Console Wars (2015)

PART FOUR

CIVIL WAR

44.

CRAZY LIKE A FOX

As “A Whole New World” melodically played from the speakers scattered around Disney’s Vegas-based Agrabah, Nintendo’s Tony Harman couldn’t help but agree with the message behind the theme song from the movie Aladdin. It was a whole new world indeed, he thought as he watched footage from the game. So much of what Sega released was just well-packaged junk, but this game right here was an absolute gem.

What made Sega’s Aladdin different from the Capcom/SNES version was that it had been built with a new style of graphics called digicel animation. This breakthrough, created by Virgin’s David Perry and Neil Young, enabled hand-drawn film cells to be directly scanned into development software. As a result, they were able to work directly with Disney’s animators, and had access to over 250,000 cells from the movie throughout the development process. Harman was awed by the final product, which looked and felt like it was controlling the protagonist from an animated film. Despite his mortal dislike of Sega, and his belief that with only twelve levels its lasting interest was limited, he had to admit that this was a game-changer. Just one man’s opinion, of course, but Harman’s ability to evaluate videogames was second to none.

Arakawa valued these opinions so much that he assembled something called the product launch committee, which was basically his way of getting the marketing guys (Main, White, Sakaley, and Tilden) to speak with NOA’s product development guy (Harman) and discuss all aspects of a game’s release—things like which games deserved their own commercials, and how best to promote these titles in Nintendo Power. Harman respected NOA’s marketing staff, but it always floored him that not a single one of them was a gamer. Sure, these were businessmen and it was true that one need not adore widgets in order to sell them effectively, but it also couldn’t hurt, right?

Like most people who love playing videogames, Harman secretly dreamed of one day creating a hit, and he finally got closer to that goal after Mr. Y.’s announcement at Shoshinkai of a Nintendo baseball game. Although most of Nintendo’s games were made by Japanese developers (either by Nintendo themselves or by a third-party game maker in the region), for this baseball game Harman chose to look toward Europe. He’d been closely monitoring the technological advancements over there and was greatly impressed by some of the work being done. Harman’s European fascination had already paid off handsomely once (by finding Argonaut Studios, which later developed the Super FX chip), and he expected it to do so again, this time with a respected British publisher named Software Creations.

Harman had high hopes for his baseball game, and so did Nintendo of America (who was negotiating with Seattle Mariners superstar Ken Griffey Jr. to make him the face of this game), but as great a sports game as he believed that this would be, that’s all it would ever be—a great sports game. Hopefully it would make a lot of money and provide countless hours of fun, but it would never be a classic like Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda. The even more secret dream behind Harman’s secret dream was to make a game starring one of Nintendo’s iconic characters. It was an understandable desire, but Nintendo was so protective of those franchises and wouldn’t let somebody outside Japan touch them. There was something admirable about this stance, but there was something almost racist about it as well. Nintendo didn’t believe that anybody outside Japan could achieve greatness. Not only did Harman believe that this could be done, but he also believed that by not taking this chance, Nintendo risked missing out on some of these breakthroughs. And seeing the Aladdin game at CES served as proof to him of this fact. So he decided to write a paper, a manifesto of sorts, that discussed the criteria of what makes a great game, and use this to prove that one could be made outside Japan.

Bill White couldn’t have cared less about where the games were made; all he cared about was that they were marketable, and that he be allowed to promote the hell out of them. He had been given the autonomy to do so during his early years at Nintendo (The Wizard, the Pepsi deal, the Nintendo World Championships), but as time wore on, he increasingly got the feeling that he was being handcuffed. Nowadays, there wasn’t much more to do than smile, nod, and spread Nintendo optimism. So while Harman was wandering around the trade show, White was back at the company’s massive booth trying to turn every piece of good news into headline-worthy greatness.

“Christmas was phenomenal,” he said, speaking to a reporter from Bloomberg. “Videogames came back in unbelievable fashion. And it gives us tremendous momentum coming into 1993, where we expect hardware and software sales to rise by 19 percent.”

The reporter nodded, jotting this down. “Very impressive, but what does Nintendo have to say about its flagship 8-bit system, which has fallen considerably? You’ve gone from nine million units sold in 1989 to less than three million this past year.”

“I look at that as a positive,” White said. “To continue sustaining sales of the original NES, when more people are buying the faster and more sophisticated Super Nintendo systems—to me, that speaks volumes about Nintendo’s commitment to quality.”

