Tuesday 2 July 1998
Zaboru was still at ZAGE Tower, but he would be departing for the USA in a couple of days. The Disney project—Beauty and the Beast—was finally complete, and the team was preparing its release at the end of this month. Zaboru planned to meet them in person, set the next direction, and assign new tasks for their upcoming movies.
And there was another reason the tower felt unusually alive today: Gabe Newell, ZAGE USA's CTO, had just arrived in Japan. He'd been intensely curious about the new handheld—ZGBA—ever since the rumors started spreading internally. Right now, he was still in Zanichi's office, asking question after question, refusing to leave until he understood how the hardware was really built.
But for Zaboru, his mind wasn't fully on the handheld today. Instead, he kept circling back to a problem that had been sitting in his chest like a pebble in a shoe: his old idea about keeping ZAGE's game development structure at only eight core teams. Back then, it sounded neat—clean, organized, even elegant. Eight teams, each strong, each with a clear identity, each focused on a certain style of gameplay and pipeline.
But now that ZAGE had grown this big… the idea started to feel like a fantasy he was forcing onto reality.
Zaboru stared out at the tower's skyline view and quietly replayed the facts. Japan, Korea, USA—already close to a thousand employees combined. More studios, more subsidiaries, more specialties. And soon there would be China, London, maybe even more countries after that. Even if he tried to keep "only eight teams," the reality was those teams would balloon into massive, messy monsters. Too many projects, too many producers, too many internal politics, too many people waiting for decisions from the same few leads.
And the worst part? The more he imagined it, the more he could see it ending in either chaos… or crunch.
"Eight teams… is that even enough?" he thought. "What if we have console games, handheld games, arcade games, PC games, plus support titles… plus experimental projects… plus new IP… plus sequels… plus localization… plus engine and tools… plus QA…?"
Even with subsidiaries, it would become hard to adjust. Work would pile up. The teams would be stretched thin. The structure would start looking 'neat' only on paper.
Zaboru exhaled, then gave a small, tired smile. "Hmm… what should I do?" he muttered. "Should I ask Dad and Gaben as well?"
He already knew the answer.
Zanichi had experience leading teams—small workshops, large departments, crisis projects, long-term planning. He understood people, pressure, and the way a company can break if the structure is wrong. And Gabe… Gabe had lived inside a massive corporate workspace before Microsoft. Even if ZAGE wasn't Microsoft, the scale problems would rhyme. He would know what happens when organizations grow faster than their management design.
Zaboru's smile grew a little more confident, like the decision itself reduced the weight on his shoulders. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I'll ask them."
And with that, Zaboru decided to discuss it with both of them—before his eight-team dream turned into an eight-team disaster.
It was already lunchtime, and Zanichi and Gaben were still talking. Gaben was clearly obsessed with the ZGBA hardware, and the more he asked, the more impressed he became by Zanichi's calm, terrifying skill. When Zaboru walked into Zanichi's workspace, he found them still in the same posture—one asking nonstop questions, the other answering like the machine itself was whispering back.
"Dad, Gaben—aren't you two eating lunch?"
Gaben grinned and held up a burger, still wrapped in paper stamped with "ZAGE Tavern," the tower's own restaurant brand. "Already prepared, boss!"
Zanichi chuckled. "Your mom brought me lunch. If I don't eat it, I'll die."
Zaboru laughed. "Ayumi brought me food too."
Gaben snorted dramatically. "Sigh… you two are really spoiled—lunch delivered by your wives. My wife is in the USA, and she's as busy as I am."
Zaboru and Zanichi chuckled, and Zaboru waved a hand toward the door. "How about we take a break? Let's eat in my office. There's something I need both of your opinions on. Gaben—and Dad, are you willing?"
Zanichi chuckled. When his son asked like that, it usually meant something bigger than a simple decision was coming. And as his father, it was his duty to help. "Sure. A break sounds good. Let's go, Gabe."
Gaben nodded and followed as Zaboru and Zanichi headed up to Zaboru's office on the 50th floor.
