"There really are a lot of people!"
Standing outside the Galaxy Games booth, Yamauchi Kō couldn't help but admit the exhibition was a success.
It wasn't just the dense crowd surrounding the booth—people lining up to try Galaxy Games' two new titles—but also the steady flow of international distributors coming and going. Many stayed for quite a while before leaving, clearly intrigued.
Although Yamauchi didn't know whether Lin Baicheng had actually reached any agreements with those agents, he could tell from their attitudes that the games had attracted strong interest. Even if some deals hadn't closed yet, it was likely just a matter of price negotiation.
Galaxy Games might be a small studio from Hong Kong, barely half a year old, but both of its titles had become commercial hits—something Yamauchi deeply admired, and perhaps even envied.
A single good game could bring massive profits. That was precisely why Yamauchi had decided to lead Nintendo into the gaming industry. He had a gut feeling that Galaxy Games would become a serious obstacle—perhaps even a future rival—for Nintendo's ambitions in video games.
Still, there wasn't much he could do about it. The only option was to focus on strengthening Nintendo and hope that his competitor stumbled somewhere down the line.
As the day went on, Galaxy Games collected contact information from numerous distributors. Some even wanted to place immediate orders, but Lin politely declined, explaining that the company would hold a temporary distributor meeting after the three-day expo to finalize cooperation deals.
The remaining days of the fair would give distributors time to observe whether the hype around Galaxy's two titles could last—or whether it was just a passing craze.
That evening, Lin Baicheng received a piece of industry news from Phil Smith: Atari's flagship console, the Atari VCS, had just received an order for 50,000 units that very day—making Atari one of the few companies to secure large contracts at the event.
At first, Lin didn't recognize the name "Atari VCS." After asking for details, he realized it was none other than the Atari 2600—just under its earlier name.
The VCS was a home TV gaming console, priced at $199 USD, bundled with nine simple games. It had launched a month ago and, including today's order, had already sold around 100,000 units.
Despite strong sales, profits weren't huge—its low retail price left limited margins, maybe only a few million dollars total. The exact number would depend on manufacturing costs.
Through Phil, Lin learned that Atari's main focus in this era was home consoles. The company's acquisition by Warner Communications had injected $100 million in funding—most of it used to develop the VCS.
At its current performance, the console wasn't quite a breakout success, but it wasn't a failure either. The market was responding positively.
The main reason sales were being held back was Fairchild Semiconductor's Channel F console, Atari's direct rival. Fairchild's presence limited Atari's pricing power and, consequently, its profits.
But Lin, with memories from his past life, knew exactly what would happen next.
Atari would rise to fame on the success of the Atari 2600, selling more than 2 million units within just a few years and generating over $2 billion USD in profits.
How could such a low-priced console yield such massive profit?
The answer was simple: game cartridges.
The VCS's cartridge-based system was the foundation for future consoles—Nintendo's Famicom (NES) would be inspired by it. The real money wasn't in the console, but in the endless sales of game cartridges.
Naturally, Lin had thought about creating a similar system himself.
But there was one problem: money.
Atari had spent over $100 million USD developing the VCS. Even if Lin could reduce that cost significantly, it would still take tens of millions—far beyond his current means.
For now, he could only dream. But in the future, once Galaxy Games had built up enough capital, he planned to recruit Gunpei Yokoi from Nintendo—the man who would later design the Famicom—and have him lead Galaxy's console development.
Lin could guide software design, but hardware was another world entirely.
He could describe the desired features, but it would take a true hardware genius like Yokoi to make it real. Without him, Lin would waste precious time and money figuring things out the hard way.
That's the difference between an industry expert and an ordinary engineer—a gap measured in years and millions.
Two days later, the expo concluded.
Galaxy Games, though just a small company from Hong Kong, had made an enormous splash. Both Hong Kong Blocks and Pac-Man received glowing feedback from players and strong attention from distributors—even a few international newspapers ran short reports on the two titles.
At the follow-up distributor meeting hosted by Galaxy Games the next day, the results were impressive.
For Hong Kong Blocks, the Japanese and North American markets were already under exclusive contracts, so no new orders were made. However, agencies from Europe and South America still placed smaller orders—some for dozens of units, others for several hundred. In total, Hong Kong Blocks received 5,000 unit orders worldwide.
As for Pac-Man, it was a completely different story.
Distributors everywhere were fighting to secure exclusive regional rights.
Lin happily approved every exclusivity deal offered—Galaxy Games had no established foreign channels yet, and with anti-piracy measures built into the software, there was little risk of bootlegging. Granting exclusivity meant higher upfront fees and guaranteed partners.
For Galaxy Games, the Los Angeles expo had not only brought fame—it had opened the door to the global market.