April 21st — launch day for the GAMEBOY.
The air in Tokyo no longer carried the electric tension from half a month ago.
On the streets of Akihabara, there were still lines of people, but the energy felt… softer.
The queues weren't nearly as long as the ones that had wrapped around entire blocks when the GAMEPOCKET released.
Most faces showed the familiar loyalty of Nintendo's long-time fans, not the feverish excitement of people chasing a revolutionary new device.
By noon, the sparse lines had quietly dispersed — like a breeze passing through, leaving no trace behind.
Even the electronics store clerks, who had just endured two straight days of chaos during the GAMEPOCKET's launch, found the calm unsettling.
"Wait, that's it? Nobody else?" one muttered in disbelief.
The first-day sales numbers came in quickly.
By normal standards, the figures were respectable — impressive even, for a new handheld console.
But in a market that had just been set ablaze by the GAMEPOCKET's 1.5 million sales, they looked pitifully weak.
Now, everyone was comparing Nintendo's performance to Sega's dazzling success.
---
The next day, Nintendo finally received some positive buzz.
Super Mario Land was, undeniably, a polished game —
a pure distillation of Nintendo's signature fun: clever level design, silky-smooth controls, and compact perfection.
But the wave of praise that came rushing in… faded just as quickly.
"I beat it."
"Already? That's it?"
"There's nothing left to do!"
Within days, players' feedback began spreading through Akihabara.
The game had only twelve stages.
Its playtime relied on brutal difficulty and repetition — not on rich content or exploration.
It was delightful, yes — but too brief, leaving behind a hollow aftertaste.
By the sixth day of GAMEBOY's release, the sales curve visibly slumped —
like a marathon runner who'd burned all his stamina too early.
Even Nintendo's trump card, Super Mario Land, couldn't hold momentum.
Meanwhile, titles like Tennis and Mahjong barely registered as competition against the GAMEPOCKET's lavish launch lineup —
seven games, each with its own charm, each devouring players' free time.
---
Then Sega struck again.
Just as GAMEBOY players were feeling the post-Mario emptiness,
a new title quietly appeared on store shelves —
Compile Co.'s "Kilo Island Party," a light interactive game inspired by Kilo Island Adventure, built exclusively for GAMEPOCKET.
Its intent was crystal clear — and devastatingly effective:
to flood the market with fresh content and exploit Nintendo's thin launch catalog.
At the same time, a flaw that had been overshadowed by Sega's brilliance finally surfaced among GAMEBOY users:
the screen had no backlight.
When a game is addictively fun, that flaw becomes painfully obvious.
In dark bedrooms, that dim gray screen turned joy into frustration.
But now, as enthusiasm waned and the urge to play late into the night faded,
that hardware limitation suddenly didn't seem so important anymore —
a bitter irony for Gunpei Yokoi.
The one flaw he hoped players wouldn't notice was now being ignored — not because the design succeeded, but because the games themselves failed to keep attention.
---
With weaker launch titles, shorter playtime, no multiplayer social buzz, and inferior hardware experience,
consumers voted with their wallets.
Those still on the fence didn't hesitate anymore — they crossed over to Sega's side.
GAMEBOY's first-week sales settled at under 200,000 units,
many of which were carried purely by the Mario brand.
Worse, unlike Sega's worldwide simultaneous launch strategy,
GAMEBOY was only available in Japan for now.
By the second week, sales were cut in half again — dropping below 100,000 units.
Meanwhile, one month had passed since the GAMEPOCKET's debut.
---
At Sega Headquarters, inside the launch operations room—
Marketing director Masao Suzuki stood before a massive whiteboard,
hand trembling with excitement as he wrote the latest numbers in bold strokes:
"Japan domestic sales — 1.31 million units!"
"North America — bundled with Tetris, hailed by the media as 'the move of God' — 820,000 units!"
"Europe and other regions combined — 140,000 units!"
When he lowered his marker, the room fell silent.
Executives stared at the board, the total figure sinking in like a weight lifted from their chests.
Global sales: over 2.2 million units.
Four years earlier, the standalone Tetris handheld had stumbled in Western markets due to poor distribution.
But this time, bundling Tetris with every GAMEPOCKET had proven to be the golden key to unlocking global success.
For Western gamers, it was an irresistible offer — pure gaming joy in their hands.
Against Sega's blinding success, Nintendo's sub-300,000 figure looked embarrassing.
Facing a dead end and no clear counterattack, Nintendo went quiet.
No statements, no excuses, no retaliation —
just silent shelves, hoping the product would quietly sell.
To Sega's executives, that silence from Kyoto sounded louder than any concession.
---
"Gentlemen!"
President Hayao Nakayama's voice broke the silence, sharp and certain.
"According to plan — push forward!"
At his command, Sega's entire organization roared back to life,
like a war machine freshly wound to full tension.
GAMEPOCKET development documents were packaged and delivered to third-party studios across Japan with lightning speed.
When developers opened the toolkits and saw Sega's documentation —
a development environment simpler and cheaper than the Famicom's — their minds began to race.
"Startup cost less than half of an FC game?"
"A platform with over two million users already — and still growing?"
"Sega's built themselves an entirely new ecosystem!"
No developer could resist that temptation.
Within days, studios everywhere reassigned idle staff to newly formed GAMEPOCKET project teams.
This wasn't just "testing the waters."
This was a new frontier.
They knew they had to study Sega's approach carefully —
and make sure not to repeat Nintendo's mistakes.
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