Chp 108 : NE3
I'm back...
Still on writer's block... but the schedule will be back to normal...
Enjoy!!
Timeline, mid-December
~~~
That night, he had a very strange dream. It was that dream again where he was standing at the aisle. Beside him was Toby who acted as his best man.
In front of him was his bride, wearing a white veil to cover her face. Her beautiful white wedding dress was successful hugging her curvaceous beautiful figure. He was a head taller than her and he was quite sure it will be his present lover, Gwen.
At least it wasn't Annie again or else he will make sure to wake up as soon as possible.
"Do you accept this woman as your bride?" He heard the priest saying so he focused his attention on the girl in front of him.
"Yes,"
"You may unveil her and kiss your bride." The priest said again.
He unveiled her and saw it was not Gwen, but rather it was Minnie. His eyes were popped out threatening to get out from its socket.
A tap behind rather than cutting him out from his surprise took him up to another level of shock.
There, stood Gwen and Ione in their wedding dress so beautiful and ethereal like, who were looking longingly at him.
"What!?"
The priest then continued, "Now we are all here to come and celebrate the union of these four people in this marriage..."
"Four!? Aren't Christian are supposed to forbid this kind of thing?" Al said.
"Oh? Is it? But this is just your dream Alphonse so you can enjoy this heretic union we will be doing." The priest smiled wisely.
Gwen took his arm and whispered close to his ear, "He's right, Just do it, Al. When will we have a chance like this? This kind of guy would never approve our four-way union in the real world." She said while giving a foxy-like smile.
Ione and Minnie also nodded in approval.
Al smiled, since it was a dream, he might better enjoy this to the fullest. "Okay, I accept this."
"Wait!! I disapprove of this union!" The chapel door opened hard and Jodie and Mary barged in with their wedding dress.
"I disagree with this union!" Jodie said.
"If I may, can you both tell us why you disagree?" The priest raised one of his eyebrows.
"Because we are not in this union! We also like to be married to you! Why you don't propose to us, you damn half-wit!" Jodie said.
"What!?" Al said in surprise.
"Noo!!" Another voice barged in and he saw Sandra Bullock and Courteney Cox came through the door but not in a wedding dress, but they were wearing something akin to a bank heist.
"Weird isn't it?" The best man said, but it wasn't Toby he saw but rather, it was the man who will be famous in the future.
"Leonardo DiCaprio?"
"Who's Leonardo DiCaprio?" The man asked back.
"You are!" Al pointed his finger at his face.
"No, my name is Cobb, I'm here to protect you from these people who want to steal your secret buried deep within your mind. We called them dream stealers. Currently, you are in another people's dream because of the dream machine they put on you in your journey to the Los Angeles Convention Center." He said with his face full of conviction, if Al didn't know who's this guy, he would also fully believe him.
Then the fake Leo pulled out a gun from his holsters and pushing his body behind his to protect him from any incoming threat... such as Sandra and Courteney who suddenly pulled a sub-machine gun and started to shoot crazy at the audience in the chapel.
Then Drew, Jolie, and Mila were pulling their guns to shoot back at them. The heck? Were they Charlie's Angel?
"Okay, I'm outta here," Al felt this dream was taking too many turns and getting tired with it. Why don't his dream was just a nice simple wedding between the four of them?
He took the gun from Cobb and shot his head, bringing him back to reality. That dream was the weirdest dream he ever had.
"You okay Al?" A voice cut him off from his musing.
He turned his head to see his godfather was smiling and sitting beside him, "Hmm? Yes, I'm okay Steven, just recalling a dream last night."
"Oh... You may write that dream as soon as possible or it will go missing. I always have my notebook and pencil on my drawers beside the bed, in case inspiration came to my dream."
"Godfather, do you know that humans only remember the dream they had last night for a few minutes before everything went blank? I think the inspiration was already there but you are so tired you forgot about them. By relaxing yourself a little, you will find that inspiration in the deepest part of your brain."
Steven rolled his eyes, "Always the smartass," He then smiled, "But I'm grateful for your smartassness, if not, there will be nothing like this." He pointed at the crowd behind them, a massive influx of eager people who couldn't wait for any seconds.
