Video Game Tycoon in Tokyo-Chapter 768: Switch

"Honey, I want to buy a new phone."

"A phone? Don't you already have one?"

"Uh... well... this one's different. You can play the latest Mario game on it."

"Oh, I see. I've seen that commercial too. Sure, go ahead. You work so hard every day—it's just a phone. No problem."

"You're so kind and understanding, honey!"

At the dinner table, the husband was moved nearly to tears, while their son, Bunta, was wide-eyed with excitement.

"Dad! If you're getting a new phone, does that mean I can inherit your handheld console?"

"Keep dreaming, kid. That thing has all my precious game saves. Even if I buy a new one, you're not getting the old one."

...

"Well... I wouldn't say no to a new one..."

"Focus on your studies, and maybe I'll consider it."

Bunta pouted for a moment, but quickly cheered up.

If Dad was getting a new game device, it only meant he'd get to play on it too.

That night, the father couldn't wait and ordered the latest Facebook smartphone online, along with several bundled games.

Unlike handheld consoles, all games on the phone were digital—but the prices and quantity made it a good deal.

And games from the FC and SFC eras weren't just simple ports—they'd been deeply adapted for touchscreen controls.

Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had a 200-person team dedicated to that alone.

Because they were digital, even games from the Famicom era could receive instant updates.

With proper adaptation, reasonable file sizes, and a nostalgic appeal, players were happy to pay for these classics—creating a healthy, sustainable ecosystem.

Meanwhile, over at Micfo, their game development progress was... slower. They faced numerous challenges.

The first major hurdle: game engines.

Myron Case had deep experience in electronics and a strong sense of foresight—but that didn't mean he understood video games.

He only knew that handheld consoles were full of high-quality titles.

So when he assembled a dev team, he demanded they produce games on par with those seen on Surry Electronics' handhelds.

But that led to the first problem—the engine.

Building a game engine from scratch was incredibly complex—it couldn't be done overnight. And the only good engine on the market? It belonged to Gamestar.

As a direct competitor, Myron hated the idea of paying Gamestar before he even got started.

Worse, for a company of Micfo's size, licensing the Unreal Engine now cost tens of millions of dollars per year, plus a 10% cut of sales.

In the end, Myron decided to build his own engine.

Which led to the second problem.

His dev team only had around 200 people—and some of them had to focus entirely on building the engine. Sure, they could create something basic fairly quickly.

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But if they wanted to match the quality of games on dedicated consoles, that was a different story—it wouldn't be done anytime soon.

Myron didn't want to hear excuses. He issued strict orders: "Don't worry about salary. Just sacrifice your hair and your liver."

So Micfo's dev team carried on, both suffering and laughing, building games and an engine at the same time.

When Takayuki heard about Myron's messy scramble into game development, he couldn't stop smiling.

Looks like this tech industry titan had no idea how tough game development really was.

Worse, he had misunderstood Takayuki's true strategy—thinking he needed high-quality console-level games, not simple casual ones. That misunderstanding would likely lead Myron down the wrong path for a year or more.

That gave Takayuki the perfect opening.

Even if he couldn't capture the broader non-gaming user base right away, he had to lock down the core gamers—the ones who truly cared about what they played.

Win over the core audience first, then expand to general users.

So far, that strategy wasn't a complete success. Micfo's phones were still outselling Facebook's.

But for a newcomer to the smartphone industry, Facebook's launch was a huge success.

Just the fact that Facebook could survive and carve out space under Micfo's dominant presence was cause for celebration.

And soon, Gamestar's mobile game team would begin a full-on assault into the smartphone space. Takayuki had already set the vision and direction. All that was left was to quietly build momentum and prepare for a few blockbuster hits.

As for what came next—Takayuki had a new plan: a next-gen handheld console.

But this wouldn't be a traditional handheld. It would combine handheld and home console features—just like the Switch from the original world.

He had dreamed of this for a long time.

Now that the technology had matured and the player base had grown, it was time to unite both handheld and console gamers.

But for now, it was still early. Much of the planning and design hadn't been finalized yet.

"Takayuki, according to your specs, we've finished the exterior design for your Switch-style console."

Wearing a white engineer's uniform, Airi Hayasawa walked into the 5th game development division holding the latest sketches.

Takayuki was currently overseeing the development of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, one of their most important projects at the moment.

He glanced at the sketches—and was instantly hit with a wave of familiarity.

Detachable controllers, a docking station for connecting to displays, and a main unit with a small cooling fan.

Compared to older handhelds, this was massive. But compared to traditional home consoles, it was small—somewhere in between.

In the original world, the Switch's early prototypes were quite different from the final version. It launched in 2017, but development began right after the Wii U. Initially, it was meant to be a pure handheld—a successor to the 3DS.

Only later, through iterations and innovation, did it evolve into the hybrid we now know as the Switch.

Takayuki skipped all that.

He jumped straight to the final product—the perfected hybrid design.

And by doing so, he was about to save a lot of time.