Miki Higashino was born in 1965. From a young age, she was the quintessential "other people's child." She began practicing piano and composing at five, and by middle school had already formed a band.
Later, because she needed to prepare for university entrance exams, she left the band behind, spent a year studying music theory, and successfully enrolled at Osaka College of Music. She was later described by Konami's music producers as someone with absolute pitch.
It all sounded uncannily like one of those characters from a music-themed anime. There were even rumors that the character Yui Hirasawa from K-On! was inspired by Miki Higashino.
Miki Higashino was only nineteen this year—exactly the age of a university student. Unlike Yuji Naka, who had dropped out halfway, or Hideo Kojima, the king of slacking off at university—
She was genuinely studying.
Which meant it was impossible for her to join full-time.
Even so, Kobayashi Tetsu still signed a simple part-time composer contract with her, granting Atlus priority purchase rights to her compositions and welcoming her to submit completed works to Atlus Studio.
After entrusting her with composing music for "Sonic," Kobayashi Tetsu returned to Tokyo.
As time passed, September arrived.
In August, Nintendo had released two Hudson Soft games—both third-party titles.
It wasn't until September that the previously announced Devil World was officially released.
At Atlus Studio, Kobayashi Tetsu casually asked,
"How many copies did Off-Road Motorcycle sell in its first month again?"
Yuji Naka instantly snapped upright.
"Two hundred and thirty thousand."
"Oh. Two hundred and thirty thousand. With a 12% revenue share and a unit price of 3,480 yen, that's over eighty million yen before tax."
After tax, it was still around fifty million yen.
Thanks to MJ, Kobayashi Tetsu had become a man holding close to two hundred million yen.
All the games from last month were paying out. Acquiring HAL had only cost thirty million. In the blink of an eye, Kobayashi Tetsu was approaching two hundred million yen again.
Thankfully, yen figures were large by default. Two hundred million yen sounded terrifying, but in reality it wasn't that much. Otherwise, if it were two hundred million in RMB, Kobayashi Tetsu would easily be a small-town tycoon.
He thought it over.
This garage was already starting to feel cramped. It seemed Atlus was due to move into a proper office space—something that actually looked official.
The garage startup phase was about ready to end.
Kobayashi Tetsu tapped idly on the keyboard, then suddenly asked,
"What do you think—how many copies will Devil World sell over at Nintendo?"
Yuji Naka shook his head sincerely.
How would he know?
All he knew was that Kobayashi Tetsu had promised him a 3% cut of Off-Road Motorcycle's revenue.
Which meant he had already earned over a million yen himself.
Extremely satisfied.
Kobayashi Tetsu stood across the street from Shimayori Game Shop, watching as Manager Qianshan sold Devil World cartridges.
He deliberately observed for a while. Quite a few players were buying Devil World. Although FC sales were slightly lower than the SG, it was still a million-unit home console. Combined with Devil World's early release hype, long lines were only natural.
After watching for a bit, Kobayashi Tetsu turned and left.
First-day sales didn't say much. With all the pre-release promotion, a newly launched game was bound to see enthusiastic buying, especially from fans.
The next day, Kobayashi Tetsu returned to Qianshan's shop.
There were clearly fewer customers.
He watched from the outside for a while before walking inside.
Manager Qianshan was restocking shelves. Seeing Kobayashi Tetsu, he greeted him warmly.
"Blue-Eyes White Dragon-kun, long time no see. Don't always go to the shop across the street—this place is good too."
"Yeah," Kobayashi Tetsu replied casually, sweeping his gaze across the shelves.
There were still some Devil World cartridges left—but not many.
Kobayashi Tetsu's expression carried a faint, knowing smile.
Not many left meant they hadn't sold out.
And not selling out meant the sales weren't quite up to expectations.
"Manager Qianshan, how's the new game? Mind if I give it a try?"
"Sure, no problem!"
Qianshan Hayato was more than happy to oblige.
A skilled player could draw an audience, which indirectly boosted sales.
He quickly hooked up the TV and even brought over a chair.
Kobayashi Tetsu leaned back and tried the game.
