"The other day, one of my subordinates said to me, "Nintendo is amazing, I can't thank you enough.
It was a very simple statement, but he blushed as he said it, so I was curious about what he said. I said, "Yes.
The subordinate is a female employee who is currently working as a contact person for each platform manufacturer, checking and reporting on daily sales of game software.
If I were to explain it sensitively or by applying it to a typical company position, it might be easier to say 'sales'.
As a sales representative of our company, I communicate with the business department of each platform manufacturer such as Nintendo and Microsoft.
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The game business today is much more complicated than it used to be.
Until about 10 years ago, selling game software was a simple process of manufacturing, distribution, and sales, rather like selling toys.
Nowadays, however, downloadable software is sold separately, and special versions of download-only game software called "deluxe editions" are often released in addition to the "regular edition".
And these are prepared and sold for each platform.
[IMAGE IN THE LETTER]
As you can clearly see from this image, there are three different types of products that will be sold for the single game "Senjo no Fuga", and they will be sold on six different platforms, making a total of 18 different product lines.
In order to properly sell each of these products on each platform, we have to apply for and receive approval from each platform manufacturer before finally releasing the product.
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This is not the end of the process, even if all the products are displayed on each platform's store page and start selling.
You will need to cross-check each platform's sales performance report and invoice processing.
This is because when you compare the invoices with the performance reports of the game software sold in a month, there are sometimes errors.
Some people may think this is ridiculous, but it's true.
Game software is sold not only in Japan but also in hundreds of countries around the world at the same time.
And even if the performance report says "Performance at the end of the month," strictly speaking, the numbers are slightly different because the closing time differs depending on the time difference between each country. In addition, the closing time of the performance report and the invoice are also different, and each platform manufacturer has different rules.
It is the job of the female employee I mentioned at the beginning of this article to check, compare and inquire about these errors.
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This is a bit of a long preamble, but the bottom line is that the current game business is extremely difficult, complicated, and troublesome because there are many different versions of games to sell, and each platform manufacturer has different procedures and rules. That's what I mean.
To be honest, when I first learned about this reality, I thought, "Other game makers are doing the same thing? Why is no one complaining about something so troublesome? But when I asked other game makers about it, they told me that they felt the same way and were making the same requests for improvements to their systems, so I had no choice but to accept it.
And each time I had a question, I had to ask them directly, "Where can I find out about ____? I had no choice but to ask directly. However, the replies and responses to these questions varied greatly from one platform manufacturer to the next.
"There is no contact point in Japan, so please contact North America directly.
"Please send another email to another department.
"Please send the email in English as Japanese is not supported.
"It's in the manual, please check it again.
"I sent an inquiry to North America, but haven't heard back in two weeks? Please wait until the end of the week as the person in charge is currently on vacation.
I really wanted to feel sorry for our female contact person, but the responses from the various platform manufacturers were so disjointed and the rules were so difficult to understand that I was worried that she herself would suffer a mental breakdown.
＊＊＊＊＊ Companies that don't say, "It's written here.
As I listened to her, worried about the woman in charge, I learned that there was one company that handled things differently than the others.
It was Nintendo.
She told me that the person in charge at Nintendo responded to every inquiry carefully and gave detailed explanations.
One time, after receiving a detailed response to her inquiry, another staff member pointed out to her, "You know, you can see all the details of your inquiry here," and the female staff member's face turned red.
Of course, it was her own carelessness at that time. "She must have felt embarrassed that she had taken the trouble to send an email asking for information that she could understand by looking at it, and at the same time, she must have felt sorry and grateful to the Nintendo representative for answering her question so politely.
She looked up and told me, "If you are the president of Nintendo, please contact them.
"She looked up at me and said, "You may not have the opportunity to meet with your contact at Nintendo ......, but if you do have the chance to meet with someone higher up at Nintendo or your boss in the operations department, please convey my apologies and gratitude.
"Nintendo is awesome! They don't say, "It's written here. They don't say, 'Here it is.
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Of course, as soon as I heard this story, I told our vice president (in charge of sales) and thanked Nintendo's business department.
I think we all have moments when we "don't know what we don't know. At the same time, in a state of panic, we may overlook information that is easy to find.
Of course, in such cases, we would like to offer a helping hand, but I would like to express my gratitude to Nintendo for its deep pockets and warm-hearted behavior and attitude, even in areas that are not visible to the public.
Thank you, Nintendo.
Please keep up the good work.
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