Zaboru remained inside the Creator Room for a while longer after finishing Astro Playroom. The completed ZEPS 4 sat proudly on the testing table beside him, its black body and metallic silver accents catching the cold laboratory lighting, while the blue illumination along its lower edge gave the machine that unmistakable futuristic ZAGE identity. He had spent years thinking about this console, arguing over it, throwing impossible requests at Zanichi, changing ideas halfway through development, and imagining how every feature should eventually connect together. Now it was finally sitting there as a finished consumer machine, and somehow that only made Zaboru think about everything he wasn't going to release with it yet.
He looked down at the device currently resting in his hands and chuckled. "Hehehe… Dad, you know why I'm not releasing this alongside ZEPS 4, right?" Zaboru raised the long, narrow black-and-silver device toward him. Its design was simple compared to the console itself, but the technology inside was anything but ordinary. Zanichi glanced at it and gave a slow nod while exhaling smoke from his cigar. "Yeah, I get it. Future expansion. Honestly, that part makes sense. What doesn't make sense is how you even thought this whole system through in the first place. Every time you come up with one of these ideas, somehow I'm the one who has to turn your insanity into hardware." Zaboru laughed and lightly rotated the device in his hands. "Come on, Dad. Admit it. You love challenges like this. Besides, this one definitely deserves to come later."
The device was officially called the Z-Sensor Bar. In Zaboru's previous life, the closest equivalent had been Nintendo's Wii Sensor Bar, a deceptively simple-looking strip positioned near the television that worked with the Wii Remote's infrared camera to determine where the controller was pointing. Zaboru had always found the technology fascinating because people constantly misunderstood what it actually did. The bar itself did not magically track the remote. It emitted infrared reference points, while the controller detected them and calculated direction and position. Combined with accelerometers and later improved motion technologies, that simple arrangement allowed players to point directly toward objects on a television screen in a way that felt almost magical when it worked properly.
ZEPS 4's current motion controller already contained a gyroscope and accelerometer, meaning it could recognize movement, tilt, rotation, swings, and other physical inputs perfectly well without any external sensor bar. That was intentional. Zaboru did not want the machine's first impression to depend on players installing an extra device near their televisions just to enjoy basic motion games. A player could buy ZEPS 4, connect it, grab either the normal controller or Z-Remote, and immediately play. Simple. The Z-Sensor Bar would come later, once the public had already become comfortable with the console and ZAGE was ready to push motion interaction into another stage.
Zaboru smiled while studying the prototype. "If I released this immediately, people would have too much thrown at them at once. ZEPS 4 already has online play, ZAGE Network, ZAGE ID, voice chat, Z-Store, YouTube, media functions, screenshots, gameplay clips, backward compatibility, the normal controller, the Z-Remote, Blue-Ray, hard-drive installations, apps… then imagine me walking onstage and saying, 'Oh yeah, put this weird black bar near your television too.'" He laughed. "People would think I designed the console while high."
Zanichi gave him a flat look. "You probably did design some parts while sleep deprived."
"That is unrelated."
"It is very related."
Zaboru grinned, but his point remained serious. ZEPS 4 had been designed around an unusually long life cycle. He had no intention of treating launch day as the moment every single concept needed to appear. That was one of the biggest lessons he had learned from watching consoles evolve in his previous life. Hardware did not need to remain frozen after release. System updates, new accessories, new services, revised controllers, new game genres, downloadable software, and unexpected uses could keep a platform feeling fresh for years. If players received everything immediately, there was nowhere left to grow except raw software releases.
And ZEPS 4 had an almost absurd amount of room to grow.
The console existed partly because Zaboru wanted a single platform capable of absorbing ideas that, in his previous life, had been scattered across almost an entire generation and a half of hardware. PlayStation 2. GameCube. Original Xbox. Xbox 360. PlayStation 3. Wii. Zaboru had their libraries, design philosophies, control ideas, online concepts, genres, and technical evolution represented an enormous amount of gaming history he could reinterpret through ZAGE.
That was precisely why he wanted patience.
The early ZEPS 4 era did not need to become the Wii immediately. In fact, Zaboru deliberately wanted traditional controller-based games to dominate much of the early software. The system's first impression should be that it was a monstrously capable next-generation machine that could handle ambitious action games, RPGs, shooters, racing titles, online multiplayer, large environments, cinematic experiences, and everything players already associated with powerful consoles. Motion gaming would exist from the beginning through the Z-Remote, but it would be an option, not the entire identity.
