Spring goes and autumn comes, and time passes quickly.

Mars Entertainment has developed steadily in the past three years, and everything has been going on as Jester expected.

GTA3 was released on the PC version for half a year before it was quietly launched on the console. At the beginning, it did not do much publicity. However, the popularity gained on the PC in the past six months made this game just launched on the console, and the sales volume it achieved was very good.

On PC, in the world of half a year, GTA3 sold a total of more than one million copies. After the console version was launched, although there was no large-scale publicity, more than one million copies were sold in two months.

For an unknown studio, the PC version has been sold for half a year, the console version is two months, and the total number of 2 million units in eight months. It is a very good result.

If you have good luck.

Maybe three million copies can be sold within one year.

Three million copies!

This is not a small number. Many games that cost countless promotional expenses, and I don’t know if I can sell this number.

However, Jester knew that people from Mars Entertainment knew, and even from other game companies knew that three million was definitely not the limit of this game because this game had not been promoted on a large scale. If it had been promoted on a large scale, and if it could be released at the same time, the game could even sell tens of millions of sets in a year.

Of course, this is also a matter of choice for Mars Entertainment.

They are willing to give up the sales of gta3 to drive the sales of dream wave 4, and of course they have plans that are more suitable in their eyes.

It is indeed as Satoshi Iwata imagined that his housewife strategy was very successful. DreamWater 4 built a very outstanding image in the minds of these housewife mothers. In the Christmas battle of the second year of release, Sony was fully prepared. They had previously reduced their share of P3 and DreamWater 4 to only 10%.

They hope that they can further reduce their share of the two during the Christmas war.

I didn't dare to catch up and overtake Sony.

All they thought about was to reduce the gap to five percent, and the gap was taken step by step. You can't eat it in one bite and become a fat man.

Ken Kutaraki and Sony know this deeply. After all, Sony has been playing the electrical appliance war for decades and will not be unable to see this clearly. Moreover, the PS3 DVD strategy, coupled with the many Japanese games, is indeed many people who have never been exposed to TV games, and are attracted to play it. It has opened up a new market.

However, the sales of DreamWave 4 in the Christmas war are really amazing.

Especially for some family mothers who prepare Christmas gifts for their children, many of them chose DreamWave4 without much consideration. In their eyes, this thing is simply perfect for their children as gifts.

Their children like game consoles, and DreamWave4 also meets their expectations, especially their body feeling, which is simply tailor-made for their children.

Therefore, in the Christmas war, Mars Entertainment, with the efforts of these family mothers, failed to make Sony's plan succeed. Not only did they not narrow the gap in share, but instead increased the share to almost three percent.

After selling gta3 on the console for two months without any publicity, Satoshi Iwata also felt that his dream wave 4 positioning had basically been confirmed, and the news of one or two games could not shake them at all, so slowly, he began to promote this game.

Of course, for a game that was more than half a year ago, it would not be very effective in carrying out large-scale publicity.

After all, this was what Jester told Iwada Satoshi personally. This is a game that can sell at least 10 million. In Iwada Satoshi's opinion, he dare not think about 10 million sets of 10 million sets of console versions, but millions of console versions may bring hundreds of thousands or even millions of console sales. This is not a small number.

Besides, gta3 has gained the support of many players with its reputation, and even many industry insiders have different eyes on this game.

"This is not a purely violent game. Many of the things in this game are worth learning from by all designers."

The advantages of gta3 are almost endless in the eyes of many designers. It perfectly inherits the ideas of sandbox games mentioned by Jester. His design methods, and the many techniques he embodies them all make many designers feel worshipped.

Many people even say that this game is the well-deserved game of the year.

However, some industry insiders do not think so.

It’s not that the game is not good. As for the game, except for the theme and the spirit promoted by gta3, but from the perspective of the game, this game basically cannot find any shortcomings.

However, a game of the year is not just about doing a good game.

Therefore, although VGA and GDC nominate this game as a candidate for the game of the year, in the eyes of many industry insiders, it is unlikely that GDC, which is a gta3 game of the year, voted by designers to choose the game of the year.

However, no matter how many of these review awards are, according to their reports, they are likely to select gta3 as the game of the year.

However, when the final result was revealed, some people were surprised.

VGA's annual game was indeed given to gta3, which many people have guessed before, and it is indeed well deserved to give this game.

But the most amazing thing is that the award for gdc's annual game was actually given to gta3.

You know, many industry insiders have said before that they would never vote for gta3, but the results are completely different from previous surveys.

Finally, some media interviewed the GDC organizing committee.

Their answer was nothing to hide, and the answer was very simple: "It is true that many people disagree to give gta3 the annual game, but the problem is that other games cannot be selected with gta3 at all."