Once they arrived, the three of them ate together. As usual, Zaboru ate an absurd amount of food—enough to make both Gaben and Zanichi laugh while they finished their own meals. But when the lunch ended, Zaboru's expression shifted.
He became quiet. Serious.
"So here's the thing, Dad… Gaben." Zaboru's voice stayed calm, but the way his fingers tapped the table showed he'd been thinking about this for days. "We all know how huge ZAGE is now, right? Japan, Korea, USA—combined we're almost one thousand employees already. And we all know it's only going to increase. Both ZAGE Tower in Japan and ZAGE Campus in the USA can still accommodate more people in the future, and that's not even counting the expansion we're planning for the next three to four years."
He took a breath, then continued more carefully, like he didn't want this to sound like panic. "China and London are coming. And there's a huge chance we'll open in even more countries after that. More studios, more projects, more platforms—console, handheld, arcade, PC… and whatever we build next."
Zaboru's eyes moved between them. "So I want to ask you both straight. Do you think keeping only eight game development teams is enough? Or am I forcing a neat idea onto a messy reality?"
Gaben didn't answer right away—he just leaned back, chewing slowly, eyes narrowed like he was measuring the weight of the question. Zanichi, on the other hand, answered instantly, because this kind of problem was familiar to him.
Zanichi leaned back and said, "That depends on what you mean by 'eight teams.'" He lifted a hand, counting it out like a lesson. "If those eight teams are huge umbrella groups—like ZAGE Japan, ZAGE USA, ZAGE China, ZAGE Korea, ZAGE England, and so on—then it might be enough. Because inside each umbrella, you can branch further and create specialized teams: action teams, RPG teams, Adventure teams and so on. You can scale without breaking the structure."
He looked Zaboru in the eye, voice steady. "But if you mean eight teams as in eight literal studios that must cover everything? That becomes dangerous as we grow. Eight teams can't carry the whole world forever. Not without turning into monsters."
Zaboru shook his head. "No, I don't mean eight umbrella groups," he said, leaning forward. "I mean eight core studios—like what we already have and what we're building toward."
He started listing them out, counting softly on his fingers as if saying the names made the structure real.
"Japan: Team NOVA, Team IZAN, Team NIWA. USA: Team Tempest and Team Enigma. Then Nexus—because Nexus already has branches in both Japan and the USA, and it's becoming our bridge team." He tapped another finger. "Korea: Team Dynasty, and later it can expand into China when we open there. And the last one would be Team Omni in London, England—our future European pillar."
Zaboru looked between the two of them, making sure they understood what he meant. "Those eight would be the 'main' game development teams. Not tiny groups that only do one thing, but complete teams—like what we do now. Each one includes everything: programmers, designers, artists, composers, QA, producers… the full pipeline in one place. So each team can ship games without begging for resources from five different departments and getting stuck in bureaucracy."
He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed by how serious he sounded. "I thought it would keep things clean. Easier to manage. Easier to track quality. Easier to build team identity. Like… each team becomes a brand inside ZAGE. People know what to expect from them. And the teams can even compete in a healthy way—pushing each other without stepping on each other's toes."
Zanichi's eyebrows rose. He glanced at Gaben, then sighed as if he could already see the future headaches. "Well… to be fair," he said, "let me ask you this. Why eight teams specifically, boss?"
Zaboru froze for half a second.
He couldn't say the real reason. He couldn't say that in his head, eight teams felt perfect for a stupid, childish reason—something from his previous life that would sound completely insane here. A private joke nobody would understand. If he said it out loud, they'd either stare at him like he'd lost his mind… or worse, they'd treat it like a serious strategy and build the company around a coincidence.
So Zaboru just scratched his head and forced a casual smile, pretending this was a purely rational idea.
"Well… let's say those eight teams just feel correct," Zaboru said, trying to keep his tone light. "For me. Like… spiritually?"
Zanichi chuckled, the kind of sound that carried both amusement and a warning. "Heh. So superstition."