Later?
That was different.
Zaboru slowly turned the Z-Sensor Bar around and looked at its underside. "This is where things become interesting. The current version works. It already does what I originally wanted. But honestly, Dad… I don't want to release it exactly like this." Zanichi raised an eyebrow. "Of course you don't." Zaboru laughed. "Come on. You know me. If we're going to release a new hardware expansion later, it should feel like an actual breakthrough, not just some accessory people plug in because one game tells them to."
Zanichi took the device from his son and looked over the prototype again. "It already tracks pointer position very accurately. The response time is low, the range is good, and it works under most normal lighting conditions. What exactly are you unsatisfied with?" Zaboru leaned against the edge of the table, his grin slowly returning. "That's what I want to figure out. Better range, better reliability, maybe more positional information, maybe stronger integration with future controllers. I don't know yet. That's the fun part."
Zanichi sighed. "You really are impossible, Boss."
Zaboru chuckled. "Well, admit it. You love this kind of challenge."
Zanichi looked at him for several seconds before finally smiling. "Yeah. You're right. Unfortunately." He handed the Z-Sensor Bar back. "Still, it would be nice if you learned to be a good son and actually waited sometimes instead of coming into my lab every damn week asking whether I can make another impossible thing work."
Zaboru laughed loudly. "But then you'd be bored."
"I was never bored before you were born."
"Liar."
Zanichi did not respond immediately, but there was more truth hidden inside that exchange than Zaboru realized.
Before ZAGE, Zanichi had always been exceptionally capable wherever he worked. Almost unnaturally capable, in fact. He had developed a reputation as someone who rarely made mistakes, and even during his years at Sonaya he had risen into departmental leadership partly because engineers around him quickly learned that if Zanichi approved a machine, circuit, or production method, it usually worked exactly as intended. Yet there had always been a strange limit to how much of himself he was willing to give those companies. He completed his work. He solved the problems assigned to him. He maintained an almost absurd standard of quality. But he rarely volunteered the ideas that constantly appeared inside his head.
Even Hikaru Kurata had noticed.
There had been moments when Hikaru directly asked whether Zanichi had suggestions for improving a design or production line. Zanichi almost always gave technically correct but conservative responses. Nothing revolutionary. Nothing that would transform the company. He simply did the job he had been hired to do.
Not because he lacked ideas.
Because he did not care enough.
Sonaya had been an employer. Other companies before it had been employers. Zanichi could work brilliantly for them, but their victories never felt like his victories. Their future did not excite him enough to spend nights obsessing over some impossible improvement nobody had requested. He had no emotional reason to push beyond what was necessary.
ZAGE was different.
ZAGE belonged to his son.
And more importantly, ZAGE reflected the kind of person Zaboru had somehow grown into.
Zanichi quietly watched him turn the Z-Sensor Bar over in his hands while continuing to mutter possibilities to himself. Zaboru was already one of the richest men alive, yet money had somehow failed to become the thing that defined him. Zanichi had worried about that years ago. Any father probably would. Give a young man billions of dollars, global fame, beautiful women constantly approaching him, control over enormous corporations, private aircraft, luxury properties, famous friends, and enough influence to make governments answer his calls, and there were thousands of ways that person could become unbearable.
But Zaboru still became stupidly excited whenever somebody showed him a new game.
He still played with developers.
He still personally tested unfinished builds.
He still argued about controller feel.
He still loved Ayumi with almost embarrassing devotion and had never turned his wealth into an excuse to chase women simply because he could. He still spent ridiculous amounts of time with Zenshin and Rumi-chan. He still ate Keiko's cooking like he had won the lottery every time she prepared his favorite meals. He still using his damn Bicycle. He still thanked engineers directly. He still defended strange little developers like WUGONG because he genuinely wanted people to make weird games.
And whenever Zaboru asked Zanichi to build something impossible, the reason was almost always the same.
Players would love this.
Zanichi could respect that.
More than respect it, perhaps.
He trusted it.
That was why he no longer held back.
If Zaboru came to him with something outrageous, Zanichi wanted to see whether it could be done. If the answer was no, he wanted to know why it was no. If there was some limitation in the way, he wanted to push against it until either the limitation broke or physics finally won the argument.
The Z-Sensor Bar was simply another example.