"Yeah... the first video game convention in the world, Niflheim Electronics Entertainment Expo." He giggled after saying that words.
He, Steven Spielberg, Jerry Lewis, Ken & Roberta Williams, and a lot of game developers were gathered in the hall inside Los Angeles Convention Center where they would be watching a short video for a few announcements about the new video game and game console release from some of the developers.
Although most of these were just trailers and game release date for the console for the Niflheim platform. He and Steven with the rest of the game developers trying to rally as much as possible the other console and video game developers to make this expo bigger.
Steven gave all of the invitations to most of the video game companies to join him, except Nintendo. Steven hated Nintendo very much and if not because of the creation of Niflheim Game Company, he may treat Nintendo as his biggest enemy in his life, for now, he was just having a grudge with them.
"I can't believe it's happening!" Jerry exclaimed.
"Have you write down your speech yet, Jerry? Remember you will bring the presentation for our new console release, you too, Roberta for the game we'll be releasing." Steven said to Roberta who was seated next to him.
"Wait, aren't you also going to give the introduction and opening greetings for this expo?" Al poked.
"I will, and I sacrificed my shooting holiday just to be here."
"You are the CEO, so you need to be present," Al replied.
"Yeah, you are right. I can't believe the thing you said one year ago would become reality." He said.
1 year ago...
They were in Four Season Hotel Conference Hall, releasing their new game console and video game.
It turned out that many reporters from a lot of media, game developers, and crazy video game fans were coming uninvited to this event.
They let them participated and creating a lot of crowds that filled all of the seats in the conference hall, forcing most of the guests to stand up.
At first, gamers from all over the States were all but skeptical because the last time Steven Spielberg release a game, it was a total failure.
But with constant advertisement everywhere, from TV, newspapers, Billboard in Times Square, and other pamphlets across the US, the name of NOTE Portable was resounding everywhere.
Not only that, the cute appearance of the Pokémon mascot, Pikachu made every kid and even adults became interested to buy this game.
And it did, on 21st December 1985, right after the game release. A long queue occurred at the store where they sold this console and games.
Not only the gamers, but also the families who wanted to buy their kids a Christmas gift, and Spielberg's and Alphonse's loyal fans.
Well, Al and Steven showed their face in that advertisement and promote it.
A crazed buy also occurred and for the whole month, after its selling, it was sold for about 10 million units in the USA alone since its release.
The NOTE Portable was the same as the Gameboy color that Nintendo would release. The prize of this handled console was from the planned price of $149.99, Al, Jerry, Steven and the other executives of Niflheim Game Company agreed to sell this thing for $119.99 per unit, and $139.99 for the special edition of the Pikachu theme and E.T. theme.
Of course with the crazed buying, the price of this console rose from $119.99 to $150 per unit because of the lack of supply of this console and the most fun part was, they really wanted to pull out their money from their pocket.
Al miscalculated the crazed buying by these guys. Because this console was so ahead of its time, it was like a GameBoy color that was released in 1986.
Although it was not yet to be released worldwide, normal people started to become a fan of this thing and can't wait to be released in their country.
For example, Japan and Korea had waited for this console to be released. Japan and Korea had a trend of following the United States, so after they heard a game that used a Japanese animation-like on its characters, everyone want to know how far they could know this thing.
There's also a problem with it. The production of NOTE Portable was hindered by the limited factory capability to produce the desired quota and expensive commodity to produce the semiconductor.
And of course, the hardship they encountered with Union Labor in the USA regarding the factory.
So Steven Spielberg and Jerry Lewis stroke a deal with a local factory in Japan called Matsushita Electric to produce the semiconductor and console parts there.
They strike a deal for 10 years of production and fortunately with Steven would shoot a film about Japan, Al thought Steven might able to appease them.
He didn't know what kind of things that Japanese company would be asked Steven and he just said it was just a simple request and he said to him that a boy did not need to know the request. Annoying old man.
As for the Pokémon Red/Blue, the sales were quite astounding, 1 month after its release, it sold at least 9 million cartridges and became the fastest-selling games in the United States.
The game only cost about $20 and it became a rare item because of the scarcity and the price in-store increased to $30 a game.
