Kyoto in August was filled with the incessant cry of cicadas. The air felt like congealed syrup—thick, sticky, and suffocating.
Inside Nintendo's headquarters, even the cold blast of the air conditioning could not dispel the restlessness weighing on the executives' minds.
In Hiroshi Yamauchi's office, the atmosphere was even more oppressive than the weather outside. Spread across his desk were the third-party software weekly sales reports, covering the period from late July to the present.
Just as they had expected, because most titles were released simultaneously on multiple platforms or were simple ports, the SFC—handicapped by its much smaller installed base—had become the biggest loser.
Yamauchi slammed the report onto the desk with a vicious motion, sending loose pages scattering across the floor.
A young section chief from the marketing department stood opposite him, too frightened to even breathe loudly.
"P-President—" the section chief said carefully, "the North American branch has already started asking about the final release date for the SNES and its launch lineup."
"Release?" Yamauchi let out a cold laugh. He bent down, picked up a sales sheet for Street Fighter, and waved it in the air. "Release with what? Send Mario alone to fight the whole world? Wasn't the embarrassment we went through during the SFC's launch in Japan enough for you?"
He jabbed the report forward, almost poking the man in the face.
"Tell me—are these games something American players haven't seen before? They've been playing them in arcades for nearly two years! Anyone with a Mega Drive has already cleared them hundreds of times over! And now we bundle this stuff together and tell Americans, 'Hey, come buy our brand-new SNES—full of games you've already played'? Do you think they're idiots, or that we are?"
The section chief broke out in a cold sweat, unable to say a single word.
The difficulties in Japan alone had already left them scrambling.
At the SFC's domestic launch, aside from Super Mario World standing out on its own, there had been almost no major third-party titles to escort it—a situation they neither wanted nor dared to repeat in the far more critical North American market.
North America was Sega's backyard.
The Genesis had taken deep root there, and Sonic had already become a household name. If Nintendo marched in with such a pitiful launch lineup, the outcome was obvious.
Yamauchi paced back and forth across the office. His leather shoes struck the floor with dull thuds, each step sounding like a hammer blow to everyone's heart.
After a long while, he stopped. What remained in his eyes was the resolve of someone ready to burn his bridges.
"Notify the North American branch," he said slowly. "The SNES release scheduled for mid-August—postpone it."
"Postpone?!" the section chief blurted out. "But President, the marketing campaign has already started, and the distributors' advance payments—"
"Then suspend everything!" Yamauchi cut him off sharply. "Tell them this: money can always be earned again. But once credibility is gone, it's gone forever. Nintendo will not fool players with leftovers and cold scraps!"
He took a deep breath, as if making an extremely difficult decision.
"Contact every third-party partner immediately. Tell them that all SFC games currently in development or about to be released must be developed simultaneously in English. On the new launch date, I want American players to see shelves full of games—not Mario's one-man show!"
The order meant enormous costs and delays. But at this point, they had no other choice. The section chief dared not argue further. He bowed deeply and fled the office as if escaping.
The room fell silent again.
Yamauchi sank back into his chair, exhausted, staring at the blinding sunlight outside the window. Delaying the launch meant handing over the entire autumn—possibly even the crucial Christmas shopping season—to Sega.
He could already imagine the smug satisfaction on Hayao Nakayama's face when SNES-less shelves were instead filled with Sega's novel, eye-catching cartridges.
Just thinking of that old rival—who loved to boast that "I live to make Nintendo uncomfortable"—made Yamauchi clench his fist unconsciously.
No. He couldn't give in like this.
He picked up the phone and dialed a familiar internal number.
It rang for a long time before someone answered, accompanied by the background noise of electronic sound effects.
"Hello?" Shigeru Miyamoto's voice sounded tired, but still strong.
"Miyamoto, it's me."
"President? What is it? I'm tuning a new dungeon mechanism right now—I can't really step away."
"When will the latest Zelda for the SFC be finished?" Yamauchi asked bluntly, without any preamble.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Miyamoto knew the SFC's current predicament all too well. He knew how many eyes across the company were fixed on him, waiting for him to produce the "miracle" that could save everything.
"…Soon," he finally said after a long pause. "The new Legend of Zelda is almost finished."
"I don't care how clever your new dungeon gimmicks are!" Yamauchi's voice suddenly rose, the anxiety he'd been suppressing breaking through. "I only want results! The North American launch has already been postponed—we're waiting for your A Link to the Past! The entire company is waiting for you! You are our Triforce! Do you understand?!"
Another long silence followed.
Miyamoto glanced at the medicine on his desk, clenched his teeth, and replied firmly, "I understand."
When the news that Nintendo of America was postponing the SNES launch reached Takuya Nakayama's desk, he was holding a cup of coffee and gazing out the window.
His assistant set the document down gently. Nakayama only needed to glance at the headline before the smile at the corner of his mouth became impossible to suppress.
He slowly leaned back into his large executive chair, sinking into it, and let out a long breath.
That breath carried relief—but even more so, the pleasure of a plan unfolding exactly as intended.
"So Yamauchi Hiroshi couldn't hold on after all," he murmured to himself, easily imagining the stifling atmosphere inside Nintendo's Kyoto headquarters.
A few months earlier, there had been considerable internal debate over whether they should rush to prepare playable demos for the June Chicago CES show.
Many had argued that they should strike while the iron was hot—show off early builds of VR Warrior and Captain Hook, flex their muscles, and give Nintendo's SNES a hard slap in the face ahead of its North American launch.
But Takuya had overruled them all.
His reasoning was simple: rather than chasing attention with half-finished products—risking exposure of flaws and giving rivals something to study—it was better to shut the doors, push these games to market as early as possible, and empty players' wallets. That was how you stay unbeatable.
After all, since Tom Kalinske took office, Sega's marketing spending in North America had been nothing short of extravagant—sponsoring major events, plastering ads everywhere, and embedding Sega into movies and TV shows. Compared to that, missing CES was hardly a loss.
What he'd truly worried about back then was whether his butterfly effect might provoke Nintendo into launching the SNES early in North America at any cost.
Now it seemed that worry had been unnecessary—or rather, his other combination of punches, poaching third-party developers, had hurt Nintendo even more.
Without heavyweight third-party titles to support it, no matter how much they praised Super Mario World, it would still be nothing more than Mario's solo performance.
That old fox Yamauchi had ultimately lacked the nerve to gamble Nintendo's reputation.
"Executive Director, then what should we do on our side…?" the assistant asked tentatively.
"No rush," Takuya said, waving a hand as he took another sip of coffee. "Let the development teams stick to the original plan and polish the games properly. Tell Yu Suzuki and the others—I don't want 'good enough.' I want 'perfect.'"
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