Aoki Haruhi was not in a hurry to return to Tokyo, but stayed in California, United States for a few more days.
The main reason was to fulfill HR-chan's wish.
This guy had always wanted to visit the United States, and since he couldn't work there, it was better to let him travel more.
Just this time, Aoki Haruhi needed a tool person, so he brought Ayase Akane along.
For some reason, it seems that the Japanese have a soft spot for the United States deep in their bones.
Aoki Haruhi thought—
This is probably due to the Japanese nation's inherent characteristic of admiring strength.
When China was strong, Japan learned everything from China; Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucian thought were all adopted from China.
Later, when Britain became strong, they learned from Britain and carried out the Meiji Restoration.
Then, after being defeated by the United States, they thought Americans were amazing, and the United States must be paradise.
In reality, these are all characteristics of the Japanese people's admiration for strength; they follow whoever is strong.
In the current world, the United States is the strongest.
The only one stronger than Japan is the United States.
In 1995, Japan was truly the world's undisputed second-largest power, with a GDP far exceeding Germany's.
Among them, Japan's GDP was 5.5 trillion US dollars, while Germany's was 2.59 trillion US dollars, only 47.1% of Japan's.
Unfortunately, Japan, without its own autonomy, threatened the United States, and was suppressed, stagnating economically since the 90s.
This is the tragedy of Japan as a country.
...
Although she had fantasized countless times and had many preconceived notions about the United States from television, various media, and word-of-mouth from colleagues.
However, after experiencing it firsthand, Ayase Akane felt it was just average.
"It doesn't feel that great."
"Why do I feel Tokyo is more prosperous? And many things that Tokyo has, and many things we have locally, can't be seen here, which is really strange," Ayase Akane pondered in confusion.
"California is the second-largest state, and Santa Clara is also a good city. Are your expectations too high?"
This is Silicon Valley, you know.
Historically, Santa Clara was an agricultural city, but with the rise of the semiconductor industry in the 1960s, the city gradually transitioned from agriculture to high-tech industry.
Now, it's actually rare to see large fields.
It's nothing like the idyllic Southern United States that Aoki Haruhi had in mind.
"Hmm... how should I put it, it feels like falling in love," Ayase Akane mused with a frown, "Love in imagination is always dreamy, like a rainbow, with pink bubbles even in dreams.
But once you actually fall in love with a man, you'll find that real love is quite different from what you imagined.
Hmm, that's probably the feeling."
"Oh, you're a love guru, aren't you? Have you ever actually been in love?" Aoki Haruhi asked with a smile.
This touched HR-chan's sore spot.
Ayase Akane turned around, hands on her hips, and looked sternly at Aoki Haruhi:
"President! It's precisely because I haven't been in love that I can imagine how wonderful love is!"
"You, it's precisely because you haven't been in love that you can't imagine how happy love is!"
"President!!!"
...
Tokyo's prosperity, to some extent, might be because Tokyo itself is an international metropolis, where people from various countries gather, and various cultures interact and converge.
At the same time, in Aoki Haruhi's view, Tokyo's excessive population is also a very important reason contributing to its "prosperity."
Currently, the population of Tokyo is almost 10 million, which is about one-tenth of the total population.
And Santa Clara? The population is only over 100,000.
Tokyo is 2155 square kilometers.
What about Santa Clara? 3377 square kilometers.
It's one and a half times larger than Tokyo, but its population is less than one percent of Tokyo's.
It's truly sparsely populated in the real sense.
This comparison makes it easy to imagine why Tokyo gives a more prosperous impression.
In Santa Clara, once you leave Silicon Valley, you can drive for a long time without seeing many people.
In Tokyo, people are packed together, especially when night falls; Tokyo is incredibly lively.
...
Before leaving Tokyo, Aoki Haruhi received news from Nvidia.
Jensen Huang and the other two partners discussed for 5 days and gave the reply: "Agree to Pokémon's investment."
After several rounds of negotiations, they finally agreed to Pokémon's 100 million US dollar investment for a thirty percent stake in Nvidia.
At the same time, [3D graphics card] officially started R&D.
In reality, Jensen Huang and his team had no better option.
