How Nintendo Helped Create (And Beat) The Yakuza
What followed was two years of intense R&D by Famicom designer Masayuki Uemura and his team, as Nintendo were drawn into the sort of technological arms race today anathema to their ethos. They concocted a behemoth of a system, capable of 256-colour graphics, 8-channel sampled audio and the novel Mode 7 function which allowed for a range of hitherto unimaginable sprite sorcery. It all came at a slight cost to processing speed; the Genesis would run faster games, but none of them would look anywhere near as good. That hardly mattered: In the early-'90s console wars, the first and last bites were nearly always with the eyes (and ears).
Japan, naturally, was first to taste the fruits of Uemura's labour. Aside from the handheld Game Boy, Nintendo had not launched any appreciable new hardware since 1983. Public anticipation at exactly what the industry leaders had in store to crush their impertinent, neophyte rivals was rabid. Rumours about the impending 'Super Famicom' first dropped in October, after which Japanese electronics stores became immediately flooded with calls.
When Nintendo formally announced the 21 November 1990 launch date shortly after, shops began presales. Within a week, demand outstripped the potential supplies of wholesalers, with many making additional profit by launching lottery schemes to give eager customers a chance of going home happy.
The astonishing fervour - and the obvious challenge Nintendo once more faced to satisfy everybody - is what drew the Yakuza's attention back to their historic providers. As they had at the turn of the century, the mobsters planned to acquire huge quantities of Nintendo's product - or rather, seize it. This time, it'd be them making the profits.
Word reached Hiroshi Yamauchi that the Yakuza planned to steal the country's hottest commodity right from under the company's noses, with a view to moving them on at extortionate prices via the black market. Drawing on their history of clandestine love hotels, Yamauchi and general affairs manager Hiroshi Imanishi concocted a top-secret plan straight out of a James Bond movie to foil the would-be thieves. In the small hours of launch day, Operation Midnight Shipping would commence.
A chilly autumn morning was briefly disturbed in one small pocket of Kyoto by workmen quietly loading unspecified packages into enormous ten-ton trucks. Without ceremony or fanfare, each separately vanished into the night as a ghost. All but the most essential members of the logistic chain were given the full details; nobody but key stockist knew when the trucks would leave, arrive, or the details of their manifest. Before Japan had awoken to its rising sun, 300,000 Super Famicoms had already dispersed across the land, not a single one was nabbed in transit.
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