Yamauchi's order, cold and absolute, spread from Kyoto to every Nintendo distributor and advertising partner.
Thus began a war without gunfire — fierce, primitive, and sudden.
The day after Sega's massive GamePocket posters went up across Shibuya, Nintendo's GameBoy posters appeared right beside them — same size, same prime spots.
The two gaming giants stood like bare-chested boxers, foreheads pressed together before the bell, eyes burning with the fire of war.
The television ad battle was even bloodier.
One moment, viewers were smiling at Sega's commercial showing a couple linking their pink and white GamePockets with a red cord that tied their hearts together.
The next moment, Nintendo's ad would interrupt — Mario jumping under a question block, rudely shattering the mood.
Close combat — that was Yamauchi's command.
But Sega struck back, fast and merciless, throwing every rule out the window.
Their second wave of commercials featured the hottest idol girl group of the time.
Inside a luxury van, a few lively, stylish girls giggled and showed off their colorful GamePockets covered with cute keychains.
They weren't even playing games — just showing them off as fashion accessories.
Fashion!
Those two words hit Nintendo right in its weak spot.
Nintendo could talk about games and quality, but fashion? Impossible. The GameBoy's gray brick-like design had nothing to do with style.
Then Sega struck again.
At the end of the new commercial, under the slogan "Your pocket is another world," a new line appeared — accompanied by an irresistibly smooth voice-over:
"Buy now and get the world-famous Tetris — free!"
Free games. And not just any game — Tetris!
Inside Nintendo's headquarters, the marketing director went pale.
They couldn't compete. GameBoy's launch titles were sold separately — the costs were fixed. They couldn't just give them away.
And what could they offer that could rival Tetris? They couldn't just hand out Super Mario for free!
Then came Sega's most brutal move — they announced the release date: April 8.
A date Nintendo's factories could never match.
Facing both a production gap and an advertising disadvantage, Nintendo had no choice but to reveal its final card — its game lineup.
Soon, GameBoy commercials began showing gameplay footage of Super Mario Land, Tennis, and Mahjong.
Familiar games, beloved characters — it reignited the passion of old Famicom fans. The long-repressed desire to buy flared up once more.
Players were hyped.
The media smelled blood in the air, predicting an epic duel between the two titans. Everyone clutched their wallets, waiting for launch day.
But Sega wasn't done.
They gave Nintendo no time to breathe. Each day, they released a new GamePocket launch title, each ad hitting like a bomb.
Day One: Golden Axe and Space Harrier — arcade action that lit up male audiences with adrenaline.
Day Two: Sega New Records, showing friends laughing and pushing each other during multiplayer matches — "Stay connected with your buddies," the narrator teased.
Day Three: Super Robot Wars II — pure mecha passion, reviving last year's hype among anime and robot fans.
Then, on Day Four, Pokémon Red/Green appeared — the final blow.
Inside Nintendo HQ, dread filled the air. The Pokémon IP, boosted by its anime and merch, was already rivaling Mario in fame.
And then, in Pokémon's second commercial, came something no one expected.
A kid connected his digital pet to a GamePocket with a cable.
A futuristic data-transfer animation flashed — and suddenly, on-screen, the Pokémon from his pet device appeared behind his in-game character.
A crossover — a bridge between reality and the game world.
The entire room froze.
"They… they actually merged two products into one," murmured Shigeru Miyamoto, eyes wide with awe.
"This is impossible!" a developer shouted, clutching his head. "That pet toy came out two and a half years ago! You mean Takuya Nakayama planned all this from back then?"
The thought made Miyamoto's heart skip a beat.
And it still wasn't over.
On April 7, the day before launch, every TV channel played Sega's final commercial.
A boy sat at home, absorbed in his Mega Drive game.
Suddenly — snap! The screen went black. A power outage.
In the dark, he fumbled for something.
Then — a soft light appeared.
In his hands, a GamePocket. On its glowing LCD screen, the pixelated Pokémon hero stood tall in a field of grass.
The boy smiled, and continued his adventure — not on the Mega Drive, but on the GamePocket.
The screen froze. Words appeared slowly across it, like a verdict from the heavens:
"Built-in backlight — play till dawn."
A hammer blow.
That faint glow on the screen was, for Gunpei Yokoi, nothing less than judgment fire from hell.
In his office at Nintendo HQ, silence hung heavy.
He watched the tape over and over, that blackout scene repeating endlessly.
The pride and confidence in his eyes had turned to ash.
For longer battery life, he'd sacrificed a color screen.
For longer battery life, he'd spent over a year designing a low-power CPU.
For longer battery life, he'd personally cut the backlight feature he once tested — even though it worked beautifully.
Battery life had been his fortress — his pride.
But Sega shattered it with a single, simple, even stupidly obvious move.
A backlight switch.
He knew instantly — their design was nearly identical to his discarded prototype. Only… Sega added a tiny switch.
He had dismissed their landscape design, their bright colors — calling them gimmicks.
He thought even giving away Tetris could be countered with Mario's quality.
But that little backlight switch broke him completely.
Over 300,000 GameBoys already sat in warehouses. Too late to change anything.
Yokoi clenched his brow tight, muttering to himself the line that haunted him:
"Built-in backlight… play till dawn…"
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