Zaboru lifted his hands quickly, as if surrendering. "Not—like—bad superstition. I just mean it feels neat. Eight teams. Easy to remember. Easy to manage. Cleaner structure. It makes me feel like the company won't become… messy."
Zanichi shook his head and leaned back. "For me, that kind of thinking is dangerous. Not because your 'team identity' idea is bad—honestly, it's good. Full pipeline teams are strong. Less waiting, less excuses, less 'we can't ship because we're missing one department.'" He tapped the table once, slow and firm. "But eight teams is barely enough even now. In the future, it will be far from enough."
He pointed at the tower window as if the whole skyline was proof. "ZAGE is huge already, and it will become more massive. And you know what massive organizations need? More teams. Specialized teams. Teams built for a purpose." Zanichi's voice turned into that practical teacher tone he used in R&D meetings. "When I worked at Sonaya, we didn't just have one big department that did 'everything.' We had groups inside groups—engine specialists, tools builders, performance and memory experts, audio pipeline people, QA squads, build-and-release teams. Not because they loved complexity. Because scale forces specialization, or you drown."
Gaben nodded, swallowing the last bite of his lunch like he was preparing to testify in court. "Same at Microsoft," he said. "When you get big, 'one team does everything' becomes a bottleneck. Too many meetings, too many approvals, and one delay becomes everyone's delay."
Then he chuckled and tilted his head at Zaboru. "But I get where your brain is coming from, boss. ZAGE's game development life cycle is… weird. We skip a lot of planning and early design because you show up with the vision already cooked. So maybe you think fewer teams is fine, because the roadmap is already built. Eight teams feels like it should be enough if the 'idea factory' is just you."
Zanichi sighed, rubbing his temple like he was choosing his words carefully. "It might be like that for now… but in the future?" He looked at Zaboru with a calm seriousness that made the room feel smaller. "You clearly underestimate your developers' creativity, boss."
He pointed subtly, not accusing, but reminding. "People like Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Shinji Mikami—those aren't just good developers' names. They're leaders now inside your Japanese teams. They're full of ideas. But because you keep handing them work that is already prepared—already decided—they focus on executing your vision. They become craftsmen, not inventors. That's fine for certain projects, but don't confuse it for their limits."
Zanichi's eyes narrowed, thoughtful. "From my perspective, those people—and the other team leaders you've gathered—are capable of making their own strong, stand-alone games. New IP. New mechanics. New style. Just like Hideo Kojima and Yugo did for the recent Jasper Crank game when you gave them space, they created something with their own signature, not just 'Zaboru's blueprint with different paint.'"
He tapped the table once. "If you give them freedom—real freedom, not just 'freedom inside a checklist'—they might create something special for you. Something you didn't even imagine. And that's the kind of treasure you can't buy with money."
Gaben nodded, lips curling into a knowing grin. "Similar case in the USA as well," he said. "You've got people who can build worlds and systems without you babysitting every decision. The more you scale, the more you want teams that can generate their own momentum—otherwise you become the single bottleneck for the entire company."
Zanichi leaned back, crossing his arms, voice steady but heavy. "Right now you are full of ideas, yes. But are you sure your ideas will never run out someday?" He raised a brow. "Even if they don't run out, do you really want the entire company's imagination to depend on one person?"
He paused, letting it sink in. "And besides… isn't it more interesting to have many great games born from other people's ideas too—not just yours? A company this big should feel alive. It should surprise even the person who built it." Zanichi grinned "I bet you excited to play them too right?"
Zanichi's tone softened slightly, but the conclusion stayed firm. "If you want that kind of future multiple visions, multiple identities, multiple creative flames burning at once tten you need more than eight teams, boss."
Zaboru blinked, surprised—and the realization hit him properly this time. Right now, inside ZAGE, there were already so many developers who had been legends in his previous life. Even if their biggest works in this world had started from Zaboru's prepared blueprints, that didn't mean their creativity was gone. If anything, it meant they were being restrained.
And if he loosened his grip even a little… they could create entirely new IP. Completely new worlds. New systems. New stories. New genres that Zaboru himself would never think to build.
The weirdest part was how excited that made him feel.
