Although Pokémon is a great game, its road to popularity was anything but smooth.
Aoki Haruhi didn't believe he possessed more influence than Nintendo, so if he wanted to safeguard this major IP, he would have to put in some groundwork beforehand.
There were two problems that needed to be solved at the moment:
First, the handheld platform.
The success of Pokémon was inseparable from Nintendo's handheld consoles.
Although Sega had always been strong in hardware, this good-for-nothing company was simply terrible when it came to handhelds.
Nintendo's handhelds were aesthetically pleasing and lightweight, while Sega's handhelds were like heavy bricks.
He had to find a way to persuade Sega to develop a new handheld product; otherwise, Pokémon, relying solely on a release for the MD, would never amount to anything.
Second, animation.
Animation was crucial to the influence of Pokémon. Even players as far away as China were mostly influenced by the Pokémon animated series.
Therefore, Pokémon must be adapted into an animation.
To this end, Aoki had to find a reliable animation production company.
Of course, neither of these prerequisites could be met without—
Money.
Having finally earned some money, Aoki crunched the numbers, only to find himself strapped for cash.
Meanwhile.
July 3, 1991.
Chicago Consumer Electronics Show.
Pre-show press conference.
With lights flashing all around, Ken Kutaragi, a senior development engineer at Japan's Sony, stood in the center of the stage, unveiling a new gaming console product to everyone.
"This product is the perfect collaboration between Sony and the famous Japanese game developer, Nintendo."
Ken Kutaragi looked excited, his white suit seeming to shine under the lights.
"As we all know, home gaming consoles have now evolved from 8-bit to 16-bit, with performance greatly optimized. However, the fly in the ointment is—
Limited by cartridge capacity, it's hard for games to make further breakthroughs.
The largest current FC game cartridge capacity is about 8 megabits.
Oh, no, it should be about 50 megabits."
Ken Kutaragi corrected himself, mainly because a company called Pokeni had insanely added a chip to their game cartridges specifically to handle memory issues.
This directly expanded the 8-megabit game capacity to 50 megabits.
I have to say, the hardware engineers at this company are absolute geniuses.
"But such cartridges also bring serious problems; adding a chip will significantly increase the cost of the cartridge itself."
Two years ago, Nintendo wanted to solve the problem of insufficient cartridge game capacity on the Famicom, so they invited Sony to develop an add-on CD-ROM game component for the Super Nintendo.
It was tentatively named the PlayStation, SFC-CD, or SNES-CD.
This gadget was the prototype for what would later become the world-famous PS.
This exhibition was meant to showcase this game console.
"Sony possesses the world's most advanced storage technology, while Nintendo possesses the world's best games and the best players."
Hearing this, applause broke out below.
Kutaragi Ken smiled and continued, "This SFC CD-ROM and cartridge combo machine, developed through the collaboration between Sony and Nintendo, will become a very important milestone."
By adopting Sony's CD technology, the 50M capacity of a cartridge can be directly increased to over 500M, or even more, with CD discs.
Under this premise, players will experience an unprecedented gaming feast."
"The inevitable development of hardware means being able to compress more information into smaller media. And richer information and capacity will inevitably bring about an overall leap in game quality."
At the scene, Ken Kutaragi also used the newly developed PS prototype to demonstrate a small visual game that Sony had created for display. Once it began playing, all the audience members at the scene were stunned. The image quality, sound effects, and performance in all aspects were enough to leave everyone speechless.
After the demonstration was completed, a satisfied smile appeared on Ken Kutaragi's face.
"I believe that the cooperation between Sony and Nintendo will bring a brand-new change to the world. Thank you to Nintendo for your support, thank you to the players for your favor. Thank you all!"
Thunderous applause erupted below. It continued for a long time.
Ken Kutaragi's gaze glanced toward the seats below, where Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi was wearing sunglasses and applauding with a smile on his face.
A wave of emotion welled up inside Ken Kutaragi. It was thanks to Nintendo for giving him this opportunity; being able to cooperate with a major company like Nintendo was truly a stroke of good fortune.
However, just as Ken Kutaragi was immersing himself in his rosy vision of the future for Sony and Nintendo, something jaw-dropping happened the very next day.
It was at the same Chicago Consumer Electronics Show, on that very next day.
Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi appeared at the show to announce a multimedia console using the CD-i format, alongside Philips.
"We will be partnering with Philips to develop a new multimedia game console. The CD drive for the SNES-CD will be developed by Philips. Philips is a company with immense strength in hardware, and I am confident that this upcoming game console will be a brilliant success!"
Nani?!
Sitting in the audience, Ken Kutaragi's eyes went wide. He couldn't believe what was happening before him.
Although he had received some inside information a few days prior that Nintendo might abandon Sony in favor of a partnership with Philips, Sony still believed that Nintendo wouldn't actually betray them.
After all, a significant amount of money and time had already been invested. Changing course at the last minute would not only mean a loss of sunk costs but would also damage Nintendo's reputation.
Yet, he never imagined that it would all turn out to be true.
Disregarding the years of cooperation between Sony and Nintendo, President Yamauchi's abrupt announcement of the partnership with Philips at the pre-show press conference was undoubtedly a stinging slap in the face to Ken Kutaragi.
At that moment, Ken Kutaragi was completely stunned, left at a loss by Nintendo's sudden betrayal.
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