Sunday, 25 January 2002.
The Saturday presentation with John Carmack and Hideo Kojima had been a massive success. People had expected the technical details of ZEPS 4 to dominate the discussion, and they certainly did, but somehow Carmack and Kojima had also gained their own unexpected fanbases. Their awkwardness on camera had become part of the entertainment. Unlike Zaboru, who had spent years speaking publicly and could effortlessly joke with the audience, both Carmack and Kojima looked like men who had been dragged out of their natural environment and placed beneath studio lights against their will. The contrast was hilarious. Clips of Carmack staring blankly whenever Zaboru simplified complicated engineering into "pretty graphics," and Kojima trying desperately not to laugh during several moments, spread rapidly across ZAGE Forum and YouTube.
Still, the biggest discussion by far revolved around ZEPS 4 itself. The hardware specifications had already shocked people, but the feature that truly took the gaming world by storm was the Z-Remote. A controller that tracked physical movement through gyroscopes and accelerometers felt completely different from the familiar buttons-and-analog-stick approach. Some people immediately imagined sports games. Others wondered about sword fighting, racing, fishing, aiming, party games, and genres that did not even exist yet. At the same time, many unanswered questions remained. The biggest one was simple: How much would ZEPS 4 actually cost? The second was equally important: How expensive would the games be?
Naturally, people expected Sunday's presentation to finally answer those questions.
Then ZAGE announced another video.
This one was different.
The title appeared simultaneously on both ZAGE's official YouTube channel and another increasingly famous channel:
U-Bunny LIVE — Talking ZEPS 4 with Zaboru Renkonan
The reaction was immediate because everyone already knew who U-Bunny was.
Ayumi Renkonan had only uploaded three proper episodes so far, yet her channel had already become enormous. Part of that popularity obviously came from being Zaboru Renkonan's wife, especially after her recent public revelation regarding her family background, but viewers had quickly discovered that Ayumi herself was interesting to watch. She was intelligent, naturally curious, knew game development from the inside, and had enough familiarity with Zaboru to ask him questions ordinary journalists would never dare to ask.
And this time the broadcast was genuinely live.
The video opened inside a smaller studio room in ZAGE Tower. Unlike the previous technical presentation, there were no giant specification screens, complicated diagrams, or rows of hardware components. The setup was deliberately casual. Two comfortable chairs faced slightly toward each other, a small table sat between them, and the ZEPS 4 rested quietly in the background beside several physical game cases. Ayumi sat carefully in one chair, her pregnancy now impossible to miss. Her belly had grown considerably with the twins, and she adjusted her position slightly before smiling toward the camera.
"Hello, everyone! Welcome back to U-Bunny," she said brightly. "Today is a very special episode because we have a special guest. The CEO of ZAGE himself, Zaboru Renkonan."
The camera shifted toward Zaboru.
He immediately grinned and waved. "Yo!"
Ayumi continued, "Today I'm going to ask him several questions about ZEPS 4, especially things people have been asking repeatedly since yesterday's presentation."
Zaboru suddenly coughed into his fist. "Uhm… U-Bunny-chan."
Ayumi glanced toward him. "Yes?"
"I think you forgot one of my other titles."
Ayumi narrowed her eyes slightly. "What title?"
Zaboru placed one hand against his chest and spoke with complete shamelessness. "My beloved husband."
Ayumi froze for half a second.
Somewhere across the world, countless single viewers immediately cursed Zaboru.
Ayumi's cheeks reddened despite her effort to remain professional. Zabo… do you seriously have no shame? she thought before clearing her throat. "Zaboru-san, please behave professionally while we're working."
Zaboru smiled innocently. "Then when we're not working, we can—"
"Anyway!" Ayumi interrupted immediately, increasing her voice just enough to stop him before he finished. Zaboru laughed under his breath while Ayumi looked back toward the camera. "The first question is one everyone keeps asking. What is the release price of ZEPS 4, and how much will the games cost?"
Zaboru leaned back comfortably and chuckled. "Well, unfortunately, I'm still not revealing the exact number today."
Ayumi stared at him. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."
"You came onto my channel and you still won't tell me?"
"Nope."
Ayumi sighed dramatically. "I see what kind of guest I invited."