During these few days, several people also used their connections, finding some acquaintances in the chip industry, hoping to ask if any company would invest in Nvidia to develop 3D graphics cards or something.
Jensen Huang even approached Bill Gates, the boss of Microsoft.
After a thorough discussion of his ideas, Gates did not agree to give them money to develop this product.
The reason was simple—
"Making such a high-performance 3D graphics card is like using an anti-aircraft gun to shoot mosquitoes; the input and output are simply not proportional."
Old Huang felt his face flush on the spot.
It was as if he was showing someone a piece of gold, only to be told it was shit.
Bill Gates didn't want to invest in Nvidia; using an anti-aircraft gun to shoot mosquitoes was just one reason. The most crucial point was that the current Nvidia was indeed unimpressive.
This company was too small; the graphics cards developed in two years were very ordinary and simply couldn't compare to other graphics card manufacturers.
In such a situation, everyone was afraid of their investment going down the drain.
After synthesizing all the information and trying other non-equity-selling fundraising efforts, Jensen Huang and the other two partners finally gritted their teeth:
Fine.
No matter how you look at it, Pokémon is the best.
Generous, not only providing ample funds but also offering inspiration.
What's more, Pokémon is a game company, and the 3D shooting game it will make in the future will surely spark a 3D craze.
By then, the world will know—
We are not using an anti-aircraft gun to shoot mosquitoes.
The most advanced technology needs to be matched with the most advanced applications for you to realize how magical it is.
Moreover, if they didn't agree to Pokémon, they would invest in a competitor.
Then it would become someone else's graphics card paired with Pokémon's 3D shooting game.
Considering everything, Nvidia had no chance of winning, and it was unrealistic to find a game development company to make 3D shooting game at this time.
So in the end, they still agreed to Aoki Haruhi's proposal.
With this matter settled, Aoki Haruhi's worries were also relieved.
After reaching an agreement, the remaining matters were handed over to the company's business department for processing.
Coincidentally, Aoki Haruhi also had a subsidiary in the United States, and having gone through the process before, he had experience, so the subsequent handling would be very fast.
...
Having dealt with Nvidia, Aoki Haruhi returned to Japan with HR-chan.
Upon returning to the company, Aoki Haruhi first assigned tasks, then gathered the core members of The Border project in the meeting room.
He explained the situation and then happily patted Akanishi Ken on the shoulder.
"The 3D graphics card is settled. I estimate that by this time next year, we'll see what the new graphics card looks like.
We'll strive to develop this 3D shooting game by the year after next.
Keep up the good work, everyone!"
Akanishi Ken could only nod, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Good heavens, to develop a shooting game, you directly invested in a chip company. President, do you have to be so ruthless?
Can't you just let us off?
However, the good news is that all of this depends on the completion of the graphics card, so Akanishi Ken can temporarily not worry about The Border game for the next one to two years.
...
The good news is that the graphics card is settled, and the game can be developed.
The bad news is that graphics card development will take one to two years, so the game is temporarily on hold.
Thus, Shinji Mikami and Gen Urobuchi's work freed up.
Urobuchi Gen was stimulated by Maeda Jun last time, and during this period, he was single-mindedly trying to create something big, but he was forcibly pulled by Aoki Haruhi to work on The Border midway, so he didn't have time to think about a new project proposal.
Now that things were finally back on track, Gen Urobuchi was overjoyed.
"Hmm, what theme should I write for the next game?"
...
Regarding the new game, Aoki Haruhi also started to get anxious.
Whether it made money or not was secondary; the main thing was not to leave it idle.
Currently, Pokémon has two game pending release: one is pokémon 3d world.
The bugs are pretty much converging now.
It is expected to be released in July this year.
The other is Eternal Ashes, developed by the subsidiary in the United States. Aoki Haruhi had read the report and experienced it firsthand; it was indeed a good DND-type strategy turn-based roguelike game.
It's quite interesting, and the gambling attribute is fully exploited, allowing you to enjoy the feeling of dopamine rising infinitely.
An unstoppable gambling experience.
Aoki Haruhi is very optimistic about this game and hopes it will achieve good results in the United States. The company will preheat Eternal Ashes for the next two months, hoping this game can achieve a good start.
As for the projects under development?
