Brrrrrrring…
"Hello? Yes, this is Electronic Games. Ah... sir, please calm down."
Listening to the distinct stream of colorful language blasting through the receiver, the editor in chief's mouth twitched helplessly. All he could do was force a smile and endure it.
Not long ago, these people had all been standing on the same side as the magazine, loudly agreeing with their review. So, why had every single one of them suddenly switched sides?
What happened? Did GAMENOVA start paying people off?
He certainly hadn't heard about it.
"Calm down? How the hell am I supposed to calm down?"
The caller was obviously furious.
"It's because I trusted your garbage review that I only got the chance to play Harvest Moon today!"
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a copy now?"
"This is what you called a trash game?!"
"Do you people even understand games?!"
"A gaming magazine should know about games!"
The editor in chief endured the verbal beating in silence before hanging up miserably. But the game really was boring... wasn't it?
He slammed his hand against the desk.
"Alright, everyone! Drop whatever article you're working on!"
The room immediately quieted.
"Go back and play Harvest Moon again."
"Figure out what the hell is going on."
For the original review, every member of the editorial team had played at least ten to twenty minutes. For most games of the era, that was already enough time to finish several rounds.
In the editor's opinion, the review had been perfectly objective. Yet as public opinion continued to shift, Harvest Moon's reputation had rebounded to an absurd degree.
And all that newfound praise had been redirected into attacks against gaming review outlets. But the person most affected by this situation wasn't the media, it was someone else entirely.
Nintendo.
Arakawa Minoru sat behind his desk, studying the quarter's sales report with a deep frown.
The success of the NES had been nothing short of historic. It had swept across America with little resistance, rapidly dominating the market and building unstoppable momentum. But after its explosive early growth, sales began to slow noticeably.
"Running out of steam..."
The numbers were still incredible. Yet Arakawa wasn't happy… not even a little. The results were far below his expectations. According to his projections, if everything went smoothly, the NES should have inherited the American market and surpassed thirty million units within five years.
"GAMENOVA..."
He rubbed his temples.
"...they're becoming a real problem."
Anyone with eyes could see why growth was slowing. Nintendo finally had a competitor worthy of standing beside them. Ironically, the company Arakawa had spent years watching, Sega, had been quietly developing the Master System without causing much trouble.
Instead, GAMENOVA had appeared out of nowhere, barged into the home console market, muddied the waters, and left Nintendo's strategy team scrambling.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
To be honest, even when Wolfenstein 3D first launched, Arakawa hadn't felt this much pressure. Back then, GAMENOVA was focused on the fourteen plus and sixteen plus demographics.
There was little overlap with Nintendo's all-ages strategy. Even sales barely affected one another. The people buying NovaBoxes weren't buying NES consoles. Likewise, many NES owners had no interest in NovaBox, but now things were different.
GAMENOVA's release of two consecutive family friendly titles made their intentions painfully obvious. They were targeting Nintendo's market directly.
"President, should we increase the marketing budget?"
Throwing money at the problem was crude. But sometimes crude solutions worked. Arakawa didn't answer.
Instead, his gaze drifted toward a NovaBox sitting on the edge of his desk. He had personally completed every single game GAMENOVA had released. Even Harvest Moon, despite having launched only recently.
"Game consoles are called game consoles for a reason. The games are what matter."
NovaBox's library might have been small, but every title was a masterpiece. Any one of them could have served as a console's flagship title and the one that made Arakawa the most jealous was Tetris.
If Nintendo ever managed to evolve the Game & Watch concept into a true portable gaming system, it would desperately need a killer game like Tetris.
Of course, that was a problem for the future. If he couldn't find a way for the NES to turn the tables on NovaBox, Nintendo would be finished in America.
To lose an advantageous position this badly was unacceptable. His fingers brushed across several game disks before stopping on one.
The Legend of Zelda.
He picked it up slowly. This was unquestionably a masterpiece, a world class game. A title that had opened an entirely new path for the industry.
A nontraditional RPG.
Suddenly, Arakawa's eyes sharpened. He had found an opening.
"GAMENOVA seems to be missing a true Dungeons & Dragons style traditional RPG."
The Legend of Zelda was phenomenal. But that didn't mean traditional RPGs had lost their audience. This was something Nintendo headquarters needed to handle personally.
Ideally, Shigeru Miyamoto himself would oversee the project. Arakawa didn't believe Nintendo's American branch alone had the development strength necessary to challenge GAMENOVA. Without hesitation, he picked up the phone and placed an international call to the other side of the Pacific.
The call was to Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi. Even if it was the middle of the night in Japan, this couldn't wait.
"I understand."
Yamauchi wasn't annoyed by the late-night interruption. If anything, he seemed somewhat pleased. As the ruler of a gaming empire, Yamauchi rarely tolerated mediocrity.
But for a capable person like Arakawa, someone genuinely willing to dedicate himself to the industry, he showed far more patience than he did with most people. After hearing the report, Yamauchi nodded.
"I understand the situation. However, Miyamoto is currently occupied with another project."
"We need a title capable of standing alongside Tetris and only he can handle that."
Yamauchi thought of the design proposal Miyamoto had recently submitted.
Dr. Mario.
His thoughts lingered on it briefly.
"But President," Arakawa pressed, "even if we create something equivalent to Tetris, it won't be enough to reverse the situation."
"We need an RPG, a large-scale RPG."
Yamauchi had always felt that while Arakawa was talented, he tended to be overly aggressive when it came to strategy. Yet this time, he found himself agreeing.
"I understand."
"And I know the right candidate."
"Who?"
"A third-party studio we recently signed."
Yamauchi calmly revealed the name of a small company that had only recently entered the industry.
"Enix."
"I've heard that Yuji Horii has been considering developing an RPG project. I believe it's called..."
"Dragon Quest."
"Thank you very much!"
Arakawa immediately expressed his gratitude. With a true blockbuster RPG anchoring the platform, NES sales could continue climbing and perhaps even reclaim market share from NovaBox.
After all, GAMENOVA was already struggling with development capacity. There was no way they could suddenly produce several massive RPGs out of thin air... right?
.....
California.
Outside the headquarters of New World Computing.
Ethan stood before the entrance, with a third-party publishing contract tucked beneath his arm. Then he raised his hand and knocked on the door of one of the creators behind one of the three legendary western RPG franchises.
Might and Magic.
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If you want some extra chapters, be sure to check out my 𝒫a-trοn page, it's 30 chapters ahead and the chapters are also long so you can check it out.
𝒫 α t r e on => NovaScribe
Just replace 𝒫 and α with p and a. Also remove all spaces and search the name NovaScribe on that platform