Hoshino gathered the reports on the coffee table one by one and filed them into a folder in order.
"I'm going to find Director Sugiura," Hoshino said, standing up with the folder tucked under his arm. "The Southeast Asian market is too large, and leveraged operations in the foreign exchange market require an extremely high level of expertise. The cross-border movement of funds and the establishment of offshore accounts must be prepared in advance. We have to cast our net before those Wall Street hedge funds start shorting in a big way. By the way, I also need to have a word with the Finance Department to re-evaluate the risk of our funds deposited in several of our main partner banks."
"Go ahead," Takuya Nakayama nodded.
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Hoshino walked to the door and stopped, turning his head back.
"Managing Director," Hoshino looked at the young man sitting on the sofa, "If you hadn't pointed out these key nodes today, I would have only seen the superficial data of prosperity and would have been unable to connect these clues at all. By the time I realized it, I'm afraid it would have been too late, and at best, I could only manage to protect myself."
Nakayama Takuya did not respond to the compliment, only waving his hand dismissively.
The door closed behind Hoshino, the metal latch emitting a soft click.
The office returned to silence.
Nakayama Takuya tidied up the scattered reports on his desk, stacking them neatly to one side.
Hoshino's reaction was entirely within expectations.
These financial veterans, who had lived through the bursting of Japan's economic bubble, had a deep-seated, instinctive reaction to economic overheating.
As long as the messy accounts of foreign debt and trade deficits in Southeast Asian countries were laid out, there was no need for further explanation; they would complete the logic chain for short-selling themselves.
Snipping the Thai baht and triggering the Asian Financial Crisis was a job for Wall Street's Quantum Fund.
Sega did not have the scale to lead a regional crisis, nor was there any need to steal Soros's script.
Following up after the defensive lines were breached, capitalizing on the exchange rate fluctuations between the yen and the dollar, and taking the fattest piece of meat possible—that was the most pragmatic approach.
Setting his sights on this impending storm was not limited to just making a fortune.
Nakayama Takuya had already planned the destination for this money.
But before this money was safely in his pocket, there was at least a year to go, so it was far too early to say anything.
Kyoto, Nintendo EPD.
The CRT television screen on the workbench emitted a faint fluorescent glow.
Mario, in his iconic red and blue overalls, was running through a 3D level made of colorful blocks and green terrain.
The controller flew rapidly in Shigeru Miyamoto's hands.
His thumb flicked the analog stick, controlling Mario's direction and speed.
The plumber on the screen jumped, completed a triple jump in mid-air, and landed steadily on a floating moving platform.
Several programmers nearby held their breath, intently watching the physical feedback on the screen.
Miyamoto stopped operating and set the controller down on the table.
"Shorten the airtime of the jump by another two frames," he said, pointing at the screen. "The current jump trajectory feels a bit sluggish at its peak. Judging distance in 3D space is already difficult enough; the player needs absolutely precise landing feedback."
Lead Programmer Yoshiaki Koizumi quickly jotted down the revision in his notebook.
"The smoothness of the camera switching has been optimized," Koizumi reported. "When pressing the C button to adjust the camera angle, the probability of the camera clipping through models has dropped to below five in a thousand."
Shigeru Miyamoto shook his head.
"Five in a thousand is still clipping. Camera logic is the core of the 3D gaming experience. When Mario walks into a corner, the camera shouldn't just cut right into the wall; it needs to automatically lift to a top-down view or pan to the side. Players can't be falling off cliffs just because they can't see where they are."
He turned around and looked at the circle of developers behind him, all with dark circles under their eyes.
"The end of April is the bottom line. The production cycle for mask ROMs is very long. We have to lock the final version of the code and send it to the factory for disc pressing by the end of the month. That's less than three weeks."
Yoshiaki Koizumi closed his notebook.
"Code freeze is set for next Wednesday. After that, we'll only fix critical bugs; no new features will be added."
Miyamoto nodded in agreement.
This project, titled Super Mario 64, had taken so much of his heart and soul.
The 3D sandbox world he had been conceiving since the SFC era was finally becoming a reality, supported by the powerful hardware of the N64.
This was more than just a game; it was Nintendo's declaration to the entire industry that, in the era of 3D gaming, they remained the premier game developer.
The Uji factory, not far from headquarters.
The assembly line belts moved at a constant speed, and as they advanced, black N64 consoles were assembled one by one.
Hiroshi Yamauchi stood on the second-floor glass corridor, overlooking the busy workshop below.
Gunpei Yokoi and Genyo Takeda accompanied him.
"The production line was calibrated at the end of January," Gunpei Yokoi said, pointing to the packaging and warehousing area below. "The yield rate ramp-up was faster than expected. The supply of CPUs from NEC and co-processors from SGI is stable. There are currently over 500,000 units in stock in the warehouse."
Hiroshi Yamauchi looked at the neatly stacked cardboard boxes.
"500,000 units," he repeated the number. "Sega's Jupiter has already surpassed ten million in global installed base. Sony's machine, which they are selling at a loss just to build hype, has already sold over three million. 500,000 units isn't enough to fill the gaps in their teeth."
Genyo Takeda chimed in, "The current production capacity is 8,000 units per day. Next month, with two new assembly lines coming online, the daily capacity can reach 15,000 units. We can have over one million units in stock before the launch."
Yamauchi Hiroshi turned his head to look at Gunpei Yokoi.
"What about quality control?"
"We've done several rounds of durability testing on the cartridge slot pins and the analog stick," Yokoi replied. "Especially for the joystick, we've added a wear-resistant coating to the base to ensure that it won't suffer from drift caused by dust buildup under intense, rough usage."
Yamauchi nodded with satisfaction.
For Nintendo hardware, durability is the first ironclad rule.
The N64 must also be able to withstand the roughest of treatment.
That afternoon, in the main conference room at headquarters.
Executives from all departments gathered together.
A mass-produced N64 unit sat in the center of the long table.
Yamauchi Hiroshi sat at the head of the table.
"The hardware is ready. What about the software?" Yamauchi got straight to the point. "What are we going to use to pry open the players' wallets?"
Shigeru Miyamoto pushed a thick document to the center of the table.
"Super Mario 64 will definitely be a launch title," he said. "Testing is in its final stages, and it will go to manufacturing on schedule by the end of the month."
Yamauchi glanced at him.
"Mario alone isn't enough to carry the momentum of a new console launch. Sony and Sega are pushing out new major titles every month now. Players have too many choices."
Genyo Takeda opened the file in his hand.
"We have two more titles for the launch lineup," he said, bringing up a slide on the screen. "The first one is Pilotwings 64. This system can perfectly demonstrate the N64's depth-of-field rendering capabilities in vast 3D spaces. Players can fly hang gliders and jetpacks freely over islands. We have plenty of polygons, and none of that mosaic-like texture distortion you see with Sony."
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