A soft knock on the door stopped their talk, Sherry, Duke's new assistant, stepped in.
"Excuse the interruption, Mr. Hauser," Sherry said, giving him a note. "This message came through the line. The caller insisted it was of importance to your current investments."
She stood by patiently as Duke picked up the note and unfolded it.
Duke read the brief sentence, as a small smile crossed his face.
"Thank you, Sherry," Duke said.
He dismissed her with a polite nod but before she left, she siad. "Mr. Valenti has been apparently waited outside of your Office for your arrivel. He seems intent on talking."
Turned back to Nolan, holding up the paper. "Barry Diller left a message. It seems he has found his next stage. He's joining Twentieth Century Fox as CEO."
The news was significant.
Marvin Davis, a billionaire oilman from Denver, along with commodities trader Marc Rich, were acquiring Fox, the film studio and needed a proven executive.
"They're backing Barry," Duke elaborated. "He's going to step in as Chairman and CEO. It's a good move."
Nolan raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair and fidgeting with the Game&Watch.
"Diller? The same guy who left Paramount when the FTC came knocking?" Nolan shook his head. "The... man knows how to find a lifeboat before the ship takes on water."
Duke shrugged. "He's not our or well, my enemy, if anything he's just ambitious. He saw an opportunity to run his own studio with private backing and took it."
Duke let out a short laugh. He pointed to the messy stack of unauthorized video game photos.
"Maybe Barry wants to enter the video game industry as a third-party developer. We could have Fox producing cartridges soon enough."
Nolan rolled his eyes, and shook his drink of water. "I'd love to see that. Barry Diller trying to negotiate royalty rates."
Duke shifted his posture. "We still need more legitimate third-party developers," Duke stated. "We need more quality games."
Normally, hardware manufacturers believed they had to create all the software.
But Atari was aiming to be the definitive platform.
Not the sole content provider.
So they needed to foster a thriving community of external programmers.
"The math is simple," Duke explained. He counted on his fingers. "The more developers we bring into our tent, the more games hit the shelves."
"The more good games on the shelves, the morr units we sell. With our costumer base growing then attracts even more developers. It's a virtuous cycle of growth."
The key was stringent quality control. Consumers needed a reliable way to distinguish a masterpiece from a... rushed product.
Duke shook his head, remembering the release of Wolverine in his past life. 'The PS5 deserved more fraud allegations. Too many remakes.'
Nolan brought out a stack of magazines and dropped them on the coffee table. They showed wiring diagrams, Circuit boards, Step-by-step instructions. Computer Stuff.
"These are hobbyist magazines," Nolan said, tapping one of the covers. "They're printing schematics. And showing readers how to reverse-engineer the Atari cartridge slot."
"How to burn their own chips and bypass the lockout hardware entirely."
Duke picked one up and flipped through it in disbelief. It was a full guide for building unauthorized cartridges. Printed in something sold on newsstands.
"Is this legal?" Duke asked. He looked up at Nolan, genuinely surprised.
Nolan shrugged. "Technically? Maybe. The magazines are small operations. Mom-and-pop publishers. If we sue them, they'll just declare bankruptcy."
"Fold up, dissapear for a while and then just start over again. We spend a fortune on lawyers and get nothing back. No damages nor precedent. Just...bad press."
Duke rubbed his temples, as he stared at the ceiling.
Wondering why the universe couldn't just let him relax for one Sunday afternoon.
'How do Superheroes even have time to do superhero shit while working?'
For him, his superhero shit was creative work.
Even despite taking 'inspiration' from works from his past life, he still found it fascinating to add more details to things, or changing stuff.
He scratched his slight shadow of a beard, as he remembered for a moment reading a comic about a Green Lantern(Kyle Rayner) who despite working as a freelance, couldn't pay rent after he focused on doing his superhero stuff.
The Green Lantern, Kyle went to work around Hollywood and ended up fighting against an executive using AI of past Constructs to fight.
At the end of the story, Kyle wins by creating something new using his creativity to defeat his opponent who cant.
In his past life, Atari had suffered, mostly cause of bad leadership, lack of quality and bad lawsuits.
Under his leadership, Atari had avoided attacking 'regular' people too much.
After all, despite the fact this people were sending each other schematics... Most of them were fans who just wanted to do Videogames.
He didnt want to end up making Bill Gates's, 'An Open Letter to Hobbyist' 2.0.
When he was in High school, Pokémon Uranium, a fan-made game in development for nine years was nominated for Best Fan Creation at The Game Awards 2016.
But shortly after, it was quietly removed from The Game Awards nominee list.
Most people were under the belief that Nintendo did it.
"We should focus on making the official seal mean something," Duke insisted.
"If we can't legally stop the rogue cartridge makers from reverse-engineering the boards, we can at least make the official ones feel more valuable."
Maybe in the next generation they could focus on making the lockdown chip better, until then, it was better to establish the Official Seal.
"We'll offer a quality guarantee for official cartridges," Duke continued.
"We can also undercut their budget titles by offering official re-releases of our older catalog," Duke suggested. "Package our classic hits in a budget-friendly box. And sell them for cheap."
"If a consumer has to choose between a proven game for 10 dollars or an unknown knockoff for the same price... they'll pick the official product, surely."
Having settled the immediate response, Duke reached across the table.
Picking up the Game&Watch again. The stick figure waiting for him to continue.
He looked at the tiny LCD screen. "Nintendo is a threat," Duke said.
"They're small right now. But focusing on these novelties that are innovative they will take a part of the market."
"We need to expand our research and development budgets," Duke continued. He inwardly decided to go check on the Star Wars pre-production affairs.
"We need a portable console, a true system that takes small cartridges."
Nolan nodded slowly. Developing a Handheld with interchangeable software would require microprocessors, battery tech, screen manufacturing.
"That's a big investment," Nolan pointed out. "We're talking tens of millions in R&D before we even see a prototype."
"I know," Duke said gently. He understood the financial weight, but mostly didnt care.
"But the technology is getting smaller every day. If we don't make the investment and build the Handheld, someone else will."
__
Currently finishing another chapter for today