At this point, Zhu Youxing slightly miscalculated.
Only now did he realize that he seemed to have overlooked something.
In his previous life, it wasn't that Metroid wasn't interesting enough or that he was too unpopular, it was just that he was born at the wrong time.
Once upon a time, Metroid had a chance to rise up and explode.
Because the game quality of Metroid itself is really outstanding, with top-notch action and storytelling.
However, he was attacked by several fierce men at the same time.
First, there was the brutal attack from Sega's 16-bit console games, and then there was the interception of the PCE console.
The various games launched by these two companies at that time were so diverse that players were spoiled for choice. Even though Metroid was indeed outstanding, it was still suppressed under such circumstances.
After finally gaining some success in the US market, a more heavyweight competitor emerged, Sony's PS1.
The launch of ps1 at that time was really a dimensionality reduction blow.
It can run real 3D games, allowing players to experience the 3D game world for the first time.
Just because of the game's graphics, it has attracted the favor of more than half of the players.
As for Super Metroid, which was released on SFC, due to such continuous attacks within a year, it only achieved a million-level sales.
Although one-million sales can be considered a success, it all depends on who you compare with.
In the Nintendo family, there is no one of my generation whose sales have exploded.
With sales ranging from five to six million, or even seven to eight million, Super Metroid's sales really seem to be a little younger.
So sometimes it’s just the wrong time.
It's like 1994, the year when gods fought in the movie industry.
Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Alive, Ashes of Time, and The Man in Disguise.
If these film and television works were released in different years, they would definitely be close to dominating in the same year, but they happened to be squeezed into one year.
And that was pretty much the case with Metrod back then.
Everyone you meet is a god, so let’s see who is more powerful.
Speaking of which, the previous Metroid was also released in 1994. In the film industry and the game industry, the gods fought in the same year. It is really a coincidence.
However, these are all stories that happened in the past life.
But what about in this world?
Maybe the situation isn't that bad after all.
So far, there haven't been many worthy opponents.
Now that I am a god, it is hard to say what the future will be, but who else can fight against me now?
Zhu Youxing immediately called people who specialize in market research and asked them to immediately provide a market statistical information about Metroid and submit it as soon as possible.
These include statistics on the Internet about the sequel to Metroid, statistics on the number of times Metroid appears in various questionnaires, etc.
At the same time, statistics must be conducted separately in the United States and Japan to determine the popularity of this game in the two regions.
After about three days, the statistics department finally completed the statistics, and Zhu Youxing immediately took it over to check it out.
Among the 100,000 questionnaires of various types, more than 15% of the players mentioned Metroid to some extent.
On the Internet, there are more than 400,000 various Metroid discussion contents including posts, replies, etc.
Then there are the sales data of the two generations of Metrorod products so far.
Metroid 1's sales data in Japan currently totals 1.73 million sold in Japan on the SFC and FC game consoles.
In the United States, because the game console was launched relatively late, the sales figure is about 400,000, which is much worse than the heavily promoted Castlevania. However, according to the enthusiasm of online discussions in the United States, it seems to be more popular than Castlevania.
a little better.
Castlevania is indeed a game specifically aimed at European and American aesthetic styles, but Europe and the United States are obviously more interested in the world view of a future science fiction world, and the vampire story in the medieval era is not much more attractive than the science fiction story background of Metroid.
.
Looking at the recent sales data, Castlevania's sales are continuing to decline, but Metroid's sales in the United States are continuing to increase, which is generally very promising.
The second-generation Metroid Samus Returns on GB has sold more than 1.3 million copies in Japan and hundreds of thousands in the United States.
The smaller sales volume in the United States is mainly because the current sales data of gb in the United States is not particularly good, but it has also improved rapidly recently, and it is believed that there will be a period of rapid sales growth in the future.
Looking at this series of data, Zhu Youxing tapped on his desk and thought seriously.
He is thinking about whether it is appropriate to develop Metroid now?
Obviously, this is a very suitable time.
Players have been waiting for it for a long time, and it's just time to expand the gaming audience with the latest generation of games.
Especially in the United States.
The third generation of Metroid in its previous life was very popular with players in the United States. Although there was no sequel for eight years due to sales, the Metroid that appeared later was already specifically targeted at American players.
The game is more Westernized.
So obviously there is no need to worry too much about sales in the United States.
"Okay, let's get ready to make it."
Zhu Youxing made a decision and immediately started checking the game development progress of the current game development team.
Nowadays, the biggest advantage of a larger team is that it can more easily deploy manpower.
Even now the ten game development teams have their own work to do, but in fact most of their work is relatively easy, and they can be given more responsibilities.
Seven of the ten game development teams have now entered a critical period of game development. They are each responsible for different types of games. Obviously, it is not possible to allocate manpower there at this time.
He roughly estimated the manpower needed to develop the SFC version of Metroid with his current capabilities. If he wanted to develop the SFC version of the third-generation Metroid in three to six months, he would probably need at least fifty people.
.
Everything from animation to sound effects to the basic structure of the game needs a big improvement.
Otherwise, just making a game with a new story is really not that challenging.
After making the decision, Zhu Youxing immediately transferred 20 people from each of the three development teams that were still in a relatively relaxed period, and then temporarily formed a new game development team, which he personally led. This time
It can also be regarded as a challenge to myself, to see if I can make a larger-scale and better-quality game in a relatively short period of time.