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Chapter 140: EA Joins and Bandai’s Dilemma
🕑 Added 2025-10-16 09:47:39 +0000 UTCAcross the Pacific, San Mateo, California. Trip Hawkins, EA’s founder and CEO, exuding Silicon Valley swagger, welcomed Sega’s American chairman, David Rosen, into his office. “David, congrats.” Hawkins gestured to a fax on his desk—North America’s first-week sales report. “250,000 units. Impressive.”
Beside the report sat a half-disassembled Genesis console, chips and circuits neatly arranged like an unfinished surgery. Rosen glanced at it, unfazed. “Looks like you’ve done our quality check.”
“Habit,” Hawkins leaned back, hands crossed. “Motorola 68000—a great CPU. Our engineers love it. But you’re not here to talk hardware.”
“I’m offering a market bigger than the Amiga,” Rosen said steadily. “We sold 250,000 consoles in North America. Add Japan and Europe, that’s nearly 900,000—households craving new games. Nintendo’s sports titles? Pale compared to EA’s.”
Hawkins raised an eyebrow at “900,000,” urging Rosen to continue. “You talked to Nintendo. High royalties, strict censorship, no cartridge production control,” Rosen pressed. “To them, you’re just a content supplier. To Sega, you’re a partner.”
“Partner?” Hawkins echoed, a wry smile forming. “How sincere is this ‘partnership’?”
“No forced content reviews, just legal compliance. Lower royalties, flexible cartridge production,” Rosen paused, offering a tailored lure. “It’s the Seoul Olympics year. The world’s eyes are on sports. Who’s America’s top sports game maker? EA. Imagine an EA Sports-branded Olympic game as a Genesis flagship, promoted across America and Japan. We could co-sponsor as the Olympics’ official video game partner. Think back to LA ’84—ads on global TV screens. The exposure, the sales.”
Hawkins’ smile faded, replaced by a merchant’s calculation. A powerful platform, a growing user base, a flexible partner, and perfect timing—porting EA’s PC sports games to Genesis, with shared Amiga architecture, would be low-cost and fast. “Another platform’s always good,” he said, shifting to negotiation. “But we need Sega’s marketing at full throttle—top priority.”
“Of course,” Rosen replied. “*EA Olympics*, or whatever you call it, will share the spotlight with *Pokémon*.”
Hawkins stood, gazing at California’s sunlight. The choice was obvious—refusal would be foolish. He turned, extending his hand. “Our engineers will need overtime. David, pleasure working with you.”
Rosen gripped firmly. “Welcome aboard, Trip.”
Tokyo, Bandai’s headquarters. Makoto Yamashina slid the MD sales report across the polished table to Chuta Mitsui. Though executives knew the figures through grapevines, the detailed internal document hit harder.
“Speak,” Yamashina broke the silence, leaning back, hands crossed, scanning his team.
Mitsui swallowed, eyeing the “global first-week sales, nearly 900,000” figure. “Konami confirmed Hayao Nakayama visited personally. Their terms—very generous.”
“Generous?” the development head, a balding middle-aged man, grimaced. “President, Vice President Mitsui, we know our limits. We’re still fumbling with Famicom development. Last year’s *Saint Seiya* game? Players nearly blew up our phones with complaints. Jumping to MD? That’s not development—it’s burning cash.”
The marketing head snapped back, “Burning cash? There’s a goldmine out there! 900,000 consoles and climbing—almost matching PC Engine’s half-year total! Hesitate now, and we’re stuck with Nintendo’s profit squeeze.”
“With what?” the development head threw up his hands. “That *Super Robot Wars* Sega sent six months ago? That’s not our game. They handed us the framework, engine, and code—just swap in Gundam models. We did skin-deep work. The profit? More like Sega’s labor fee!”
His bluntness sparked stifled coughs and awkward shifts. Mitsui tapped the table, refocusing attention. “True, it was a reskin. But,” he lifted a financial report, “that ‘labor fee,’ minus licensing, outdid any Nintendo game’s profit margin last year. Sega’s royalties and production fees are low, and they offset some licensing costs. Nintendo? Yamauchi’s leash still chokes us.”
He paused, voice turning sly. “Why did Sega gift us that framework? They want our ties to Sunrise and Toei’s anime IPs. They’ve got tech; we’ve got ‘robots,’ ‘tokusatsu,’ ‘Gundam.’ MD’s rising—do we cling to Famicom, sipping scraps from Nintendo’s pot with our goldmine IPs?”
His words stirred the room. Bandai’s strength wasn’t game tech but its grip on anime and tokusatsu IPs that enthralled Japan’s youth. On Famicom, Nintendo’s cuts and hardware limits produced lackluster games even Bandai found embarrassing.
Yamashina, silent until now, leaned forward, eyeing the development head. “Who pitched the ‘robot’ project last time?”
“President Nakayama’s son, Takuya,” the head replied.
“Did he offer anything beyond ‘reskinning’?”
The head paused, recalling. “He said Sega has mature dev kits and support teams to solve issues. For originals, they’d even send engineers to co-build projects.”
Silence fell. The offer wasn’t just partnership—it was hand-holding. Yamashina’s knuckles tapped the table—tap, tap. “Mitsui-san.”
“Yes.”
“Set a meeting with President Nakayama. No, with Takuya Nakayama,” Yamashina decided. “Tell him Bandai’s very interested in MD. And ask if we can join their limited-edition console plans.”