Of course, this was not only the game that NOTE portable has. Besides the classic games such as Pac-Man Lite, Space Invaders, Tetris, Qbert, etc.
The Niflheim-Sierra Interactive also remakes the classic failure game, E.T. into a more playable game. There's also an original game by the Williams called King's Quest.
Al still remembered the first time Ken and Roberta William presented the game to Steven. He cried! For god's sake, that man cried like a baby and hugged everyone in the room, including him.
Besides E.T. Steven also persuaded his friend, George Lucas to give him the rights to create a game from the Lucasfilm franchise such as Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
With the variety of cheap games that cost only $20 per game and 6 games for $100, this handled console became the most popular console besides NES.
According to NPD Group predicted the estimation of this handled console sold in the United States for the next 10 years would be above 50 million units while worldwide would be 100 million units and most of the consumers would be Europe, East Asia, and North America.
A month later after the release, after he was reading it out loud to executives of Niflheim Group about the prediction by the NPD group, Al saw their jaw was hanging to their knees.
"Wow, that's, wow," Ken said.
"It is... Are you really sure that it was our company they are talking about? I never dream that it could be sold that many." Roberta said.
"Yes, yes it's ours..." Jerry whispered, "Al, Steven, I can't do this without the two of you. I thought I would be buried in history but you came to my door and gave me another opportunity." He was getting teary.
"Save your happy tears for later, Jerry," Al said, "This is only our first step. This company will be lasting for hundred years, and we will bring a new era of gaming every decade. We already bring them a handled console ahead of its times. A 16-bit handled consoles, and next year, our target is to release the 32-bit NOTES console."
Everyone nodded at him in agreement.
"But I don't want to only release the game like before. Do you remember how crowded the game released last month?"
"Yes, and everything turned into chaos. I can't believe some so many people were so enthusiastic to see the release of our game." Steven said.
"That's why we need a bigger place to accommodate it. How about Los Angeles Convention Center?"
"A bigger place? What do you mean, Al? I thought it was a one-time-only? Last month was a fortunate event and I doubt it can be repeated. See, we advertise it everywhere, I mean literally everywhere. A billboard, TV, Newspaper, Magazine, even a cereal box." Steven said.
"But we will release games next year, right? How about the next two or even tens of years? We could make this as an annual event!"
"Yeah, Al is right. I also want to do this as an annual event where we could release games every year... but do you really want to rent Los Angeles Convention Center? Last month was an accident."
"Yes it was but next year, I don't wanna only us to release the games. We could rope a lot of developers to join our next conference. There, we can choose the best quality game and announce when they release the game."
"You mean just like the auto show but with video games trailers and teasers we will show them."
"Exactly! We invite a lot of video game developers, console developers..."
"Except Nintendo," Steven added.
"Yes, they are excluded, then fans, media, investors. A haven where people can talk about video games, compete for their skills, and progress on their games."
"Great idea! So, what are we going to call this event?"
"Electronic Entertainment Expo! Wait, we should add our company name, Niflheim Electronic Entertainment Expo, NE3. We will be holding this event on 20th December every single year!" Al screamed.
Present time...
As they reminisced their best time last year, suddenly Steven's assistant came and whisper something grave to his godfather.
Al knew this was grave news because Steven's face turned ashen after his assistant finished the message.
"Al, Max is sick and has been taken to hospital."
"What!? What happened? Is he okay?"
"Amy said he had a fever. I need to get to the hospital as soon as possible."
Al then took his jacket and stood up, "Let's go, Steven!"
"No, Al, you stay here."
"Steven, Max is like a brother to me. I also need to see him. We can join this event every year."
"You don't understand, Al. The first NE3 is very important to all of us. If this event is a success, we can give this thing a go every year. This is a time where gamers from all over the States will have a chance to gather. I will go to the hospital alone. Can you give the opening speech and supervise this event, Al? Please."
Al sighed, "Okay, fine. Say hello to Max for me will ya, Steven? I hope he's okay."
"I will, you know how Max really likes you." Then Steven left the hall.
Soon the event finally began, the screen on the stages was lit up and showed the Niflheim logo.
To Be Continued...
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