“And what about CD-ROM technology?” the reporter asked. “Sega already has a system out there, and the 3DO company has recently announced plans to launch a CD-based system by end of the year.”

“That’s a great question,” White said. “Nintendo hopes to bring out a 32-bit CD-ROM accessory by the end of the year. But if we don’t feel it meets our standards, it won’t be released. In this environment, it’s easy to get caught up in the arms race aspect of it all, but that’s just not how we at Nintendo believe in doing business. That being said, our commitment to technology is second to none. Are you familiar with Nintendo’s new Super FX chip.”

White used this self-created segue to promote Star Fox, and hyped Nintendo’s new franchise with comparisons to Star Trek and Star Wars. As the interview neared its end, the reporter asked White if he could pass along any materials to publish alongside the article. That would make sense, White thought, but alas, he could not. All exclusive content went first to Nintendo Power, so there was nothing to do but smile and nod. The handcuffs, they were feeling very tight these days.

One month later, while White was fantasizing about a Houdini-esque escape and Harman was coming up with ways to improve upon Aladdin, Fornasier was desperately trying to avoid going to the bathroom. Her bladder was not particularly thrilled by this decision, but she felt like there was just too much at stake for her to leave the room, even if only for a minute. That’s just how it went during Sega’s annual planning meetings, and this one would prove to be particularly pivotal, as it led to the company’s best year yet.

“So there’s a chance that Sonic 3 won’t be ready for Christmas this year,” Fornasier explained. In an ideal world, Sega would release a new Sonic title every holiday season, but it was only January 1993 and Naka had already cautioned that the newest game might be late. Since Christmas tended to make or break a videogame company’s year, finding a potential replacement was a top priority. “I know I’m crazy for even asking this,” Fornasier continued, “but is there by chance a consensus on what everyone thinks our best game will be for ’93?”

Before she even finished asking the question, nearly every single person in the room was already shouting out a response. Aladdin! Jurassic Park! Eternal Champions! Not only were they just yelling the names of the games, but shipping quantities and suggested prices as well. It was a lot of noise, but Fornasier hadn’t expected any less. The conference room was filled with all the top people from sales, marketing, and operations, as well as the producers for each of the upcoming year’s games. Of course each of them shouted out their own games; their job performances (and likely their annual bonuses) heavily depended on the decisions made in this meeting. If large initial orders were placed for a game, and significant marketing dollars were put behind it, there was a strong chance it would be a hit. So Fornasier asking everyone in the room about the best game was kind of like Santa Claus visiting a first-grade classroom and saying “I have a finite number of gifts this year, so can you please tell me which kids have been the nicest?”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Fornasier said, trying unsuccessfully to quiet the cacophony. This is exactly why she couldn’t go to the bathroom: leave for just a second and alliances would be formed, favors called in, and everyone would channel their inner bully. “Come on, let’s all settle down.”

“Quiet!” Paul Rioux grunted, instantly shutting up the room.

“How about we try a different approach?” Fornasier suggested. “Let’s talk about Star Fox for a moment.” Nintendo’s Star Fox would be coming out in March, and they were putting more behind this game than any they had ever released before. Not only would the folks in Redmond be shipping out a million units to more than 18,000 retailers, but they were also holding special citywide events in Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and Tampa. To disrupt the success of Nintendo’s Star Fox, Sega had scheduled the release of several top titles for around this time. Games like X-Men, Toejam & Earl 2, and Ecco the Dolphin, the gorgeous end result of Ed Annunziata’s dolphin fantasy from a couple years earlier. At this point, there was nothing more that Sega could do from a product standpoint, but Fornasier was curious if anything else could be done on the marketing front. “We all know Star Fox is going to be big, but there’s still time for us to shrink the size.”

“Thank God Nintendo didn’t get this out for Christmas,” someone from the marketing team said. “Could you imagine?”

“You know,” Richard Burns said, interrupting everyone’s imaginations, “I’m not so sure that’s correct. There’s a solid chance it would have gotten lost in Sonic 2sday and, to be perfectly honest, the retailers I’ve spoken with aren’t too upset about having a mini-Christmas in March. It’s actually something we ought to consider.”

“It’s too late,” someone from the product development team replied. “We can’t get anything else out by March, let alone anything big.”