It followed the standard Pac-Man formula, but with noticeable improvements. Items and monsters had varied responses. It was clear Miyamoto Shigeru had put in real effort—it wasn't just a simple copy of Pac-Man.
The enemy AI was indeed improved, with monsters occasionally coordinating to corner the player.
But after playing for a while, Kobayashi Tetsu quickly realized that this "intelligence" was hard-coded.
In other words, the monsters weren't making intelligent decisions—they were simply programmed to react in specific ways when the player entered certain positions.
Even though Kobayashi Tetsu had never played this game before, he found it easy almost immediately.
After half an hour, he put the controller down.
Miyamoto Shigeru was guaranteed to lose.
Kobayashi Tetsu was confident in that judgment.
Off-Road Motorcycle had originally been a niche genre too—but it had ridden a favorable wave. Otherwise, the outcome would have been far less certain.
"Someone as famous as Miyamoto Shigeru wouldn't go back on a bet, right?"
Muttering to himself, Kobayashi Tetsu stood up.
Manager Qianshan tried to keep him a bit longer, but Kobayashi Tetsu left behind a thousand-yen bill and walked away.
Leaning against a street-corner wall, Kobayashi Tetsu casually sent Miyamoto Shigeru a pager message.
"Miyamoto-san, want to have a chat?"
A few minutes later, the pager buzzed again.
"In person?"
Tetsu replied, "Phone."
No way it was going to be in person.
Borrowing a public phone by the roadside, Kobayashi Tetsu dropped in a few yen coins and called Miyamoto Shigeru.
"I just tried your latest masterpiece. How should I put it—Devil World does have some novelty. Even though it's based on Pac-Man, it's fresher, and the feel is quite good. That's classic Nintendo quality, so I'm not surprised. Unfortunately, its flaws are also very obvious. The difficulty is too low—overly family-friendly. Too many mechanics stray from the core Pac-Man concept. The visuals and sound are decent but unremarkable. Looks like Nintendo's been diverting resources elsewhere lately, huh?"
Kobayashi Tetsu went on at length. On the other end of the line, Miyamoto Shigeru's breathing clearly grew heavier.
"Nintendo has its own work arrangements," Miyamoto said as evenly as he could. "President Kobayashi, it hasn't even been a month yet."
Tetsu sighed. "Do we really need to wait a full month?"
Miyamoto Shigeru fell silent.
Truthfully, there was no need to wait. Based on distributor feedback, Miyamoto could already roughly judge the outcome. Sales wouldn't be bad—but first-month sales definitely wouldn't surpass Off-Road Motorcycle.
Naturally, he wasn't about to say something so discouraging.
Just as he was about to argue back, Kobayashi Tetsu spoke again.
"Devil World uses fake AI, doesn't it? This level of improvement is fine, but compared to the early promotional claims, it's still exaggerated. Japan might not have a false advertising law yet, but if this keeps up, Ten-Cent Tetsu might make a comeback. We could have a nice little discussion about Nintendo's false promotion—might even take a hit to your sales."
There was no sound from the other end.
But Kobayashi Tetsu was certain Miyamoto Shigeru's expression was far from pleasant.
"President Kobayashi."
After a long pause, Miyamoto finally spoke.
"Do you really not want to meet in person? Game planning is complicated—this can't all be discussed over the phone."
"That's fine. I have money," Kobayashi Tetsu said. "Didn't make much last month—just a few tens of millions of yen. I can afford the phone bill."
Miyamoto Shigeru: …
Kobayashi Tetsu laughed. "Just kidding. Not funny, but I said it anyway. So—please have your game proposal printed out and sent to the address I specify. Someone will pick it up later."
Even though a full month hadn't passed, the first week's sales were already enough to predict the outcome. The odds were clearly slim.
Hanging up, Kobayashi Tetsu felt completely at ease.
Miyamoto Shigeru probably wouldn't hand over his very best game plan—but this bet hadn't really cost either side anything anyway. Either could have backed out at any time. Under those circumstances, Miyamoto's willingness to honor the bet was already an unexpected bonus.
Kobayashi Tetsu wasn't asking for Super Mario Bros.—that had already been made.
He wasn't picky. Something like The Legend of Zelda would do just fine. That would be more than enough.
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