Adachi City, Atlas Technical Development Department.
When Kobayashi Tetsu arrived, Matsuoka Satoshi was frowning deeply, showing little sign of joy.
"Well?" Kobayashi Tetsu pressed. "I heard you've made a breakthrough."
Matsuoka Satoshi stood up to greet him. "It's not so much a breakthrough as it is following in someone else's footsteps. Konami has a chip used in their game cartridges to enhance visual effects. Since this technology is already in use, the Technical Development Department spent some time testing a similar approach."
Matsuoka Satoshi held up an unmarked engineering chip.
"You can think of this as a Konami-equivalent product. If installed in a cartridge, it can drastically improve visual performance, add dynamic effects, and even increase the number of colors displayed. The only drawback is that it's too expensive. I just ran the numbers with Iwata-kun, and if we use this chip, the cartridge price would have to double at minimum to ensure a profit."
Kobayashi Tetsu fell silent instantly.
This price is truly excessive.
If the cartridge price needs to double just to break even, it means the production cost of the enhanced chip will be at least equal to that price increase.
If a cartridge originally priced at 6,480 Yen needs to be raised to 12,960 Yen to turn a profit, it implies the production cost of the chip alone reaches 6,480 Yen.
This price might be acceptable if the performance was truly impressive, but the cost is simply too high. Moreover, if the cartridge price becomes too expensive, players won't be able to accept it, which would hurt sales.
"If we could find a suitable foundry... Speaking of which, what is TSMC up to these days?"
Kobayashi Tetsu pondered for a moment, then shook his head inwardly.
TSMC already existed, but its scale was still too small. More importantly, they hadn't reached the point where they could offer flexible, custom foundry services.
Crucially, Japan had its own foundries of this scale. There was no need to specifically seek out TSMC, especially since their prices weren't any lower than those of domestic Japanese foundries.
"Let's set the price aside for now," Kobayashi Tetsu said. "Can you show me the display effects?"
They had already prepared for this. In fact, it was only after testing the demo that they had called Kobayashi Tetsu.
Soon, Kobayashi saw the test program he had requested. On a simple 2D scene, grass and trees seemed to sway in the wind. Yet, this wasn't a pre-rendered animation; it was a swaying effect rendered in real-time by the hardware.
Konami had used an enhanced chip in their own version of Contra, which is why the Japanese version's graphics were far superior to the American one.
Seeing this effect, Kobayashi's first thought was that it was similar to the chip used in Contra. The only difference was that Konami's chip was a proprietary design, while the one before him was developed in-house by Atlas.
Matsuoka Satoshi explained, "To put it simply, we used a method similar to Konami's, but with some key differences. To achieve this effect, we create two different sets of assets for the same scene. The hardware then fills in the path between them, creating the illusion of swaying grass and trees."
Kobayashi Tetsu raised his hand.
The man kept babbling on, and Kobayashi couldn't understand a single word. The only thing he could be sure of was that the effect was excellent, but the price was too high, making it impossible to implement in the game right now. However, since the specific technical details differed from Konami's, he didn't have to worry about being accused of stealing their technology.
"What a shame," Kobayashi thought, shaking his head inwardly. "If only we could bring the cost down."
But he couldn't change the course of hardware development. All he could do was instruct Matsuoka Satoshi to keep working on it, hoping to find a way to lower the price.
This wasn't something that could be solved just by "calling out to brothers"—it required a massive investment of funds, time, and effort.
"Does the Technical Development Department still have enough funding? I'll transfer another three billion yen from the Atlas headquarters. Don't worry about the money; the focus is on the results. If you run out of funds, report to headquarters immediately."
Building a skyscraper isn't nearly as fun as developing technology!
"I'm planning to add a small plugin to the Persona Engine to implement a procedurally generated map. Is that possible to achieve right now?"
Matsuoka Satoshi's head snapped up.
"That is possible, but with the current hardware's capabilities, randomly generated maps would require some loading time. This could affect the gameplay experience, and players might mistake it for lag. As for a solution, perhaps—we could address it at the hardware level. By adding a coprocessor to assist with the game's calculations and offload some of the Mega Drive's internal processing, we could improve loading speeds. In terms of cost, it would be much cheaper than the enhancement chips we're currently using."
"The Z80 coprocessor, which is already being used in handhelds and arcade platforms, was developed back in 1976. Its price has dropped significantly by now. If we include it in the cartridge, the production cost would increase by about a quarter, and the retail price would need to be adjusted accordingly."
Kobayashi Tetsu quickly did the math.
Currently, the production cost of a cartridge is around 1,200 yen. A twenty-five percent increase would bring it to 1,600 yen—a cost that was still within an acceptable range.
Based on current cartridge sales trends, a cartridge with a production cost of 1,600 yen would need a retail price of around 5,800 yen to ensure that the developer, publisher, and retailer all received their respective shares of the profit.
Even after accounting for the cash flow issues caused by the increased production costs, Kobayashi Tetsu still found the price acceptable.
"Let's go with this plan," he decided. "The Technical Development Department will create a small plugin to enable random map generation on the Persona Engine. This will then be processed by the cartridge's onboard chip to ensure a smoother experience."
As Kobayashi Tetsu left, a lingering sense of regret remained.
If only we could bring the price down, he thought. We could have used the graphics-enhancing chip for Persona.
After all, a chip costing five or six thousand yen was simply too expensive for a cartridge to bear. The capital required to cover such a cost would be astronomical.
The Technical Development Department worked with impressive speed.
Before the New Year, Kobayashi Tetsu received the floppy disk containing the new program. With this tool, they could now generate random maps.
The Megami Group tested the feature, and the randomly generated maps were generally satisfactory. While they lacked the meticulous detail of hand-crafted levels, they were perfectly suitable for the random tower-climbing segments, ensuring that entrances and exits were connected and monster placements were appropriate.
This ensured players wouldn't spawn at the starting point only to find the exit blocked by a door that could only be opened from the other side.
"Let's give the media one last update on our development progress before the New Year. At least let everyone know we haven't run off with the money—the game's still in the works!"
After finalizing the arrangements, Kobayashi Tetsu took the day's newspaper from Takamine Aika.
His eyes swept over the pages, seeing nothing but the usual headlines: stocks rising, markets booming, and new skyscrapers being built.
Suddenly, his gaze locked onto a side page.
"Tragedy! Intel of the USA has developed the new 80486 chip, surpassing all Japanese semiconductor companies. The first batch of 80486-powered devices is now in use—"
Kobayashi Tetsu shot to his feet.
The 80486 was the processor later known as the 486. At this time, no Japanese semiconductor company could produce a chip of comparable specifications.
Of course, Kobayashi Tetsu wasn't going to buy the 486. He had simply realized something else from this situation.
It meant that Japanese semiconductor companies would have to start lowering the prices of their chips, or else they would lose the consumer market. Consequently, the price of the wafers used to produce these chips would also change.
In other words...
This meant the production cost of the chips developed by the Technical Development Department could be reduced!
Kobayashi Tetsu considered that as long as the production cost of the enhanced chip could be controlled around 2,000 yen, he would grit his teeth and push through with producing this enhanced cartridge, even if it meant taking a loss.
Because what he wanted was to use the performance of Persona to prove the upper limits of the Persona Engine, and thereby launch the Persona Engine to fame in one fell swoop!
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