Zanichi smiled faintly while Zaboru continued examining it. "You know, Boss, before you started ZAGE I never worked like this."
Zaboru looked toward him. "Hm?"
Zanichi shrugged. "Nothing important. Just thinking."
"That's dangerous."
"Shut up."
Zaboru laughed.
Zanichi finally extinguished his cigar and pointed toward the completed ZEPS 4 sitting nearby. "Anyway, take that thing to your damn room already. You wanted the final retail machine so badly, didn't you?" Zaboru's eyes immediately brightened. "Seriously? I can keep this one?" Zanichi stared at him. "Boss, you own the company manufacturing it." Zaboru paused. "Good point." Zanichi sighed. "When does the promotional campaign start, anyway?"
Zaboru's grin returned instantly. "This month. Definitely this month. I want to talk with the marketing team and several of the developers first, though. I already have ideas for the first proper trailer, the hardware campaign, and especially the launch event itself." His eyes gained that familiar dangerous excitement. "Hehehe… I don't want people just watching someone read specifications onstage. I want them to understand what ZEPS 4 actually feels like."
Zanichi immediately recognized the look. "Go nuts if you want, but don't overdo it. Ayumi is getting close to giving birth. Whatever insane marketing circus you're planning, remember you have a pregnant wife at home."
Zaboru's expression softened immediately. "Hehe, don't worry, Dad. I know. Ayumi comes first."
"Good."
Zanichi began walking toward the exit before stopping and looking back. "And don't bother me tonight. I'm getting a drink."
Zaboru laughed as he carefully disconnected the finished ZEPS 4 from the testing setup. "Don't get too drunk. Mom will get mad."
Zanichi sighed. "Your mother always gets mad." then he smiles "But she always beautiful" Zaboru laugh "Will i expect Siblings dad?"
Zanichi rolled his eyes, but then his gaze dropped toward Zaboru, who was now preparing to lift the ZEPS 4 himself. His eyes widened slightly. "Wait. You're seriously carrying that upstairs yourself?"
Zaboru looked toward him. "Yeah. Why?"
Zanichi stared at his son as though he had just discovered a new form of stupidity. "Goddammit, Boss. You own this entire building. Ask somebody to carry it for you."
Zaboru carefully picked up the console and grinned. "Nope. I waited years for this. I'm carrying this baby myself."
Zanichi shook his head and finally smiled. "Suit yourself."
A few minutes later, father and son separated. Zanichi headed toward the elevator with every intention of finding something strong to drink before returning home, while Zaboru personally carried the finished ZEPS 4 upward through ZAGE Tower like an excited teenager bringing home his first console. Several employees who passed him in the hallway stared in disbelief, not because their president carrying equipment was particularly unusual anymore, but because anyone familiar with ZAGE hardware immediately realized what he was holding.
Zaboru simply smiled at them.
"No photos yet."
That caused several people to immediately look away while pretending they had seen absolutely nothing.
Eventually, Zaboru reached his private workshop on the fifty-first floor and carefully placed the ZEPS 4 beside his main development setup. He stepped backward, crossed his arms, and stared at it for several seconds with quiet satisfaction.
"Finally."
The machine belonged here.
After everything, ZEPS 4 was finally complete.
Zaboru dropped into his chair and leaned back comfortably before pulling out his AKAI Black Berry Z01. Several notifications were waiting for him. ZAGE messages. Development updates. A reminder related to marketing. A message from Ayumi asking when he planned to return home.
Zaboru smiled and replied to her first.
Then another notification caught his attention.
Yugo Kanai.
Zaboru raised an eyebrow.
Yugo wanted to meet privately.
That alone was enough to interest him. Yugo was one of ZAGE's most important development leaders and could normally contact Zaboru through ordinary internal channels whenever he needed something. A direct request for a private meeting usually meant the topic was either unusually important or unusually strange.
Knowing Yugo, possibly both.
Zaboru chuckled. "Hmm… Yugo wants to meet? I wonder what he's cooking."
He typed a short response.
Meet me on the 50th floor. My office.
Then Zaboru looked once more toward the finished ZEPS 4 beside him. One era of development had just ended, the marketing campaign was about to begin, a hidden expansion already waited somewhere in the future, and now Yugo wanted to speak privately.
Zaboru's grin returned.
"Hehehe… 2002 is getting interesting already."
To be continued.
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