Zaboru laughed. "Relax, guys. It won't be ridiculously expensive, especially compared with what the machine offers. The official price will be revealed soon. Just chill a little, okay? You've waited this long already."
Ayumi tilted her head. "That answer is going to make everyone complain."
"I know."
Ayumi shook her head, though she was smiling. "Fine. Then let's talk about something else. Zaboru-san, when you first started planning ZEPS 4 after ZEPS 3 launched, what exactly were you thinking? What did you want the next console to become?"
Zaboru's eyes widened in exaggerated surprise. "Whoa. U-Bunny-chan, nice question!"
Ayumi immediately gave him a suspicious look.
Zaboru laughed. "Okay, okay. But seriously, when we started planning ZEPS 4, one of the biggest ideas in my head was the digital era. By then Steam had already become healthy enough as an ecosystem. We had Steam Wallet, online purchases, digital distribution, user accounts, downloadable software, updates, community features, and all kinds of infrastructure that showed us people were becoming comfortable buying games without always needing a physical box."
Ayumi nodded. "So Steam became something like a test ground?"
"In a way, yes," Zaboru replied. "Not intentionally at first, but it taught us a lot. PC players showed us what people liked about digital distribution and what they hated. Convenience is good. Buying something immediately from home is good. Not needing to search five stores for one game is good. But people also hate losing ownership, hate confusing account systems, hate terrible download services, and hate feeling like companies are trying to trap them."
Ayumi leaned slightly forward. "So when you say ZEPS 4 is built for the digital era, you don't mean physical games disappear."
"Exactly." Zaboru pointed toward her with a grin. "And that leads directly into the next thing."
Ayumi smiled. "I was going to ask that. Do you think the future of gaming will depend entirely on digital games? Will physical games eventually stop being relevant?"
Zaboru looked thoughtful for a moment before answering. "I think digital will become extremely important. Maybe eventually it becomes the main way many people buy games. There are simply too many advantages. Instant purchases, discounts, easier distribution, smaller developers reaching customers directly, downloadable expansions, updates, demos, older games remaining available without needing another production run." He paused, then smiled. "And once ZEPS 4 has a larger digital library, people will understand several advantages I'm deliberately not explaining yet because I still want some surprises."
Ayumi laughed softly. "Of course."
"But physical games?" Zaboru continued. "No. I don't believe they should die."
He reached toward one of the nearby cases and picked up Metal Gear Solid 2.
"Look at this. The case itself can be beautiful. You have the disc, the manual, artwork, maps, sometimes posters, maybe little developer notes or special packaging. A physical copy can feel like an object you actually own and collect. Digital is convenient, but physical can have personality."
Ayumi nodded slowly.
"At ZAGE," Zaboru continued, "we're not going to deliberately kill physical games just because digital makes more money per copy. If people still enjoy buying boxes, displaying their collection, lending games to friends, reading manuals, then we should give them good reasons to continue enjoying that."
"So the era can shift toward digital," Ayumi summarized, "without physical games becoming obsolete."
"Exactly. Digital grows. Physical evolves."
She moved to the next question. "Then let's talk about graphics. Yesterday, Carmack-san finally showed the specifications, and people have been shocked by the difference between ZEPS 3 and ZEPS 4. Before ZEPS 4 appeared, a lot of people thought the graphical level of Xbox and i-Play represented what the next generation should look like. But ZEPS 4 seems to go much further. From my perspective, it almost feels like skipping a generation."
Zaboru's smile became more serious.
"Heh… another good question. Smart, beautiful, good at game development…" He looked toward the camera. "As expected from the woman who captured my heart."
Ayumi immediately covered part of her face. "Zaboru-san."
"What?"
Ayumi sighed helplessly while Zaboru chuckled. Then his expression shifted as he returned to the subject. "But yes. That was intentional. When we planned ZEPS 4, I didn't want us to think, 'Okay, ZEPS 3 exists, so let's just make something twice as strong and call it a day.' I wanted us to imagine what the ideal next step should look like if hardware cost, manufacturing, software tools, and engineering all aligned properly."
He gestured toward the console behind them. "ZEPS 3 was revolutionary for its time, but we knew its limitations extremely well because we built it. We knew where developers were running out of memory. We knew where CPU limits were hurting AI and physics. We knew where graphics hardware was forcing teams to fake lighting or simplify geometry. So with ZEPS 4, we didn't just ask, 'How do we improve the numbers?' We asked, 'What are developers constantly wishing they could do but cannot?'"
