Just before leaving, Oguchi Hisao paused, as if suddenly remembering something. He turned back and asked, "Managing Director, what about Mercury Electronics Technology in Shenzhen? Should we investigate them as well?"
In his impression, this company, which operated under the banner of "technology," was in the business of reselling MDs with new casings and keyboards, passing them off as computers.
Although this had been done at Takuya's instruction, since they were going to overhaul the supply chain, it was hard to say if such an anomaly, operating on the fringes of the system, wasn't also a drain on resources.
"Mercury?" Takuya, who was holding his now-cold coffee, chuckled and waved his hand. "Don't worry about those people. That's a separate matter."
Seeing Oguchi Hisao's puzzled expression, Takuya leaned back and explained, "Mercury only designs those so-called 'learning machines' and develops the accompanying educational software. All their production is outsourced to our contract manufacturers for assembly. They have no hand in manufacturing themselves, so investigating them won't lead us anywhere in the supply chain."
As he said this, Takuya played with the lighter in his hand, his tone tinged with amusement. "If you have time while you're there, you might as well stop by Mercury. Have a cup of tea, chat with them—just keep things polite. Don't be fooled by their current work on localization and typing practice software. Those guys have a real nose for games. Give them time, and maybe a top-tier Chinese game developer will grow out of that wild, untamed soil."
Only their Managing Director could spin the idea of a company built on piracy as a future hope.
"I understand," Oguchi Hisao nodded, his mind now clear.
"Go ahead. Be careful."
Oguchi Hisao acknowledged the instruction and pushed the door open.
The cold air in the hallway helped cool his heated mind.
Instead of returning to his desk, he went to the assistants' offices of the other Managing Directors.
Since he was going to China as a "supervisor," he needed to clearly hand over his current workload first.
More importantly, he had to request security personnel from the administration department.
After all, he was about to disrupt their business. If some desperate individuals retaliated, the Nine-Tattooed Dragon's reputation alone might not be enough to protect him.
Regarding Mercury Electronics Technology, it was truly an unexpected whirlwind stirred up by Takuya Nakayama, the butterfly who had flapped his wings.
The name sounded sophisticated, even carrying a Silicon Valley startup vibe. But beneath that polished exterior lay the remains of a struggling Fuzhou operation, the "Yanshan Software Technology Service Center," on the verge of collapse.
Back then, Takuya had sent people to mainland China to scout for capable teams to provide technical support for Nine-Tattooed Dragon's gray market channels.
When the applications arrived, his eyes immediately scanned past the pile of letters and landed on the name "Yanshan."
To others, it was just another unfamiliar mainland entity. But to Takuya Nakayama, the time-traveling transmigrator, it was the legendary "Pioneer of Game Hacking."
Many childhoods had been filled with the Yanshan Tank series, where you could eat handguns to shoot through steel and drift on water.
How many knew that the notoriously difficult Super Soul '93, with its screen-filling enemies, had actually been developed by these Fujian natives?
Unfortunately, talent couldn't buy food in that wild, lawless era.
The Yanshan team's technical skills were undeniably impressive; they had managed to twist the Famicom code into something truly innovative.
But they had overlooked one crucial thing: if they could hack Nintendo, others could hack them.
The barrier to entry for Famicom piracy in mainland China was practically non-existent. Any small workshop with a burner could churn out copies.
The moment Yanshan released their modified Yanshan Tank cartridges, they saw bootlegs flooding the wholesale market, priced even lower than their production costs.
The principle of "bad money drives out good" had nearly starved these tech pioneers right at their doorstep.
The "Letter of Intent" Takuya Nakayama had delivered through Nine-Tattooed Dragon was, to Yanshan at the time, like a pie falling from heaven—a meat pie, no less.
This was precisely why Takuya dared send Oguchi Hisao to "have tea" over there. These people now worshipped Sega as their golden god.
The current Mercury Electronics was a far cry from its former days as a struggling unit, pushed to the brink by counterfeiters.
Takuya Nakayama's strategic move was brilliant: he pulled them out of the blood-red sea of the Famicom market and focused them on Sega's MD and Game Pocket.
The technical barrier of 16-bit consoles became Mercury's best moat.
In those days, mainland China was flooded with workshops that could manually assemble Famicom cartridges. But those who could handle the Motorola 68000 architecture of the MD and bypass Sega's encryption verification were as rare as hen's teeth.
This resulted in fewer "counterfeits of counterfeits" of Mercury's localized cartridges and pirated software appearing on the market.
With this technical monopoly and Nine-Tattooed Dragon's nationwide distribution network, those once-struggling programmers now stood tall and proud.
When it came to Mercury Electronics Technology, one couldn't help but mention Fu Zhan, the founder of the Fuzhou Yanshan Software Technology Service Center.
When Nine-Tattooed Dragon first approached him, Fu Zhan thoroughly researched all of Sega's product lines and developed a strong interest in the Sega Mega Drive's keyboard attachment.
But he found the device too cumbersome, requiring constant plugging and unplugging. So, he boldly submitted a proposal to Takuya Nakayama—he wanted to create a "two-in-one" device.
His idea was to permanently weld the console and keyboard together, creating a single integrated unit, much like the wildly popular "Little Tyrant" learning machines in mainland China.
Moreover, he was dissatisfied with the MD's original audio chip, which was designed for game music but couldn't produce standard human speech.
He wanted to modify the audio circuit to allow the machine to pronounce English words with slightly greater accuracy.
When Takuya Nakayama saw the proposal, he tapped his fingers on the table for a long time.
Isn't this just the learning machine that made countless Chinese parents willingly open their wallets, only to end up as nothing more than a "super game console" in their children's hands? Fu Zhan's mind was indeed that of a pioneer of game hacking.
But Sega couldn't directly pursue this.
As an international giant, creating such a "compatible machine" with a knockoff feel would be handing Nintendo a perfect excuse to sue.
"Good idea, but we need to change our approach," Takuya Nakayama replied to Fu Zhan.
Thus, a company named "Mercury Electronics Technology" quietly established itself in Fuzhou.
The ownership structure was meticulously crafted, with foreign investment and technological cooperation—a perfect shield in mainland China.
After all, during the Reform and Opening Up, attracting foreign capital was a priority. Joint ventures and technology imports were officially celebrated as major achievements.
With this protective shell in place, Takuya Nakayama was more generous with resources.
"If we're going to do English teaching, we can't have voices that sound like they're talking with eggplants in their mouths."
After research by Sega's hardware development team, they directly allocated a batch of Yamaha YMZ284B chips.
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