As the title that defined the SRPG genre, Fire Emblem absolutely held a place worthy of being written into gaming history. At the same time, its setting was rooted in western fantasy, meaning it posed little barrier to acceptance in western markets, which were already familiar with Dungeons & Dragons.
Its groundbreaking gameplay was also innovative enough to leave any player of this era shouting.
"Holy shit!"
Before that, however, they first needed to pay a visit to the hardware division.
"Sixteen-bit? Are you sure?" Gerald scratched his cheek. "Another game has run into a performance bottleneck?"
He knew Ethan well. If he was suddenly asking for something like this, it clearly meant he had another new game project in mind.
"Yeah. We've received reliable intelligence that SEGA is secretly developing a new generation of home consoles."
Ethan casually used Sega as a cover story.
"If nothing unexpected happens, both Nintendo and SEGA will release next-generation home consoles within the next two or three years. Sixteen-bit hardware is practically guaranteed."
"..."
"Then we'll have to redesign our CPU architecture from scratch. Even the compiler for the Nova Language will need to be rebuilt."
Gerald roughly estimated the workload and clicked his tongue. Upgrading to sixteen-bit wasn't simply a matter of doubling a number. Compared to eight-bit systems, the increase in addressable memory wasn't merely twice as much, it was a full sixteenfold increase.
The maximum supported memory jumped directly from 64 KB to 1 MB. That kind of leap was enough to change everything.
Take color depth, for example. In an 8-bit color mode, the maximum number of colors supported was only 2⁸, or 256 colors. After moving to 16-bit, that number became 65,536 colors, 2¹⁶.
Sixty-five thousand five hundred thirty-six colors!
On top of that, since Zilog had no capability to manufacture a 16-bit processor, they would have to replace it with Motorola's 68000 processor. The completely different instruction set, and hardware architecture would instantly render their indispensable Nova programming language useless.
This wasn't something that could be finished in just a day or two.
"I'll handle the Nova Language issue. Right now, our top priority is determining the hardware specifications."
Recalling the specifications of Nintendo's Super Famicom and Sega's Mega Drive, Ethan said, "We'll keep the dual-CPU architecture, but this time we'll make it a 16-bit plus 8-bit setup. The auxiliary 8-bit chip will still use Zilog's processors."
Although Zilog had absolutely no expertise in the 16-bit field, they remained the best manufacturer when it came to 8-bit processors.
"Besides that, this 16-bit processor must have one important feature."
He tapped the whiteboard and wrote.
[Variable Width Mode]
Gerald narrowed his eyes, immediately understanding what he meant.
"You want a processor that can switch between 8-bit and 16-bit modes?"
At first glance, the feature seemed rather unnecessary. But on a home console, it would be incredibly valuable. The most obvious advantage was that it would effectively turn the console into an emulator.
The next-generation console could simulate an 8-bit environment for backward compatibility, allowing it to run GAMENOVA's existing library of games at virtually zero additional cost.
"Exactly. The processor is the most urgent issue, so everything else can wait."
Ethan nodded. As for the other hardware components of the next-generation console, such as the sound chip and memory, those weren't things that could be rushed.
"The graphics are another major problem. Our originally planned number of simultaneous on-screen colors definitely isn't enough. We need support for 256 simultaneous colors. I'll talk to Vivian about that in a moment."
Standing before the whiteboard, Ethan contemplated another issue that was equally important for the new console.
What should they call it?
They already had the NovaBox and the NovaPocket. So, he needed a much more impactful name, one worthy of a truly next-generation 16-bit console.
"Ah!"
His eyes lit up. Picking up the marker, he swiftly wrote the console's temporary name across the whiteboard in bold strokes.
[NovaXeno]
The NX Console.
"Pfft!"
Vivian nearly choked on her own saliva.
"Two hundred and fifty-six simultaneous colors? Two hundred and fifty-six? Are you serious?"
MicroNova had worked itself to the bone just to solve NovaWonder's performance issues. Sixteen simultaneous colors, expandable to sixty-four using a color palette, that was already an excellent achievement.
Now Ethan had gone completely overboard. The moment he opened his mouth, he was demanding 256 colors.
"That's not realistic."
Vivian shook her head and rejected his proposal without hesitation.
"It's not that it can't be done. We just don't have enough time."
Although MicroNova had plenty of outside collaborators, its core operations were handled by only a handful of world-class engineers. Even with Gerald and Carmack providing technical support, the company remained a lean studio built around exceptional technical talent and brightest minds of Silicon Valley
NovaWonder had succeeded because they were responsible for only the design. The actual manufacturing was still handled by the chip manufacturers and fabrication plants. But according to Ethan's requirements, they now needed to create a next generation product that surpassed NovaWonder in every conceivable aspect.
"If you really need that many colors, then you'll have to sacrifice resolution."
Vivian pulled out a specification sheet listing NovaWonder's hardware capabilities.
"You want 256 colors? Fine. But then we'll have to reduce the resolution to 320×240."
She knew perfectly well that Ethan would never accept such a low resolution on a next generation console. She said it only to dispel his unrealistic expectations.
"What if we just brute force it? Like the NovaBox, install two graphics processors directly?"
"No."
"The architecture would also have to be redesigned. That still requires a tremendous amount of time."
Ethan frowned. Hardware bottlenecks were always the hardest problems to solve. They had only just overcome the storage capacity limitation, and now they were being stopped by graphics performance.
"Looks like it's time to expand the team."
His gaze drifted toward a nearby workstation. Kwok was busy working on a high-performance graphics workstation.
"Hmm? Isn't that SGI's new product from last year?"
"That's right. We happened to need a batch of workstations, so I chose this new company. Surprisingly, they're pretty good."
SGI, Silicon Graphics Incorporated, a company founded in 1982 specializing in high-performance graphics workstations.
Although SGI would gradually decline after the turn of the millennium and officially file for bankruptcy protection in 2006, at this moment, SGI was still one of Silicon Valley's brightest rising stars.
Its founder was none other than Jim Clark, the future Silicon Valley giant. This man's life story was even more unbelievable than that of the protagonist of a wish fulfillment novel.
Throughout his career, he founded three different companies, each of which would eventually be worth billions of dollars. Even his son in law would go on to become one of YouTube's founders.
A man who had spent most of his life struggling before making a spectacular comeback at nearly forty years old and ultimately winning everything.
Most importantly, in 1979 he invented the Geometry Engine, the fastest graphics chip in the world at the time. Even MicroNova had to study and learn from its design.
SGI's workstations owed their exceptional rendering capabilities to that powerful technology, offering graphics performance far beyond ordinary PCs. If they wanted to recruit a new group of core engineers for their graphics division, then Jim Clark was unquestionably someone worth bringing over to their side.
According to the timeline, 1986 was the year SGI's business truly exploded, eventually leading the company all the way to its IPO. They had to act now, while SGI was desperately in need of funding to rapidly expand and defeat its competitors.
Ethan immediately grabbed the office telephone and quickly dialed a number.
"Sam, we're going to need... hmm... somewhere between ten and thirty million dollars in funding."