“Yes we can!” Fornasier declared, her mind noticeably whirring. “Well, not literally, of course, but Richard’s got a great point. Of course the retailers are thrilled to get a bonus Christmas, so that’s exactly what we should give them. A Christmas-like launch every month of the year!”

“Boom!” said Tom Abramson, slapping the table. “Like it, love it, done deal. Just like the greeting card industry: every month will have something big going on.”

Okay, every month was a little too aggressive, but every six to eight weeks should do the trick. Why didn’t we come up with this sooner, Fornasier wondered, especially since this resembled a similarly staggered promotional strategy from the consumer packaged goods industry? But it didn’t really matter that the idea had never come up before; all that mattered was that it worked like gangbusters when she was at Del Monte, and it should be just as effective now at Sega.

And as the jockeying began for whose games should receive the full holiday treatment of promotion, marketing, and sales, Fornasier couldn’t help but continue to ignore her bladder and be thankful that she hadn’t gotten up to use the bathroom. If she had, she might have very well missed out on the gift of having Christmas all year round.

Not long after that meeting, a man named Bob Knapp was on his way from Osaka to Newark. During the long trip from Japan to New Jersey, he had a layover in San Francisco, where he was greeted with some disturbing news at Gate 81.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the airline attendant explained. “But that’s what my system says.”

“That can’t be accurate,” Knapp said. “My inbound flight was first-class.”

“Yup, it says that too,” the attendant said. “But your final leg is economy.”

“Hmmm, I see,” Knapp replied. “Are there any upgrades available?”

“Yup, there’s one,” the lady beside him said. It was Ellen Beth Van Buskirk, headed east for Toy Fair, and with the millions of miles she’d accumulated, there was no way she wasn’t getting that seat. “And it’s about to be mine.”

Knapp took a half step backward to fully observe this woman and then a half step forward to plead his case. “I think it makes more sense for me to take the seat. I’ve just flown in from Osaka. I’m sure you understand.”

“What?” Van Buskirk asked. “Are you crazy?”

“Hardly,” Knapp said, and he and Van Buskirk then proceeded to argue over who most deserved the seat in question. Not long after, the bickering turned to banter and then it evolved into flirtation. By the time the flight departed, Knapp had gotten the seat, but neither of them could wait to land in New Jersey, where they could continue to flirt with each other.

In the following weeks, while Van Buskirk was busy falling in love at first argument, Tony Harman finished writing his manifesto and came to the conclusion that a developer must have at least three things to make a great game. The first was a big budget, somewhere in the range of $3 million to $4 million, to ensure that corners were not cut. The second was coin-op experience, to truly understand the value of capturing a player’s interest immediately. And the last was an iconic character, ideally one that has already been established (like Mario) or one steeped in its own captivating mythology (like Star Fox). Of course it took much more than just these three things, but this was the basis behind why company’s like Capcom, Konami, and even Sega had a knack for making hits.

Not long after Harman finished the paper, Arakawa approached him with some unexpected travel plans. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you will be going to Japan.”

“Okay,” Harman said, making it a point to never appear caught off guard in front of his boss. “Any particular reason?”

“I sent your paper to Mr. Yamauchi, and he would like to see you.”

And so, after a silent gulp, Harman hopped on a flight with Arakawa and his wife, and twenty-four hours later the three of them wound up inside Yamauchi’s office.

“He is pleased that you could fit in this visit on such short notice,” Yoko Arakawa explained to Harman, translating for her father. Although Yamauchi’s office was small, it was as intimidating as one would expect from Nintendo’s quietly ruthless leader. It was really warm in there, somewhere around eighty degrees, and Yamauchi sat there in a white undershirt, his lower half hidden behind a large wooden desk. In front of him was a pristine coffee table, a small television, and a pair of couches on either side of the room. Some of the employees at NCL referred to his office as the “realm of the Mother Brain,” making a reference to the giant, cranium-shaped, energy-sucking villain who appears at the end of Metroid. Yamauchi often had guests in and out of his office, and today was no different. In addition to hosting his daughter, his son-in-law, and Tony Harman, there as well, on either side of the desk, were Miyamoto, Yokoi, Takeda, and Sakamoto (each nobly standing upright and reluctantly sweating due to the room’s toasty temperature).

“I have read your report and found it interesting enough to pass along to Nintendo’s greatest experts,” Yamauchi said, gesturing to the videogame legends surrounding Harman. “It is their opinion that you are wrong, and that only the Japanese can make a great game.”