He pictured himself, years from now, finally having time to sit down and play a game he didn't design—something made by his own people, something that could surprise him. The thought made his chest warm, like the company was becoming a living thing instead of just an extension of his brain.
Zaboru exhaled and nodded slowly. "That's… a valid answer."
Zanichi sighed, but it wasn't frustration—it was the sigh of someone trying to protect his son from a future problem. "And don't forget, you want ZAGE to excel at everything, right?" he said. "Consoles. Handheld. Arcade. PCs." He raised a finger. "And even recently—your phone creation, the AKAI Z2-Flip. That's another platform with its own game ecosystem, even if it's Java ME-based."
He leaned forward slightly, voice steady. "If you want to focus on all of those at once—and do it seriously—you definitely need more than eight teams. Otherwise you'll stretch everyone thin, and quality will suffer. Or worse… you'll start sacrificing people to keep up."
Gaben chuckled and nodded, then added in that blunt, practical tone that made him sound like he was talking about physics instead of management. "Right now, teams like your current ZAGE teams—the ones that have everything under one roof are great," he said. "But as you grow, more teams doesn't just mean more projects. It means more leaders. More decision-makers. Less bottleneck."
He gestured vaguely, like the whole USA branch was sitting behind his shoulder. "And as far as I know, there are already plenty of good leaders even in the USA branch alone, boss. If we create more teams, we create more responsibility and more ownership. And that's how you scale without losing quality."
Gaben's grin widened slightly. "More teams, more games, still greater quality. As long as the structure is designed to support it."
Zaboru went quiet, letting their words sink deeper than he wanted to admit. What Gaben and his dad said was true—painfully true. ZAGE wasn't a small studio anymore. If they wanted to continue to dominate consoles, handhelds, PC, and arcade all at once, then the structure had to reflect that reality.
And then there were genres—JRPG, action, fighting, adventure, western RPG, FPS, even visual novels—and those were entire worlds by themselves. Each one required different design instincts, different pipelines, even different leadership styles. On top of that, ZAGE had its own IP categories too: anime-based games, tokusatsu-based titles, collaborations, spin-offs… and now even mobile with the AKAI Z2-Flip and Java ME games. If he kept forcing everything into "eight full pipeline teams," the teams would eventually become too bloated to move, too overloaded to breathe.
Zaboru swallowed, feeling a strange mix of relief and embarrassment. The "eight teams" idea wasn't evil—but it was too rigid. Too symbolic. Too much of a private joke he'd been stubbornly trying to turn into a business truth.
He finally smiled and nodded. "I see. That makes sense." He exhaled, like he was letting something go. "Okay then. I won't limit our structure to just eight teams. It will be more than that."
Zaboru chuckled softly, but his eyes were serious. "I want ZAGE to make a lot of games in the future—many genres, many styles. And I want to give my talented developers a real chance to create new games… or even form teams of their own when they're ready. I don't want everyone's dream to be trapped inside my dream."
Zanichi grinned and nodded, satisfied. "That's good. It won't take long to feel the difference." He leaned back, calm. "For now, the current ZAGE structure is good as it is, right, Gabe?"
Gaben nodded. "Yeah. You don't need to rip everything apart today. You just need a plan that can grow."
Zanichi pointed lightly, like a teacher marking the next lesson. "But in the future—when the expansion happens—you will need more than eight teams, boss. Teams like the current ZAGE teams, and also smaller specialized teams around them. Engine and tools. Optimization. Handheld-focused support. Platform-specific QA. Localization. Build and release. Those aren't luxuries. They're what keeps a giant company from collapsing under its own weight."
Zaboru nodded again. Talking with Gaben and his dad had opened something in him—not just logic, but acceptance. So he chose not to be stubborn anymore. He abandoned the NINTENDO team idea fully, not with regret, but with a quiet laugh at himself.
And with that, Zaboru, Zanichi, and Gaben returned to work.
To be continue
AN : I've realized that there are so many loopholes for my previous Idea so here the chapter to cancel that which adds some character development as well.
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