"What if they get popular and start demanding higher prices?" Tom interjected, a common occurrence in Hollywood.
"Then we kill them off," Takuya replied bluntly, without a trace of emotion. "Car crash, explosion, taken out by enemies—any excuse will do. In this series, the cars are made of iron, but the people are disposable. Except for a few core souls, no one is irreplaceable. This needs to be written into the contract to let them know Sega and the Hollywood giants aren't running a charity.
The two on the other end of the line were taken aback by this naked capitalist attitude, before Bernard burst into laughter. "That's brilliant! With that iron fist, I'd like to see anyone dare to get uppity with us."
"Also, make sure to save the track data from every movie's climax chase scene," Takuya added as a final instruction. "When the movie comes out, the current-generation racing game should include that track as a new map. Let audiences who just walked out of the theater immediately jump into the arcade and relive the same thrilling experience from the movie. That's tens of millions of dollars in free publicity."
"Understood. I'll drive to Burbank right now. I have a contact at Universal Pictures," Bernard said, closing his notebook. The urgency in his voice was palpable even without seeing the screen.
After Bernard left, Tom picked up the microphone again, his voice filled with awe. "First Extreme Pursuit, and now The Fast and the Furious. Takuya, are you planning to turn Hollywood into Sega's backyard?"
"We're a long way from that," Takuya Nakayama chuckled. "Who knows, maybe one day that dog-loving killer John Wick will jump into Dominic's car during a chase. If the casting doesn't clash, those kinds of Easter egg-style dream crossovers aren't impossible."
"Then you'd better pray Keanu Reeves doesn't suddenly decide to play a race car driver," Tom joked.
"Who knows?" Takuya Nakayama gazed out at the Tokyo nightscape, his fingers tapping lightly on the table. "In this crazy era, as long as there's box office revenue, even Godzilla could play basketball with Kong."
Tokyo, Ōta Ward, Namco Headquarters.
The ashtray in the conference room was piled high like a small mountain, and the air hung thick with the acrid smell of stale tobacco.
Masaya Nakamura stared at the report that had just arrived from Akihabara, his face dark enough to drip with water.
On the screen, Sega's The Fast and the Furious was raking in player coins like crazy, while Namco's ace was still lying in an anti-static bag in the lab.
This was never supposed to happen.
In this timeline, to complement Sony's upcoming PlayStation, Namco had poured all its efforts into the System 11 board.
Sony had also invested heavily, pushing the custom MIPS R3000A chip to its absolute limits.
In theory, this board was far superior to the rushed version from the previous timeline, with polygon processing capabilities rivaling Sega's Model 2.
But the problem lay in that very "customization."
No one had anticipated that Sega would beat Sony to the punch, ordering MIPS R3000OS chips from Silicon Graphics first. This move had thrown Sony's R3000A development schedule into chaos.
Ridge Racer, originally planned for release at the end of last year, had been stubbornly delayed until July 1994.
"President, we can't wait any longer." The Development Department Director slammed his fist on the table. "If we delay further, arcade owners will divert all their funds to Sega's orders. Sega is acting like a madman right now, with Virtua Fighter 2 in one hand and The Fast and the Furious in the other. If we don't move now, we won't even get a taste."
Masaya Nakamura crushed his cigarette butt in the ashtray and looked up at the yellow race car on the projection screen. "Release it. It's late, but it's better than dying in the womb."
To be fair, Namco got lucky this time.
Sega, in its aggressive push into the North American market, forcibly diverted more than half of its domestic production capacity.
This created an extremely awkward situation: only 15,000 units of The Fast and the Furious were available in all of Japan.
In Akihabara's arcades, players stared at the long queues in front of Sega's machines, some even nearly coming to blows over a spot.
Just as the frustration of being unable to get a turn reached its peak, Namco's Ridge Racer quietly appeared in an empty slot next to the Sega machine.
"What's this? Namco's new racing game?"
A young guy with dyed yellow hair, his legs aching from the long wait in line, finally lost his patience. Grumbling, he tossed a coin into the nearby machine adorned with Bumblebee's color scheme.
The screen lit up.
Though it lacked Sega's insane lighting reflections and physics engine, the visuals delivered by the System 11 board were still stunning.
The iconic yellow race car burst from the starting line, accompanied by a driving electronic dance track—a stark contrast to Sega's gasoline-soaked rock.
The first turn.
Huang Mao instinctively tried to slow down, but as he turned the steering wheel, the car slid sideways at an absurd angle, defying all laws of physics.
"Holy shit? It just drifts like that?"
There was no heavy force feedback like Sega's, no centrifugal force threatening to fling him from his seat.
Ridge Racer offered a completely different experience—pure exhilaration.
If Sega simulated driving real cars, Namco taught you to dance on ice.
This "fake but just plain fun" feel instantly captivated a generation of clumsy players who had been brutalized by Sega's hardcore physics engine.
"Hey! This one's not queuing! And drifting is super easy!" Huang Mao shouted back to his companions, who were still stubbornly battling the long Sega lines.
Soon, the crowd that had been surrounding the Sega machines began to disperse.
The arcade owners watched both sides of their machines gobbling up coins like hungry beasts, their smiles stretching ear to ear.
Thanks to this "lucky break," Namco managed to carve out a small piece of the market from Sega's iron tide, barely securing a foothold in the racing game arena.
However, when Masaya Nakamura reviewed the North American market report that evening, his slightly improved mood plummeted back to the depths.
It was a completely different world.
In the United States, Sega boasted a vast, deeply entrenched distribution network, while Namco was merely a minor player.
Watching Sega rake in cash in North America like it was printing money, while their own Ridge Racer struggled to gain traction due to their weak distribution and production capacity, Nakamura felt his teeth ache with frustration.
Takuya Nakayama's finger paused over the number "6.8%," and a slight smile tugged at his lips.
While this rating might only be considered average for a prime-time idol drama, in the 1990s, when robot anime was generally struggling, it was nothing short of a miracle.
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