“With all due respect,” Harman countered, with a noticeable amount of gall in his voice, “your experts, these men here, account for most of the best developers in the world. Most, but not all, and I truly believe that with the right resources a great game could be made outside Japan.”

After the words were translated, peals of laughter permeated the room. Harman continued to make his case, highlighting key points from his paper and trying to appeal to Mr. Y.’s love of innovation, but ultimately it appeared to be no use. “Face it,” Yoko Arakawa finally said, “you’re not going to win.”

Harman was prepared to leave with his tail between his legs (smiling, though, as his idea had made it all the way to the top), but he decided to try one more approach. “Let me just ask one more question,” he said, taking a step toward Yamauchi. “How many bad television commercials do we make each year?”

This was not a particularly tactful inquiry, but Harman knew that and thought he knew Yamauchi well enough to believe this might make a dent. Everyone in the office tried to extrapolate the meaning of this question, but before any further clarification was requested, Yamauchi burst out in laughter. “The answer: many.”

Harman nodded. “And how much does each one of these commercials cost you?”

Yamauchi quickly discussed this with the experts on his couches and then came back with an answer. “They say around $3 million.”

Harman nodded once again. “Then why don’t you give me $3 million and one year to make a great game? Maybe I’m wrong and won’t succeed with this, but the worst-case scenario is that you’ll just make one less bad commercial.”

At this, Yamauchi smiled, the finest and most silvery smile Harman had ever seen, and then the legendary president of NCL stood up and accepted the deal, provided that this young American kept Miyamoto apprised of his progress.

“Progress?” Nilsen asked, over lunch with Kalinske. “I don’t have any progress to report. That’s the problem.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Kalinske replied. He’d known Nilsen for several years, but never seen him quite like this. The hustle and bustle of his new job was wearing him down. Kalinske wanted to cheer up his old friend, remind him that all those frequent flier miles were for the good of this company they had built together, but he could tell from the haggard expression on Nilsen’s face that he wasn’t in the mood for remember-whens. “It’ll get better before you know it. Just watch.”

“But what if it doesn’t?” Nilsen asked, more sincerely than rhetorically.

Kalinske assumed by this tone that he was fishing to see if getting back his old job was a possibility. Not that he necessarily wanted this, but Kalinske knew that Nilsen was the kind of guy who found power and pleasure in possibility. Kalinske also knew that if the conversation continued down this road, Nilsen probably wouldn’t like where it went. The fact was that Fornasier was doing an excellent job, and whatever she lacked when it came to wild what-if ideas, she more than made up for with her strong management and communication skills. Make no mistake, Nilsen was a star, but with so many cooks now in Sega’s kitchen, they needed a team player. That being said, Sega still needed Nilsen’s star power, possibly now more than ever, but they needed it in different galaxies as the company expanded around the globe.

“Al,” Kalinske said, trying to help his friend shine, “you’re the guy who made Buster Douglas a bigger star after he lost the title. If anybody can make this work, it’s you.”

Nilsen nodded slowly—processing, not accepting. “But what if it doesn’t?”

“But why?” Arakawa asked Tilden, looking at the April 1993 issue of GamePro magazine. On the cover, right there in front of them, was artwork from Nintendo’s Star Fox. Not only had this artwork been intended for Nintendo Power, but White had specifically met with Arakawa, Tilden, and Harman to discuss sharing it with outside magazines and had explicitly been told not to do so.

“I don’t know,” Tilden said. “I’m just as surprised as you are.” She was indeed incredibly surprised by this act of defiance, but her incredulity could not be compared to Arakawa’s. To him, such a gesture was just unfathomable.

“But why?” Arakawa asked again, still stunned by the insubordination.

Following this discovery, Arakawa tasked Peter Main with firing Bill White, making him the first executive to be let go since the NES launched in America. Main, however, did not want to dismiss White. Not only did he consider White an invaluable asset, but he admitted to Arakawa that he had given his protégé permission to do what he had done. “You should fire me, if anything,” Main offered, but Arakawa was not persuaded. This was not about chain of command, but about looking into someone’s eye and telling them no, only to find out that a direct instruction had been ignored and trust violated. His mind was made up. It was time for Bill White to leave Nintendo, and Peter Main would have to play the role of executioner.