After a few casual words, Kobayashi Tetsu reached a cooperation agreement with Koei. Atlas would publish Koei's games, while Koei would loan a group of artists to Atlas.
It was called a "loan," but they wouldn't be returned once borrowed.
Basically, it was just like something borrowed by Jackie Chan—things borrowed were never returned.
Beyond that, Kobayashi Tetsu also expressed a willingness to buy shares in Koei. However, unlike the situation with Capcom, this would only be a shareholder stake, not a controlling one.
This came as a pleasant surprise to Yoichi Koei and his wife, who immediately agreed without issue.
After a brief tour of the Koei office, Kobayashi Tetsu took his leave.
To be honest, Kobayashi Tetsu really didn't want to hold a controlling stake in Koei.
Koei's main business was historical simulation games, and these types of strategy games were always thankless tasks. The games took a massive amount of effort to produce, but the revenue was often unsatisfactory, and they were also very easy to offend people with.
Koei had thousands of employees, and Nintendo had thousands of employees, but Koei's thousands and Nintendo's thousands were simply not the same concept.
The most profitable strategy games are Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games, because they are better suited for online multiplayer systems and much easier to turn into online service games.
Take the Paradox games that Kobayashi Tetsu has encountered: the combined lifetime sales of their best-selling titles, including Hearts of Iron IV, Europa Universalis IV, Stellaris, Cities: Skylines, and Victoria, don't even add up to the monthly revenue of League of Legends.
They don't even compare to the revenue of Dota 2.
—They don't even compare to StarCraft.
StarCraft is a multiplayer game, not an online service game. It seriously lacks the monetization hooks of a modern online game, yet it still makes far more money than games like Hearts of Iron. Plus, you can watch "Big Brother" cross-dress while playing StarCraft.
Paradox not only fails to make much money, but they don't even get any good will; a minor tweak to a country and they get cursed out, both domestically and internationally. Their home in Sweden seems perpetually on the verge of either a Great Purge or a Great Flood.
And this is the result produced by a top-tier global strategy game development company. One can only imagine the state of smaller companies with less development capability.
Therefore, Tetsu Kobayashi would never get involved in that circle. He might spend some money to help Koei improve the Dynasty Warriors series, or even develop some titles that would later emerge from the Koei Tecmo merger, such as Ninja Gaiden or Nioh, but Tetsu Kobayashi would absolutely never step into the deep pit of historical simulation strategy games. Balancing interests is something for Koei to handle themselves; Tetsu Kobayashi chooses role-playing and action-adventure games, which are easier to build a reputation with and guaranteed to have strong sales. In the future, he might even join the ranks of shooter game developers.
"Speaking of which, what is Tecmo doing now?" Standing on the street, Tetsu Kobayashi thought for a moment before slapping his forehead. He had almost forgotten about Tecmo. Luckily, Tecmo hadn't taken off yet, so he could just buy them out! At the Atlas office. When Yuji Naka arrived at work in the morning, he found a young man he didn't recognize in the office. "Hiss—" Yuji Naka was puzzled.
Who is this? A new employee? Yuji Naka thought carefully and was suddenly shocked. Oh no! Maybe this is another guy here to steal the whiteboard! It wasn't that Yuji Naka was boasting, but in all of Atlas, he was the only one who could handle the whiteboard!
Whoever dares to touch Atlas's whiteboard, Yuji Naka will fight him to the death!
"Ahem, hmph!"
Yuji Naka cleared his throat emphatically. The young man turned his face around, recognized Yuji Naka, and hurriedly bowed.
"You must be Mr. Yuji Naka! I've seen you on television. After Sonic was released, you were called 'God's Left Hand'."
Yuji Naka felt instantly gratified.
His attitude toward the young man in front of him improved significantly.
"That's me," Yuji Naka nodded, saying, "Are you a new hire brought in by Kunio Taki?"
"Well——I suppose so," the young man introduced himself. "I'm Hideo Yoshizawa. President Kobayashi recruited me."
Yuji Naka: ?
Hideo Yoshizawa said, "Actually, come to think of it, I was originally working in Tokyo at a company you might not have heard of, called Tecmo. Not long ago, President Kobayashi visited Tecmo, and after negotiations, decided that Tecmo would be merged into Atlas. Thinking that everyone is in Tokyo anyway, I came to Atlas to say hello first."
Yuji Naka took a deep breath.
No wonder he hadn't seen Tetsu Kobayashi these past few days; so he had gone out to "buy sushi" again.
"Tecmo?"
Yuji Naka thought for a moment.
"Now that you mention it, I actually do have an impression!" "I know you guys, aren't you a logistics company? When I was a kid, someone said they used Tecmo Express to send a box of fruit to my house, and I still haven't received it to this day!" Naka Yuji feigned anger and joked, "Compensate me with a box of watermelons!"
Hideo Yoshizawa laughed along. "We were indeed a logistics company before, and later we tried our hand at the property business, but things didn't go very well. Currently, Tecmo's yacht management work is quite stable, but the game development business has already been bought by President Kobayashi." As they were talking, the glass door pushed open and Kobayashi Tetsu walked in. Naka Yuji immediately stood at attention.
"Good morning, President!" "Mm, good morning." Kobayashi Tetsu glanced at Hideo Yoshizawa, looking a bit surprised: "Yoshizawa-kun, you're here early?" "Yes. Since I've been living in Tokyo, and I thought I didn't have much to do, I decided to come to Atlas for a visit."
Hideo Yoshizawa turned to Kobayashi Tetsu and bowed deeply. Kobayashi Tetsu introduced him to Yuji Naka and the others, saying casually: "This is Hideo Yoshizawa-kun. He's a producer who joined Tecmo, and he has also developed some works there; he's quite capable. Since you're here, it's perfect timing. Come with me to my office.
" Yoshizawa agreed and followed Kobayashi. Yuji Naka couldn't help but sigh with emotion. Phew. That scared the life out of him! He thought someone had come to steal his whiteboard, but it turned out to just be newly bought sushi! Yoshizawa entered the office, feeling somewhat nervous when facing Kobayashi. Tecmo's game business hadn't been running for very long, and although they had some titles, they hadn't achieved much.
The parent company's operations were also just average, so Kobayashi had bought out Tecmo's game development division directly from the parent company. Coming from a mediocre company to Atlas, Yoshizawa was still quite nervous. Of course, what made him even more nervous was: *** Kobayashi actually designated him to lead a team to develop a game! "Yoshizawa-kun, please, have a seat." Kobayashi pressed a button.
Kobayashi Tetsu actually designated him to lead the team in developing the game! "Yoshizawa-kun, please, sit down." Kobayashi Tetsu casually pressed a button. Just as Hideo Yoshizawa was wondering in surprise, Noriyoshi Ohba came jogging in from outside, holding two cans of cola. Hideo Yoshizawa: ———— He thought it was a nuclear launch button! The two of them each pointed to a cola. Kobayashi Tetsu said, "Tell me about that idea of yours from before, and then we'll discuss your future arrangements in detail." Hideo Yoshizawa nodded: "It's like this. Currently, there are many ninja games in Japan, but I believe those ninja games have become cliché and aren't popular enough overseas. As the Japanese game market expands abroad, I actually have a few immature ideas on how to create a novel ninja game that foreigners will like.
" "This game tells the story of a ninja with a heavy mission, shuttling between modern skyscrapers, cutting down enemies, and fulfilling his duty. I plan to call this game, Ninja Biography!"
Ninja Biography, that is, Ninja Gaiden. In Japanese Kanji, it is written as: 忍者龍劍傳 (Ninja Ryūken Den).
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