In November, Sega and Sony's GP Handheld prototype was completed, and a sample unit was sent over to Pokeni.
Aoki Haruhi played around with it; it only had an initial match-three game to test the gaming performance.
However, Aoki Haruhi's experience was quite good.
To be honest, the prototype's design wasn't bad at all. It didn't just inherit Sega's traditional black, but was a white prototype.
Moreover, the appearance was sleek and beautiful, the design was exquisite, and it felt comfortable to the touch.
All of this was thanks to Sega's prior extensive experience in making game consoles.
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Because of the support from Sony's rechargeable lithium-ion battery, the body weight has been significantly reduced, dropping from the original 500-plus grams to the current 250-plus grams, directly slimming down by a whole lot.
The casing of this game console is entirely made of plastic, so it is very lightweight.
Holding it with both hands, the handling feels just right.
The casing of this game console is made entirely of plastic, making it very lightweight.
Holding it with both hands, the ergonomics feel just right.
Although the color screen isn't exactly state-of-the-art—looking a bit blurry and dim in bright environments—it still performs quite well.
After playing a match-three game for a while, Aoki Haruhi felt much more confident about this new handheld console.
In addition, Sega has sent the encoding formats in detail via email.
This means that Pokeni can now proceed with game development according to the requirements of the new handheld.
Since the Diablo project team has finished their work, it's only natural to shift the focus to Pokémon.
Therefore, in the afternoon, Aoki Haruhi announced the development details for the Pokémon project within the company.
Since the work on the Diablo project team was complete, it was only natural to shift the focus to Pokémon.
So, that afternoon, Aoki Haruhi announced the Pokémon project development details within the company.
There is currently one project in development at the company: Pokémon.
In fact, Aoki Haruhi hadn't been idle during this time. Together with the new planner, Asano Risa, he had pretty much finished organizing the planning proposal for Pokémon.
In addition to the character designs for Pokémon, there were quite a few programming and art requirements.
After all, planning comes before development; this is considered standard process in the gaming industry.
When the lead programmer, Akanishi Ken, saw the requirements document, his head started spinning.
"What? You want support for a battle mode on a handheld console?"
"There hasn't been a game like that before, has there?"
The programmer expressed that the President was making things difficult for him.
Actually, apart from the online connectivity features, the rest was manageable. The core of Pokémon is turn-based combat, and the company already had a wealth of experience in that area.
The game flow wasn't overly complex either. In fact, because "all Pokémon can be captured" and "all Pokémon can be enemies," it actually saved the programming team a significant amount of work regarding monster assets.
When developing previous games, every time they created an enemy, they had to write a bespoke set of logic and combat patterns for each one.
This time, all Pokémon used the same "standard template," with differentiation built on top of that foundation, which made things relatively easier.
This meant that once the programmers finished one part of the job, everything else could be left to the planners to configure.
But the most headache-inducing part was the online battle and trading functionality.
It was equivalent to the programmers finishing their part of the work, leaving the rest to the planners to configure.
But what gave them the biggest headache was this multiplayer battle and trading feature.
It was something they had never researched before, damn it.
"This feature actually isn't that difficult," Aoki Haruhi said nonchalantly, taking out the manual provided by Sega, flipping to the page on infrared transmission, and explaining, "Look, it explicitly states the frequency band for the infrared signal, how data packets are packaged, and how to transmit and receive them.
Actually, you just need to follow the rules inside.
It's nothing difficult."
It was just a difference in the medium; before, it was electronic signals transmitting within fixed hardware, but this time it was infrared waves. However, the essence was the same: it was all about packaging information into transmittable infrared waves and then transcoding it after being received on the device.
The amount of information was actually very, very small.
In terms of encoding, it was equivalent to having all the Pokémon already packaged and installed on every machine, with just a signal sent to unlock and swap them.
The transmission volume was very low, otherwise, it wouldn't have been possible to operate on the current handheld consoles.
After Aoki Haruhi's explanation, the programmers were left speechless.
Akanishi Ken rolled his eyes at him; President, you make it sound so easy.
In the end, isn't it still our job to do?
"Fine, we'll research it."
Aside from Pokémon, there was another galgame in development, nearing its final stages, which had been initiated by Gen Urobuchi. It was titled "The Entropic Man".
A game waiting to be released, "Diablo", was currently the company's main focus for generating revenue.
The entire month of November was the promotional period for Diablo.
They didn't have much money for promotion before, and they still didn't now. (Mainly because Pokeni spent more money than it earned.)
They had to be a bit frugal with promotions.
Fortunately, the 90s weren't as terrifying as the year 2020, where a casual promotional campaign could cost billions of yen.
That didn't exist in Japan at this time.
Big, wealthy companies would run ads on television, while those without money would collaborate with distributors to create posters for promotion.
Pokeni belonged to the latter.
In addition to putting up posters at points of sale, Pokeni also posted quite a few promotional ads for "Diablo" on the ad boards in train stations.
Distributing ads in public places required applying to the relevant authorities, and the fees were actually not low.
"Huh? A new Pokeni game?"
On his way home from work, Hirozawa Furukawa caught sight of a poster displayed on a bus advertisement board.
On the poster, there was a barbarian warrior wielding an axe, with an archer on the left and a hooded mage holding a staff on the right.
The poses of the figures were full of tension.
Behind them loomed a gigantic demon with multiple horns and a hideous face.
The overall color scheme of the poster was a dark, brooding red, exuding an eerie atmosphere.
In the center were several large characters—
"Diablo."
Produced by Pokeni Corporation.
"The poster is well-made. The character designs and level of detail are quite distinctive."
But...
If he hadn't seen the [Pokeni] name at the bottom, Hirozawa would have found it hard to associate this game with Pokeni.
After all, the company had previously produced titles like Onmyoji and The Mermaid's Heart.
Aesthetic, heartwarming, touching—these were the impressions Pokeni typically gave people.
The lighting was generally bright, and the art style was supposed to lean more towards the Japanese style.
But this poster before him was unequivocally Western in style—rough, rugged, and full of wild power.
"Should I get it?" a boy next to him muttered to himself.
Hirozawa Furukawa glanced over; the two were strangers.
He's probably also a Pokeni player, he thought.
But well...
Regardless of what others thought, he was definitely going to give it a try.
December 1st, "Diablo" was officially released.
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