They are a bit stretched.
diablo 3 is under development, but due to hardware limitations, it certainly can't meet Aoki Haruhi's expectations for diablo 3, so it can only be considered a 2.5 evolution.
Fortunately, this series of game is very stable and is continuously being developed; there won't be any major problems in two to three years.
Then there's the Pokémon series. After pokémon 3d world is released, it can develop into multiple branches in the future. Some project members will be extracted to specifically follow up on future Pokémon 3D products, while another part of the project staff will continue to develop sequels to the Pokémon main body.
These are all traceable and within the plan.
As for the others...
There are none for now.
Initially, the idea was to develop a 3D shooting game for PC without relying on a 3D graphics card, but now The Border is also on hold.
Aoki Haruhi hopes Gen Urobuchi will release the witcher 2 soon.
But this guy seems to be lacking inspiration lately.
So he can only wait a bit longer.
As for Maeda Jun...
Hmm...
How about making another galgame?
...
Thinking of this, Aoki Haruhi called Maeda Jun to his office.
"President, is there anything you need?"
"Maeda, it's been a while since the last LL release ended. Do you have any new game you'd like to make?"
"Hmm? Well..." Maeda Jun scratched his head, "Lately, I've been studying game production, playing other competing products, and reading books, but I always feel that writing a work that surpasses CL and LL is still too difficult."
Honestly, this period has been incredibly tough.
Maeda Jun had fallen into a predicament of "running out of ideas."
As a script Author, he certainly still wanted to write new game storylines, but—
No matter how he tried, he either easily fell back into the "family mindset" of CL and LL.
Or he always felt it wasn't good enough, unable to surpass his previous works.
With CL and LL as previous masterpieces, the pressure to develop a new game was simply too great.
This was not only pressure Maeda Jun put on himself but also pressure from the players.
Precisely because two divine works exploded last year, players are very much looking forward to Maeda Jun's next work, hoping it can continue the combination of "Furuhara Tsubaki" + "Maeda Jun" + "Hayao Miyazaki."
Under such pressure, this poor child, Maeda Jun, would even fall into the nightmare of "endlessly coding" at night.
Waking up terrified, only to find his mind completely blank, was even more frightening.
Developing a divine work is not difficult; the difficulty lies in continuously developing divine works.
Especially bearing the expectations of players and wanting to constantly surpass oneself, it's truly too difficult.
Maeda Jun expressed that it's not that he doesn't want to, but that he truly can't do it!
...
It's quite difficult.
Aoki Haruhi frowned, saying he found it difficult just thinking about it.
Otherwise, why would Maeda Jun's previous life go downhill after CL?
But the Key company trilogy, although the others didn't reach CL's level of divinity, they were still very good!
Now only one CL has been made.
"Keep going," Aoki Haruhi said, "You can try writing first, and if you have new ideas, communicate with me in time. The game still needs to continue developing."
Maybe this time Maeda can write AIR?
Or ANGEL BEATS would also be fine.
In fact, in Aoki Haruhi's opinion, the AB animation is not bad at all, and it even created a super popular emotionless character like Tachibana Kanade, successfully allowing Kana to shine brightly.
Moreover, the work itself has a certain depth and meaning; if adapted into a game, it might be made even more delicate and moving.
"Yes, President."
With the President's encouragement, Maeda Jun seemed to gain a little motivation.
"By the way, President, I see that Urobuchi and Miyazaki have been reading berserk recently. Is it possible to find some inspiration from it?"
Maeda Jun asked curiously, "Otherwise, I'll also..."
"Don't!"
Aoki Haruhi quickly interrupted him, "Your path is different from theirs. Please don't be influenced by berserk. One Urobuchi is enough. Maeda, your advantage lies in being yourself."
Oh my goodness!
A Maeda Jun who draws inspiration from berserk...
Aoki Haruhi couldn't even imagine it.
Are you saying the knives you've dealt aren't cruel enough?
berserk is only suitable for Authors like Urobuchi Gen, who are a bit dark, even a bit twisted, right?
Maeda, you still need to aspire to light and warmth.
"And I really need you and Urobuchi to write game works with different feelings and experiences, do you understand?"
"Oh, so that's how it is."
Maeda Jun nodded.
However, this made him even more curious about berserk.
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