Among the three companies, discussion levels were extremely high, making Cyberpunk 2077 seem somewhat weaker by comparison.
However, when it came to game pre-orders, Cyberpunk 2077 had already reached the ten-million mark on the Battle.net platform shortly after reservations opened.
A few days after the press conference ended, the demo version of Cyberpunk 2077 was also released directly online. Any player could freely download and try it out.
The number of downloads likewise reached the tens of millions, surpassing thirty million in total.
This was something the other companies couldn't hope to match, no matter how hard they tried.
Moreover, a cyberpunk cultural trend was gradually beginning to rise.
This wave was entirely driven by Cyberpunk 2077 and the cyberpunk culture surrounding the game.
Originally, cyberpunk had been slowly becoming a niche cultural category. In this world's cultural circles, there were many such subcultures, and cyberpunk itself hadn't been particularly famous in the past.
But Cyberpunk 2077, through its collaborations and various demo events, allowed more people to understand what cyberpunk was all about, gradually heating up the topic.
Previously, films and TV works related to cyberpunk had been revisited, pulled back into the spotlight, and carefully analyzed and reviewed by critics.
Takayuki had also watched several of these related film and television works and found that some of them were no worse than Ghost in the Shell, Akira, or Blade Runner from his previous life.
In fact, both the quantity and the average quality were noticeably better than in his previous world.
Clearly, this world was genuinely strong when it came to film, animation, and related cultural output.
As a result, related discussions continued to increase. Facebook even created a dedicated cyberpunk video category, pushing the popularity of cyberpunk topics to an even higher level.
Naturally, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, a derivative work officially tied to Cyberpunk 2077 and directed by renowned animation director Shinji Asami, also entered the public eye.
Since this was an officially recognized spin-off cultural work, it was essentially an officially endorsed project, so it was only natural that it received more attention.
At the moment, however, only a thirty-second teaser had been released. It consisted mainly of a montage of early scenes featuring the protagonist, David Martinez, and most people couldn't yet tell much from it.
What caught their attention instead was the music in the trailer, which sounded incredibly satisfying.
The track carried a slightly husky tone and a unique, dreamy quality. Even though it was only thirty seconds long, it fully conveyed the wild, chaotic essence of cyberpunk.
Many music producers expressed their approval of the music used in the trailer.
This piece was the most iconic song from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners—"I Really Want to Stay at Your House."
In the animation, this song ran throughout the series, always playing during the most significant moments in David Martinez's story.
Its distinctive electronic vocals carried a strange, almost magical power.
Soon, music producers began frantically searching for the composer behind the track, trying to find out which famous figure in the industry had created it.
A song of this caliber had to come from someone well-known, at the very least.
Yet no matter how hard they searched, they couldn't find any information about the composer.
Eventually, someone tracked down Shinji Asami himself, because even the animation's composer, executive director, and other staff members had no idea where the music had come from. All they knew was that the director had handed it to them directly and told them to use it in the animation.
Then Shinji Asami gave them the answer.
The lyrics were personally written by Takayuki, and the music itself was also composed by him.
Takayuki had written the lyrics, composed the song, and even deliberately made it the core musical theme of the entire animation—clear proof of how much importance he placed on this project.
Music industry professionals couldn't help but feel that Takayuki was simply too versatile, able to handle even music composition with ease.
At the same time, they felt relieved that Takayuki didn't seem interested in fully entering the music industry. That meant one fewer terrifying competitor—something of a blessing for musicians everywhere.
At the end of 2018, Suri Electronics officially released its latest game console. Just as promised, the console truly featured ultra-high-speed loading.
Many existing games loaded in under three seconds on the new console. Sometimes, before players even realized it, the game had already finished loading.
In the past, loading times of ten seconds or more were the norm. Now, with average load times of only two or three seconds, players actually felt a little disoriented.
Many players were used to doing something else during loading screens just to avoid feeling idle. With load times this fast, it felt as if games had completely changed overnight.
Many game developers hadn't anticipated this either. In their original designs, loading screens were an important component.
Some games displayed tips during loading screens—small bits of knowledge or explanations of the game's world and lore.
But now that loading was so fast, all those carefully prepared tips became useless, since no one could finish reading them in such a short time.
This led to a series of chain reactions.
Still, once players adapted, they were delighted. Many games used to take one or two minutes to load, and now only needed a few seconds. It felt like jumping straight from the Steam Age into the Information Age.
Some people even said that high-speed loading was a technological innovation on par with motion-sensing games—and clearly, that wasn't just empty praise.
That said, after the new console launched, there was an awkward situation: some games that were originally planned to release alongside it couldn't be launched on schedule.
The most anticipated game of all—Sun Knight: Time Odyssey—was delayed…
Suri Electronics' official development team explained that irreversible issues had emerged with the new technology, and all teams were urgently working to fix them. The game could only be released once the problems were resolved.
This undoubtedly slowed down Suri Electronics' campaign for market dominance.
What players in this world didn't realize, however, was that delays were actually the norm across the entire industry.
By contrast, the fact that all of Gamestar Electronic Entertainment's games were so polished was what made them abnormal.
Video games were extremely complex systems, and as their scale grew, even small issues could easily snowball into major problems.
Back when Cyberpunk 2077 was in development, it frequently ran into issues with how different gameplay systems connected. Often, once one feature was completed, it would conflict with another, leading to serious bugs. The Cyberpunk 2077 team had no idea how much hair they'd lost over these issues.
And not from overwork—but from pure stress, worrying endlessly about how to solve those technical challenges.
Fortunately, the final outcome was good. All of those issues had been resolved, and at the very least, no serious bugs remained.
Even with someone as far-sighted as Takayuki at the helm, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment still faced such difficulties—so other companies stood no chance of having a smooth ride.
This delay from Suri Electronics seemed like a warning sign.
Sure enough, similar problems soon appeared at Brown Entertainment. Their game was also delayed due to various issues. As for Mickfow, their game and console launched on schedule, but were riddled with bugs, frequently crashing or freezing during gameplay.
All three companies had rushed to release their latest products before the end of the year—and instead ended up damaging their reputations.
By contrast, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment remained extremely steady, moving forward step by step and rolling out its promotions methodically.
That said, Gamestar Electronic Entertainment wasn't completely free of trouble.
On the market, a large number of games branded with the "cyberpunk" label suddenly appeared, beginning to divert players' attention and siphon away the hype that should have belonged to Cyberpunk 2077…