With the momentum of being elected as the annual game and the slightest increase in Mars Entertainment, the sales of this game also exploded after the annual game selection. The monthly sales volume exceeded one million sets in the console version. The PC version also has more than 100,000 sets. You know, this is the result of the PC version that has been released for almost a year.

These things happened more than two years ago.

Jester was actually just a spectator about these things. When he resigned from his senior position as a Mars Entertainment, he no longer cared about the company's affairs and handed over all the power to Satoshi Iwata. At most, he would attend and listen to it at later high-level meetings, but basically did not express his opinions. However, he did the game development matters as usual, as he did, when he was fine or had little to do, and published his own introduction.

However, as wow development became more and more intense, Jester rarely participated in things that had nothing to do with wow development.

During these four years, Iwada Satoshi has done a very good job in the position of president. Finally, a few days ago, Claudia nominated Iwada Satoshi as the CEO of Mars Entertainment at a board meeting held by the chairman of the board of directors, and was finally approved unanimously.

Everyone knows that Claudia's appointment must be what Jester means.

However, Jester's wow has been basically completed. In four or five years, the whole picture of this game has finally been revealed to everyone.

Four invitations to be closed, each causing a stir on major forums. Moreover, they did better and more perfectly every time. In the end, Jester finally announced something in a forum's post answering players' questions. That is, in November 2004, Wow will conduct a public beta, and the public beta will last for one to two months.

If there are no other problems, then after the public beta is completed, the final correction will not exceed two weeks, and the wow game that countless players have been looking forward to for a full five years will be officially launched.

The announcement of this news also caused an uproar.

Of course, it is more of the players' reluctance.

Because they remembered what Jester said when developing Wow. This game will be his last game. After developing this game, he will officially retire from Mars Entertainment and may not participate in the front-line development of the game.

So, someone immediately asked Jester if he really planned to retire after the World of Warcraft launch conference.

This time, Jester was unexpectedly unanswered and did not answer directly. He said that there will be a press conference for the public beta of World of Warcraft in a few days, and he will answer this question at that time.

This slightly perfunctory answer once again made many players feel surprised.

Because Jester did not directly admit this.

You know, he said this in person, but this time someone asked me, but it was just a casual question, so I didn’t have any hope.

Moreover, judging from Jester's behavior over the past four years, he no longer cares about Mars Entertainment, and he will not even attend the Carnival. According to people inside Mars Entertainment, even Jester will not attend the high-level meeting.

All of this is enough to show that Jester's idea of ​​retirement has been decided.

But this time, Jester was facing whether it was true that he would retire after he developed the wow, but he did not admit that there must be other reasons in it.

Therefore, many players are extremely eagerly looking forward to what miracle will happen during the public beta press conference of Wow.

For example, Jester said that he had new inspiration recently and decided to develop another game, and it is guaranteed that it is something that players like them have never seen before. Just like he led the horizontal scroll, 3D and body feeling, although Mars Entertainment and Sony competed with each other over the years, DreamWave 4 and P3 are both excellent hosts. When the two companies had the lowest share, Mars Entertainment was chased by Sony to more than 8%.

There are many excellent games released on these two consoles.

However, players are still extremely looking forward to Jester's game. They all hope that Jester has found some inspiration during the four or five years of wow development, and once again developed a game that will create a world-renowned game on the new console.

After all, the battle between DreamWave 4 and P3 has lasted for four years. According to the lifespan of one host is about five to six years, the next generation of hosts of both companies should have begun to develop, but both sides seem to be confident and are secretly informed of their next-generation hosts, so the outside world can't hear any news.

Finally, it was the day of the wow public beta press conference.

The date is seven days after the press conference ends, early November, and Monday after the end of the Mars Entertainment Carnival.

The method to obtain public beta is simple, but not everyone can obtain it.

Because of the server relationship, only a few people can obtain this qualification.

Except for those attending the carnival scene, after they can directly obtain a test card with the carnival entrance card, other players who want to obtain this qualification can only apply when the official application is open.

Applications are not drawn in lots.

Instead, players are directly given the test qualifications in the order of application.

Of course, each person can only get one qualification for testing, not based on the account or IP, but based on the machine code, that is, each PC can apply for one qualification.

There are a total of 150,000 qualified people.

All are distributed and gone.

The test time is one month and fifteen days.

Of course, Jester also said at the press conference that he would consider whether to release more test qualifications based on the specific situation of the test.

Even if you do not develop more test qualifications in the middle of the test, a stress test will be conducted in the last few days of the test. As for the specific time of the stress test, it has not been decided yet.

Of course, for many people, he also answered the question of whether Jester's wow will officially retire after the development of the wow.

"This question... I said a few years ago. Now I still think so. I will retire when I develop wow until I think it's appropriate. But it doesn't mean that I will retire as soon as wow is released. In my vision, I almost have to develop a subsequent wow expansion pack so that I can leave the industry where I have worked for twenty years." (~^~)
Chapter completed!