Chapter 159: Preorder Sales

California, inside a game store. 

"Hello, I'd like to pre-order three copies of GAMENOVA's new game, Civilization." 5

Frank had finally made it through the enormous line stretching all the way into the parking lot and was now standing at the counter he'd spent so long trying to reach. 

He had come here today with one goal in mind. There was no way he was going to miss the chance to pre-order a masterpiece like Civilization, a game destined to redefine the industry. His roommates at UCLA felt exactly the same way. 

'Damn it. If that die had landed on a three, I would've landed on the right property and made a comeback. Instead, I went bankrupt and got stuck standing in line for everyone.' 

After all, everyone knew how insane the lines got whenever GAMENOVA released a new game. So, to decide which unlucky soul would have to wait in line, the three of them had unanimously agreed to settle it with a game of GAMENOVA's Sovereign. 

It was, without question, the worst decision Frank had ever made. 

"Certainly, sir. Please make your payment here." 

The cashier nodded and entered the pre-order into the system before looking up at Frank with a polite smile. 

"Oh, and one more thing, sir. Civilization is launching on GAMENOVA's next-generation console." 1

"A new console?" 1

Frank froze. That news was even more unexpected than the announcement that Civilization was finally available for pre-order. 

Console generations had always been one of the hottest topics in gaming. Ever since the release of the NovaBox and NovaPocket, countless players had been wondering when GAMENOVA would unveil its next generation of hardware. 

According to some rather unreliable rumors, both Sega and Nintendo were already developing their own next-generation consoles, while GAMENOVA had remained unusually quiet. 

Granted, a few reporters had managed to uncover information suggesting that GAMENOVA was aggressively recruiting IC design studios and forming strategic partnerships with multiple PC manufacturers, but when it came to the console itself, there wasn't a single useful leak. 

The same was more or less true for Sega, Nintendo, SNK, and NEC, but at least there was confirmation that their upcoming 16-bit systems were under development. 

Yet now... pre-orders had suddenly gone live? 

Frank blinked several times. He'd only stopped following gaming news for about half a month. How had things escalated this quickly? 

"Yes, the next-generation 16-bit home console, NovaXeno. The pre-order deposit is $80." 

"Wait... $80? Then how much is the console itself?" 

"$339.99, sir." 

Nearly $340. For a game console? 

Frank's hand stopped halfway to his wallet. The original NovaBox had already been ridiculously expensive at $250, and now its successor cost almost another hundred dollars on top of that. 2

This was daylight robbery! 

For that kind of money, he could practically build a budget PC. Frank had expected the new console to be expensive, but this was way beyond what he'd imagined. 1

Seeing his hesitation, the young cashier gave him a patient smile. 

"That's the Deluxe Edition, sir. If you'd prefer, you can pre-order the Standard Edition for $259.99." 

"The Deluxe Edition? What's the difference?" 

Frank frowned. An $80 price difference couldn't possibly be for something as trivial as a few cosmetic changes. 

"The Deluxe Edition comes with a built-in CD-ROM drive, so it'll be able to play all of GAMENOVA's future first-party titles. The Standard Edition only supports floppy disks." 1

She slid a brochure across the counter and pointed to an illustration of the two models. 2

"Other than that, the hardware is identical. You can always buy an external CD-ROM drive later if you get the Standard Edition." 

"Huh..." 

Frank studied the specifications of both models carefully. Sure enough, there was no other difference. 

"A 16+8 processor?! And 256 KB of RAM? Fuck... no wonder it's so expensive." 

The listed specifications were unbelievable. 

The Famicom had only 2 KB of RAM. This machine had 128 times as much. They weren't even remotely in the same league anymore. 

Still trying to wrap his head around the specs, Frank's attention eventually settled on the CD-ROM drive. 

Hundreds of megabytes of storage... a storage medium with that much capacity, and GAMENOVA's development capabilities on top of it... Frank couldn't help but shudder at the possibilities. 

"Let me ask one thing, what medium is Civilization being released on?" 

"CD, sir." 

Of course it was. 

Which meant that if he wanted to play the new game, he had no choice but to buy the version with the CD-ROM drive. 

