Development Plan

Tomo Hiroshi is a salesman at a well-known circuit board manufacturing factory in Tokyo.

In the previous years, their company's performance was very good.

Orders flew in almost as crazily as snowflakes.

At that time, Japan's national economy was changing rapidly, much like riding a rocket.

At the same time, the demand for a high standard of living was becoming increasingly strong.

This led to the rapid expansion of industries such as personal computers, televisions, and mobile phones.

Moreover, the technological level in this parallel world was equivalent to that of ten years ahead of Takayuki's previous life in the 1990s, and small mobile phones were already popular. In this era, various types of flip phones could be seen everywhere.

Naturally, companies specializing in the production of various product circuit boards would also thrive, making profits hand over fist.

Tomo Hiroshi's family thus moved towards the middle class in this manner.

However, these good times did not last long.

Although the technology was ten years ahead, history remained unchanged.

The Japanese bubble that occurred on Earth in Takayuki's previous life also erupted during the same period in this world.

From that moment on, there was widespread misery among the people.

They were no longer obsessed with high consumption and began to tighten their belts.

In the past, personal computers, high-end televisions, mobile phones, and other products were no longer necessities.

The profitability of circuit board manufacturing companies also began to plummet, relying only on a small number of orders from high-end automated machinery to sustain themselves.

The rise had been rapid in the past, but now the fall was just as rapid.

As a salesman, he was also struggling to survive.

Thanks to Japan's lifetime employment system, he still had a decent job. Moreover, his family was relatively conservative, without reckless investments, and hadn't been hit too hard by the bubble burst, making them one of the luckier families among many.

However, the demand for high-end consumer goods was decreasing among the public, and electronics were becoming increasingly dispensable.

Even with the lifetime employment system binding him, his current salary was pitifully low, barely enough to maintain the basic needs of his family.

Especially recently, the superiors had been relentlessly assigning them order tasks. Failure to complete them would result in kneeling down and enduring four hours of the superior's furious scolding.

His pressure was immense now, and only seeing his happy children and considerate wife at home could somewhat improve his mood, making him understand that enduring humiliation and scolding at work was worth it.

So even though the situation was relatively dire now, he would try to save some money to buy things his children liked, just to see their smiling faces.

However, today his child suddenly said he wanted something new, and it seemed to be related to television.

The salesman, tortured by his superiors for nearly a week, couldn't help but start thinking.

"Come, son, tell me specifically what's going on, what are those little people doing on TV?"

Hearing that his father seemed very interested, Tomo's son became even happier.

It seemed that Dad could fulfill his request again this time!

"Dad, it's like this..."

At this moment, Takayuki and Sayuri had been running around outside for over a week, basically exploring all the nearby parks.

Takayuki actually wanted to explore more parks, but it seemed that they had caught the attention of the police department yesterday. They were warned not to set up stalls casually; if they wanted to do so, they had to go to designated flea markets.

So their plan to continue promoting the game had to be temporarily suspended.

However, after visiting so many places, electronic games had already begun to spread among the children.

It even brought with it some urban legends.

This had basically met Takayuki's requirements, so he changed his mindset, prepared for the next plan, which was to try to recruit more people and see if he could find a company that made electrical appliances to try making some first-generation red-and-white game consoles.

Takayuki couldn't help but sigh that his timing was just right. He had caught the last train where small electronic product workshops could get rich quickly.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Jobs assembled a personal computer with another person in his garage, and Nintendo manufactured the first prototype of the red-and-white machine with only three or four people.

Even Bill Gates, at the age of 13, learned Basic programming language and was able to earn thousands of dollars with just two people.

If this were in the 2000s, it would be impossible to develop without forming a research and development manufacturing team of hundreds of people.

The myth of getting rich quickly was also becoming increasingly scarce.

The red-and-white machine in front of him had some experience from Takayuki's previous life, coupled with his own Basic language knowledge that was rare in his previous life. He managed to cobble together a simple game system and had an employee with decent knowledge in electronics and appliances, so they managed to piece it together, albeit barely.

Of course, this was mainly because the requirements of the game console system itself were much simpler than those of personal computers, and it could be assembled without such complex knowledge.

But to develop further, it was simply impossible with just this prototype.

He needed to produce more game consoles, or at least manufacture a batch that could be used in arcades.

"Takayuki, what are you doing?"

Sayuri, who could finally take a break, felt like she was dreaming these past two days.

Her salary was paid every day, and she only needed to check the prototype for any flaws every day.

Now, she was curious as she sipped juice through a straw and looked at the computer screen in front of Takayuki.

"I'm working on a business plan."

"A business plan? Are you finally planning to sell products? Let me tell you, this thing is very popular with children; it will definitely sell well!"

"It's hard to say," Takayuki shook his head.

In this world, although there weren't any competitors with strong competitiveness, the other entertainment industries in this world were quite formidable, attracting the attention of the majority. Takayuki couldn't guarantee that he could easily draw these people away from their original entertainment industries to play their games.

So he had to try his best to make the game attractive.

First of all, he had to simplify and reduce the difficulty while enhancing the fun.

In the early years, games under the red-and-white machine were generally quite difficult.

If compared to the large-scale games of the later 21st century, the games of the red-and-white machine era would probably be equivalent to the difficulty level of later games. This was not to mention nightmare-level games like Devil's Village, which were simply unplayable.

"Isn't it hard to say? But I see those children playing games happily, and actually, I've been playing recently too."

When she had nothing to do these past two days, Sayuri finally remembered to try Super Mario.

After all, she had helped make it, so she had to experience it at least once.

And then, she quickly became addicted.