Once the deal with Taito was settled, Kobayashi Tetsu no longer needed to worry about the follow-up. Sega's legal department would naturally take over communication with Taito.
And why would Sega's legal department help him?
Strictly speaking, they weren't helping Kobayashi Tetsu—they were helping Kobayashi Kentarō.
It was perfectly reasonable for a Sega department head to use Sega's legal team.
It just so happened that this business overlapped ever so slightly with his "private" work.
In the past half year, Atlas had brought Sega's entire production chain several hundred million yen in revenue. From cartridge factories to distribution to retailers—everyone made money. SG-series sales also rose significantly.
Under such circumstances, borrowing Sega's legal team?
No one would object.
—And even if someone wanted to, they had no right to.
Departments that didn't earn money off Atlas had no standing to complain.
After leaving Sega HQ, Kobayashi made a stop at Shimayori Yōsuke's game shop. Kobayakawa wasn't around at this hour. Kobayashi had only come to check console and cartridge sales.
He browsed once around the store. Everything looked fine.
He estimated he'd earn another few million yen this week.
Just as he was about to leave, something flashed in front of him.
A man wearing the same style of baseball cap leaned in beside him—long black trench coat, expression deadly serious.
If this weren't Japan, Kobayashi would've thought this guy was a hitman.
"Actually, Japan does have plenty of men-in-black… they all just live in Detective Conan."
Kobayashi stepped back cautiously.
"Don't worry!" The man held up a hand. "Hey, little brother, I saw you walking around the shop, asking prices, but buying nothing. Funds a bit tight?"
"Me? Tight on money? How could I…" Kobayashi began, then abruptly changed tone. "Well… maybe a little. So what?"
The man grinned oddly.
"No rush. Come over here."
He pulled Kobayashi behind a bus stop, then reached into his coat.
A flip of the hand.
Ah!
A cartridge appeared.
Kobayashi blinked.
It was a cartridge—but the label wasn't from Sega's official print shop.
"This here's last year's hottest title—Kobayashi Blocks! If you're not into that, I've got Mountain-Smoke War, Duck Shooting… oh, I've even got Nintendo stuff—Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Popeye, Mario the Plumber… whatever you want, I've got it!
And every one of 'em—only 500 yen!"
Kobayashi sucked in a breath of pure cartridge-flavored outrage.
A pirate cartridge seller!
Every cartridge he sold represented 348 yen stolen directly from Kobayashi's pocket.
For each pirated sale, Kobayashi lost 348 yen in personal income.
His fists clenched. His face reddened.
At last he squeezed out a whisper:
"…Got more?"
He bought every single cartridge.
"By the way, if there are new games later, can I find you again?" Kobayashi hefted the bag. "Sell me those too."
The man flashed a thumbs-up.
"No problem. Whenever there's a new game, head to the alley next to the game shop—you'll find me."
Kobayashi clicked his tongue.
Mysterious, huh.
He left and went straight back to the garage, dumping the whole bag of cartridges onto the desk.
All three developers turned toward him.
"President?"
"Kobayashi-kun?"
"Why so many cartridges?!"
Kobayashi spread his hands. "All pirated. Didn't expect bootlegs to appear this quickly!"
He gestured. "Sit, sit. Keep working. I'll check what's going on with these."
He grabbed a screwdriver and opened the first shell.
Devices from this era had no anti-tamper design—easy to open.
The outside looked normal, but the inside was clearly different.
Both Nintendo and Sega used the same type of encryption at this time: a 40-pin integrated controller chip, each pin corresponding to a logic unit, creating the encryption effect. To crack a game, one had to analyze forty distinct logic states and functions.
If the console detected incorrect cartridge data, the machine would fry.
This method was widely used until around 1991.
But inside the cartridge in Kobayashi's hand—there was no 40-pin chip.
Instead, there was a black blob of hardened resin.
"Cow-dung cartridges—seriously?! How can Japanese people be this wicked?!"
Kobayashi nearly beat his chest.
Chinese players later had very little access to legitimate cartridges. Most saw only this:
cow-dung cartridges.
Smaller than official cartridges, lacking proper circuitry, everything sealed in a cheap black or brown epoxy blob.
Low cost, decent reliability—perfect for piracy.
This technique spread from Japan to China, booming through the '90s until everyone owned a few "cow-dung carts."
They were hard to repair and prone to failure—but cheap as dirt.
"President," Nakayuji Hiroshi leaned in. "Should we sue them? Doesn't Sega have a legal department?"
"Don't rush." Kobayashi held up a hand. "Think positive. These bootleggers aren't only making our cartridges—they're ripping off Nintendo and everyone else too. And more importantly, they're using techniques far beyond just cow-dung sealing."
He picked up the most unusual cartridge.
It was a Nintendo Mario the Plumber cart.
Strangely, it wasn't epoxy-sealed.
Mario the Plumber was Nintendo's big Famicom release last year—sales were blocked thanks to Kobayashi's sabotage, but as a Gunpei Yokoi + Shigeru Miyamoto project, Nintendo still treated it as a flagship.
Its encryption wasn't the standard 40-pin IC.
Yet even so—the pirates cracked it.
Mario's encryption used a universal logic-scrambling circuit, which completely rearranged the 40-pin information, rewriting it according to the programmer's scheme.
Kobayashi studied the pirate ROM.
"This is actually good news. First, since it's a cracked cartridge, the encryption has already been destroyed. Nakayuji, try reverse-compiling it—see how Nintendo solved their screen-warping problem. That'll help with our work."
Nakayuji pointed at himself. "I'm supposed to crack Nintendo? Seriously?!"
"Seriously," Kobayashi said. "Second, this shows the pirates act fast. I'm going to report them to the police."
Kitagawa Takeshi and Masuko Tsukasa both snapped their heads up.
So intense?!
Kobayashi shrugged.
And after that, of course…
Recruit the bootleggers.
Then forbid them from pirating Sega games—
and make them focus exclusively on pirating Nintendo.
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