This direct, straightforward way of communicating actually won the favor of many North American developers present.
They were accustomed to the geek-style interaction of Silicon Valley, and Ken Kutaragi's technocratic approach went over very well here.
On the other side of the venue, a completely different discussion was taking place inside Nintendo's closed exhibition hall.
Shigeru Miyamoto sat on a folding chair between two televisions, holding an SFC controller.
He was leading a small seminar on the joy of gaming.
The participants were mostly loyal developers from the Nintendo camp and a few veteran game critics.
No one here was writing anything about technical direction on a whiteboard.
Instead, he talked about the rhythm of level design, the smoothness of difficulty curves, and how to use hidden elements to stimulate player curiosity.
The philosophical differences between the two companies were on full display at this moment.
Sony was teaching developers how to squeeze hardware performance to build 3D worlds, while Nintendo was teaching developers how to polish the fundamental gaming experience.
Distributors shuttled between these two exhibition halls, evaluating the commercial potential of these two paths.
Procurement managers holding order books filled in massive order quantities for "Yoshi's Island" and "Super Donkey Kong 2," showing that Nintendo's foundational market remained solid.
Meanwhile, in the Kentia Hall in the basement of the South Hall, Bandai was staging a scramble of a completely different nature.
After careful consideration, Bandai's game division executives decided to completely shelve "Gundam Battlefield Evolution."
Chuta Mitsui locked the half-finished code, which couldn't even distinguish basic directions, away on a server in Tokyo, not daring to bring it to Los Angeles and make a fool of the company.
Bandai's booth only offered demos for a few old games on the MD and SFC platforms, which received a lukewarm response.
Bandai poured all its energy into the sale of peripheral merchandise.
In front of the Bandai booth in the Kentia Hall, the density of the crowd exceeded the organizers' expectations.
There were no programmers discussing code here, nor critics evaluating game mechanics.
There were only distributors and retail store owners waving checkbooks.
The display cabinets were filled with various limited-edition souvenirs.
Electroplated special editions of Gundam models, limited-edition Sailor Moon figures, and, as always, Pokémon.
"Limit of fifty sets per store! No pushing!" shouted a Bandai North America staff member from an elevated position, holding a megaphone to maintain order.
A toy distributor from Texas near the front of the line protested loudly, demanding to buy out the entire shelf of plated version Gundams.
The staff member refused his request.
This was a strict rule set internally by Bandai.
During the media days held over the past two days, which were open only to industry insiders, only 40 percent of the stock for all limited-edition items had been released.
The remaining 60 percent was strictly sealed in the exhibition center's underground warehouse, awaiting the arrival of the public days tomorrow.
This release strategy was the result of precise commercial calculation.
By letting distributors and retail store owners have that 40 percent of limited stock, they could take them back to their stores in various states, where these scarce, limited-edition items would become excellent calling cards to attract ordinary players to shop.
The 60 percent left for the public days was intended to create long queues and a buying frenzy when ordinary players entered the next day, thereby demonstrating to the entire United States the terrifying drawing power of Bandai's IP.
It wasn't just Bandai playing this trick.
Throughout the entire Kentia Hall, every vendor selling peripheral merchandise was exercising similar restraint.
In front of the Sanrio booth, a burly owner of a Florida toy store chain, wearing a floral shirt, was slamming his checkbook onto the glass counter.
"Add two hundred more Hello Kittys in Sega hedgehog costumes; we can negotiate the price. The little girls in my shop will tear the roof off for these," he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
The Japanese representative from Sanrio bowed repeatedly, pushing the checkbook back. "I am very sorry, sir. The Media Day quota is sold out. You can come back tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? There will be tens of thousands of maniacs crowding in from outside tomorrow! I won't even be able to get through the front door!" the fat boss said, slapping his thigh in frustration.
The situation was exactly the same in the neighboring Hasbro and Mattel exhibition areas.
Limited edition Transformers and special edition Barbie dolls had all been marked with "Sold Out Today" signs.
Facing the cash being waved by distributors, the salespeople wore uniform, professional smiles and recited the same script.
Following the internal advice of the IDSA, all participating peripheral vendors signed inventory retention agreements.
Forty percent of the stock was released to distributors today to attract foot traffic, while the remaining sixty percent remained firmly locked behind the iron doors of the basement warehouse.
These established vendors were shrewd.
The inventory taken by the distributors was, at most, just a few added figures on an invoice.
Come Public Day tomorrow, the ordinary gamers who couldn't buy the limited editions and were left queuing in long lines before the booths, or even hopping mad with anxiety, would be the kind of free news material that major U.S. television stations loved most. This way, the influence of their products could be maximized.
Takuya Nakayama had insisted on allocating the basement level to peripheral vendors for this very effect.
The air in Kentia Hall was sweltering, a mix of sweat and the smell of cheap hot dogs, but the volume of transactions concluded here was far louder than in the conference rooms upstairs where polygon rendering was being discussed.
The distributors who couldn't get their hands on the stock could only stare helplessly at the booths, calculating how many scalpers to hire to line up and grab the goods tomorrow.
In the press center of the Los Angeles Convention Center, the humming of espresso machines drowned out the clatter of keyboards.
A senior editor at EGM crushed an empty paper cup and tossed it into an already overflowing trash can.
After all, last night's battle had left many people feeling burned out and exhausted, but the work had to go on; otherwise, how could they justify the generous stipends and travel allowances?
"Today, we follow the plan we set last night and change up our tactics," he said, drawing two horizontal lines across the densely packed schedule in his notebook. "Yesterday was for show, today is for digging deeper."
Yesterday's press conference had whetted everyone's appetite to the extreme, and the movement of the media corps had shifted completely today.
The spectacle from the first day, with everyone crowded in front of the main stage clicking their shutters, was not to be repeated. Reporters began to scatter into various sub-sections like hounds that had caught the scent of blood.
Some dove straight into the specific booths of the various manufacturers.
Square had set up three lines of police tape around the perimeter of their exhibition area.
In front of the Final Fantasy VII demo station, the line of people waiting for a turn to play already extended well beyond the booth's designated area.
"I've been waiting for half an hour, and this game really didn't let me down," a reporter with a French press badge said to a colleague in front of him.
"The 3D performance of the Jupiter platform is beyond expectations," his colleague replied without turning back. "When I get back, I'm going to suggest to the editor-in-chief that we reserve next month's cover for Sega and Square. This game might just become a milestone for RPGs in the 3D era."
Please Support me by becoming my patreon member and get 30+ chapters.
[email protected]/Ajal69
change @ with a
Thank You to Those who joined my Patreon