area, where Brandon moved so quickly the tracking software occasionally lost a marker.

"Nice work, Brandon," he waved to him, "let's finish recording these move variations and call it a day."

While King of Fighters wasn't pursuing the same level of realism as Street Fighter and focused more on flashy spectacle. It couldn't completely abandon reality either as the foundation of visual appeal was still intuitive motion.

Ethan quickly walked over and took the receiver from Sam.

"Satoshi, did you find him?"

"Yes, Ethan. Mission accomplished!"

Although Satoshi sounded exhausted, excitement practically radiated through the phone. He looked toward the young man standing nearby and handed him the receiver.

"Koshiro, it's Ethan Hayes."

The young man took a deep breath before accepting the phone.

"Mr. Ethan. This is Yuzo Koshiro."

His voice carried a maturity beyond his years. Yet he was still only eighteen, and traces of youthful nervousness remained impossible to hide.

"Hello, Mr. Koshiro or perhaps I should call you... YK-2?"

YK-2 was the alias Yuzo Koshiro had adopted after graduating from high school.

"I've listened to several of your compositions and honestly, they're a perfect fit for the style of our new game."

In Ethan's memories, Yuzo's true golden age would arrive during the Sega Mega Drive era. The soundtracks for games like The Revenge of Shinobi and Streets of Rage would eventually make him legendary.

Unlike Street Fighter's straightforward looping music, King of Fighters tracks didn't need to worry about distracting players from gameplay. That freedom allowed them to become more emotional, more energetic, and far more stylistically diverse.

Rock, metal, electronic music, pop, and virtually every genre imaginable. A glorious musical fusion and when it came to creating that kind of hot-blooded, heroic atmosphere, Ethan naturally turned to Satoshi and the Japanese branch office.

"I've already sent the music requirements to Satoshi."

"You've reviewed them, right?"

"Yes!"

Yuzo answered immediately.

"I'll make sure it's something you'll be happy with."

"Then I wish you good luck," Ethan chuckled. "Now can you put Satoshi back on."

Satoshi took the phone again and continued his report. "Ethan, Kenji Kawai should be joining us later as well. I'll connect you when he's available."

"Good. I'll talk with him when he joins."

Ethan gave a small nod, acknowledging the update

"I'm counting on you for the music side of things."

"Keep up the good work."

Everything seemed to be progressing even more smoothly than expected. As he hung up, his gaze drifted toward Brandon, who was still recording combat reference footage. That reminded him of another task he'd assigned earlier.

"Oh, right."

"The idol I asked for."

"Did you find her?"

"Well..." Satoshi scratched his head awkwardly. "Almost… but we're still negotiating with the managers of both girls."

Sometimes, Satoshi genuinely felt that he would never understand how Ethan's mind worked. He simply couldn't figure it out.

Why would someone developing a fighting game want to recruit a female celebrity famous for her figure and a rookie idol who had only recently debuted?

But then again, whenever Ethan did something strange, there was always a reason behind it. So, there had to be a deeper plan.

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