That really hurt. 

"Then I'll take one Deluxe Edition." 

At this point, Frank couldn't make the decision for his roommates anymore. If they decided they didn't want the console after all, he'd probably be stuck paying for it himself. 

Still, at least with one CD-equipped NovaXeno, the three of them would be able to experience Civilization the way it was meant to be played. 

.... 

How many units did a next-generation console have to sell before it could be considered successful? 

There was no definitive answer. But NovaXeno's first-week pre-orders were already... 300,000 units. 

Ethan looked at the report Sam handed him and fell silent for a moment as he stared at the astonishing number. 

They hadn't even started advertising the NovaXeno itself. The only commercial they'd released was the trailer for Civilization. 1

In other words, the overwhelming majority of those 300,000 pre-orders had been driven by Civilization alone. 

And there were still four months to go before launch. If the hype continued building at this rate, it was hard to imagine how high the final pre-order numbers would climb. 

There was no doubt about it, the NovaXeno was a huge success. 

"Good. Spend whatever we need to on marketing. We'll make the money back soon enough." 

Ethan ran the numbers through his head. 

Just like the NovaBox before it, even the $340 CD-ROM version of the NovaXeno was being sold at a loss. Fortunately, months of OEM manufacturing experience, combined with the continued improvement of GAMENOVA's in-house chip designs, had significantly lowered production costs. They were still losing money on every unit, just not nearly as much as before. 

Ethan lowered his eyes to the next line of the report. 

Civilization pre-orders. 

350,000 copies. 

"It actually outsold the NX?" 

He was surprised for a moment, but then it immediately made sense. 

Anyone who had lived through last year's Black Friday frenzy already knew one thing: Games published by GAMENOVA were practically financial investments. 

Take Pokémon, for example. If someone had managed to grab a launch copy of Pokémon during the Christmas season, played through it, and then decided to sell it... they could have sold it for even more than they originally paid. 

In other words, they could play Pokémon for free and still make a profit. 

That fact alone made pre-ordering and buying GAMENOVA games on launch day incredibly worthwhile. 

"There's a lot of scalper markup mixed into those numbers..." 

Ethan frowned as he looked over the figures. 

He didn't like it one bit. GAMENOVA made games for players, for their fans who had been eagerly waiting for them, saving up their money, and lining up just to get their hands on a copy. 

Seeing scalpers buy up those games and resell them at inflated prices meant some of their fans might not even get the chance to play them, and that genuinely bothered him. 5

Unfortunately, there wasn't much he could do about it. 

Once a copy had been legally purchased, GAMENOVA couldn't simply dictate what the owner did with it afterward. They could increase production, work with retailers to improve stock availability, and discourage stores from selling unusually large quantities to individual buyers, but there would always be people willing to buy up scarce products and resell them. 1

Ethan sighed and rubbed his forehead. 

"There's no perfect solution. Just make sure we keep production as high as we reasonably can. If we can keep the shelves stocked, the scalpers won't have much room to inflate the prices." 

Sam nodded and made a note on the report. 

Ethan leaned back in his chair. He had expected GAMENOVA's popularity to attract resellers, but that didn't mean he had to encourage them. 

Still, this wasn't a problem he could solve overnight. For now, the best thing GAMENOVA could do was make sure there were enough copies available for the players who actually wanted them. 1

He had plenty of ideas for the future, including digital distribution, season passes, and other modern approaches to game content. 7

Unfortunately, the technology of the era simply wasn't ready for a large-scale service like that. The network infrastructure was too limited, and trying to build such a system would have required far more than they could reasonably manage at the moment. 

Even getting reliable online multiplayer working in Civilization had been a massive undertaking, especially with the limitations of the technology available at the time. The development team had pushed themselves to the limit just to make it happen. 

At the moment, there was only so much Ethan could do. He had laid the groundwork for the future; the rest would have to wait until the technology caught up. 

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Guys do leave your comments and reviews, also I'm quite busy today so bonus chapter will be out tomorrow, so sorry for that y'all. 

And if you want some extra chapters, be sure to check out my Patron page, it's few chapters ahead of webnovel. 

p at reon . com / NovaScribe 

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