Ayumi listened carefully.
"That's why the machine has 768 megabytes of unified GDDR3 memory," Zaboru continued. "That's why Raijin has four cores and eight hardware threads. That's why Amaterasu has dedicated high-speed eDRAM helping rendering. That's why Blue-Ray gives developers 25 or 50 gigabytes instead of forcing them to panic about disc space. All of those things solve different bottlenecks."
Ayumi nodded. "And because they work together, the difference becomes larger than simply comparing clock speeds."
Zaboru continued, "Graphics especially benefit from the whole system working together. More memory means higher-resolution textures, larger environments, more animation data, more detailed characters. More CPU resources mean better physics, more complicated AI, more objects behaving independently. The GPU handles more advanced lighting, materials, particles, reflections, shadows. And because the memory bandwidth is high enough, we can actually feed all that data fast enough."
Ayumi looked toward the ZEPS 4 behind them. "So when people say the jump looks almost like two generations…"
Zaboru shrugged. "I'm not going to stop them."
She chuckled.
Zaboru's grin returned. "And honestly, Xbox and i-Play appearing before us helped."
Ayumi immediately raised an eyebrow.
"They gave people a reference point," Zaboru explained. "Players saw those machines and thought, 'Ah, this is probably what next-generation console graphics look like.' That created expectations. Then ZEPS 4 arrived and showed another possibility."
He leaned back, clearly enjoying where the answer was going.
"And now…"
Ayumi already knew.
Zaboru grinned directly toward the camera.
"Their time is running out."
Ayumi stared at him in disbelief.
Zaboru maintained a perfectly innocent expression.
The live chat exploded.
Ayumi finally shook her head and continued.
"So what is the actual philosophy behind ZEPS 4? Is it simply supposed to be the most powerful machine?"
Zaboru's expression changed again, becoming noticeably more thoughtful. "No. Power matters because power gives developers freedom. But power itself isn't the goal. If all I wanted was a machine with impressive specifications, we could build an expensive box nobody could afford and brag about numbers."
Ayumi nodded.
"The real goal is flexibility," Zaboru said. "ZEPS 4 should be useful to different kinds of players and different kinds of developers. You want a huge cinematic game? Cool. You want a small downloadable game? Cool. You want to play alone? Fine. Online with friends? Fine. Standard controller? Use it. Z-Remote? Use that. Physical games? Great. Digital? Great. Old ZEPS games? Bring them. Media? Internet? YouTube? Music? Sure."
He spread his hands.
"The console shouldn't constantly tell you, 'No, that isn't how we designed you to use it.' It should give you options."
Ayumi smiled slightly. "So that is what you meant when you said ZEPS 4 would change how people see consoles."
"Exactly."
Zaboru looked toward the machine in the background.
"For a long time, consoles were mostly boxes where you inserted games. That's still their most important job. Never forget that. But they can become more without forgetting why people bought them."
He looked back toward the camera.
"A game machine first."
Then he counted on his fingers.
"An online machine. A media machine. A social machine. A digital store. A place for your old games. A place for new developers. A place where your friends can meet."
He smiled.
"One box under your television."
Ayumi looked amused. "It only does everything?"
Zaboru froze.
Then slowly turned toward her.
"My wife stole my line."
Ayumi laughed.
"I was waiting to say that!"
"Too slow."
Zaboru placed a hand dramatically against his chest. "Betrayed by my own family."
Ayumi ignored him and glanced down at the next question. "Okay, Zabo—"
She stopped.
Zaboru immediately grinned.
Ayumi sighed. "Zaboru-san."
"Too late. Everyone heard it." He look at Camera "For a record that's how she called with "love" hehehe"
"Please focus."
"I am extremely focused."
Ayumi shook her head. "What do you plan to do about third-party developers on ZEPS 4? You have a huge number of first-party studios and properties now, so some developers are worried ZAGE will prioritize its own games too heavily."
For the first time in several minutes, Zaboru did not immediately joke.
He leaned forward slightly.
"Well, for that…"
His expression became considerably more serious…
To be continued.
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