The assistant stood before the desk, not daring to let out a breath.
"They are using Sony as a pawn," Ken Kutaragi leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples, "using our PR budget to boost Nintendo's value."
"Should we file a protest with the IDSA? After all, we sponsored the exhibit hall signage and the lounge areas," the assistant cautiously suggested.
"Protest what? The votes are real. Those are the rules," Kutaragi stood up, walked to the window, and looked down at the traffic below. "Go notify the construction team in the South Hall to crank the speaker volume of our booth up by another twenty percent. Since we aren't part of the opening ceremony, we'll drown out their voices inside the hall. Move the *Popolocrois Story* and *Crash Bandicoot* demo areas to the main aisle. Gamers don't watch opening speeches; they only look at the games."
Third-party manufacturers have their own commercial logic.
Sega's operations are now too vast, with the Jupiter's install base far ahead and a mature contract manufacturing system in place.
Sony is in hot pursuit from behind, relying on low-cost optical discs and its global home appliance and audio-visual channels to win over developers.
If Nintendo were to be suppressed again at E3, the event with the highest global exposure, the balance of market share for first-party manufacturers could spiral out of control.
Conflict without breaking, a three-way standoff—this is the fertile ground where third-party developers maximize their profits.
At an internal EA meeting, Probst made it clear.
"Sony wants to be the leader of the pack; we cannot let them have their way. Sega is already a monster, and if Sony takes off with the E3 opening, we won't even have a seat at the table with platform holders in the future."
"N64 cartridge costs are so high; should we really be supporting Nintendo?" one executive objected.
"Supporting them costs nothing," Probst said, tapping the table. "The more attention Nintendo gets on stage, the more nervous Sony and Sega will become. Once they're nervous, the terms they offer us for our games will get better, even if just a little. We need to make these three fight each other, rather than watching one swallow the other two."
By propping up Nintendo on the main stage and giving the N64 maximum exposure, they could counterbalance Sega and Sony.
The fiercer the console war, the more generous the royalty waivers and marketing subsidies platform holders would offer to compete for game lineups.
The muddier the water, the easier it is to catch fish.
In this game, Sega completely stayed on the sidelines.
Before the vote, Hisao Oguchi had received a call from the head of the IDSA, asking if Sega was interested in competing to give the opening remarks.
At the time, Hisao Oguchi held the phone and looked at Takuya Nakayama, who was sitting behind his desk.
"Turn it down." Takuya Nakayama didn't even look up, focusing intently on the report in his hands.
Sega didn't need a speech to prove its market position.
Getting their booth in order and successfully hosting the UE Engine launch event was far more useful than ten minutes of empty talk on stage.
Consequently, Sega abstained directly.
This, in turn, caused the third-party votes to concentrate more heavily on Nintendo.
May 16th.
Los Angeles Convention Center.
The 2nd E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo kicked off as scheduled.
At 7:30 in the morning, the lines outside the South Hall and West Hall already stretched for three blocks.
Having learned from last year's experience, the media reporters and distributors had gotten smarter.
No one crowded together at the entrance; several diversion channels were cordoned off by security with metal barricades, and crowds carrying different colored passes moved inside in an orderly fashion.
The morning mist of Los Angeles was sliced by sunlight, hitting the glass curtain wall of the convention center and refracting into blinding spots of light.
The gaming industry has expanded too quickly over the past few years.
This time last year, there was still skepticism here about independent exhibitions.
Today, Wall Street analysts in tailored suits stand shoulder to shoulder with long-haired, T-shirt-clad indie game developers, waiting to enter and strike gold.
Nine o'clock sharp, Central Hall.
All two thousand seats are packed.
The back is crowded with media carrying cameras.
The Chairman of the Interactive Digital Software Association walks onto the stage and briefly reviews the gaming industry's sales figures from the past year. The long list of figures, in the billions of dollars, makes the investors in the front row nod frequently.
"I invite the Director of Nintendo's Second Development Department, the lead hardware designer of the N64, Mr. Masayuki Uemura, to deliver the opening address for this year's E3."
Thunderous applause erupts in the venue.
EA CEO Larry Probst, sitting in the third row, claps the hardest.
This is the position he, along with a group of third-party publishers, forced Nintendo into.
Prop up Nintendo to the front, let Sega and Sony worry—that's good business.
Masayuki Uemura walks onto the stage from the side.
He is wearing a dark gray suit, no tie.
Placing Nintendo at the forefront and letting Sega and Sony worry—that was good business. Masayuki Uemura walked onto the stage from the side. He was wearing a dark gray suit, without a tie.
An engineer who had spent years in the laboratory of the Kyoto Uji Factory, he should have felt a bit awkward facing such a spotlight-drenched occasion. But thanks to the walkthrough rehearsal the day before, and the sound engineer having dimmed the overhead lights as requested, Uemura's steps were steady. Walking up to the podium, he held the edges of the microphone with both hands and adjusted its height.
"Good morning, Los Angeles."
Masayuki Uemura spoke; his English pronunciation carried a heavy Kansai accent, yet his words were clear.
"Standing here, looking at so many peers in the audience, I'm deeply moved." Masayuki Uemura didn't have a script in his hands; he looked straight ahead. "Twenty years ago, video games were just coin-operated machines in the corners of bars. Back then, there was a true giant in the industry."
He paused for a moment.
"Atari."
A slight stir rippled through the audience.
A Nintendo executive, at the opening ceremony of E3, was actually bringing up the former hegemon first.
Masayuki Uemura had already calculated this when preparing his speech.
Atari was dead, stone-cold dead.
Talking about a dead giant on such an occasion could both highlight Nintendo's stature, and certainly wouldn't give any credit to their current competitors.
President Hiroshi Yamauchi had also approved of this point when reviewing the draft.
"They created an era, bringing games into the living rooms of households everywhere. That was the enlightenment of the home console."
Masayuki Uemura clasped his hands together. "This is a company worthy of respect."
"They created an era, bringing video games into the living rooms of countless households. That was the enlightenment of home consoles." Masayuki Uemura clasped his hands. "It is an enterprise worthy of respect. Without the foundation they laid, we wouldn't be sitting in this hall today discussing all sorts of games."
The veteran game developers below nodded slightly.
Uemura's words struck a chord with the nostalgia of North American players.
"But giants can also make mistakes," Uemura's tone turned cold. "Blindly pursuing quantity while neglecting software quality ultimately led to that disaster. After the Atari crash, many said that video games were finished. That they were just a short-lived toy."
He extended a finger, pointing to the wide screen behind him.
A photo appeared on the screen: a red and white machine, with square controllers next to it.
"In 1985, we brought this machine to North America. That was the NES." Uemura looked at the photo. "I was its hardware designer. The biggest problem we faced at the time wasn't how to make the machine look cool, but how to prove to retailers that this thing wouldn't repeat the mistakes of Atari."
Talking about a dead giant on such an occasion could both demonstrate Nintendo's stature and ensure that no credit was given to current competitors. President Hiroshi Yamauchi had also agreed with this point when reviewing the draft.
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