Zaboru smiled as Ayumi waited for his answer. "For third-party developers on ZEPS 4, we already have plans. The important thing is that the ZEPS 4 environment won't only revolve around physical releases like ZEPS 3 did. We're going to approach digital developers more like how Steam approaches developers now. Physical games will still follow the traditional console model, where we take a percentage for publishing and distributing the game on our platform, but digital games give us much more flexibility."
Ayumi's eyes widened slightly. "So you're saying ZEPS 4 will be open to almost everyone, similar to Steam? Developers just pay the equivalent of around one hundred dollars, or ten thousand yen, once and they can publish?"
Zaboru chuckled and shook his head. "Not exactly as open as Steam, U-Bunny-chan. ZEPS 4 is still a console, so we need to be more strict about what actually gets released. But the important thing is that our standards aren't based on whether we personally think the gameplay is amazing or whether the graphics are beautiful. Those things are subjective. One person can think a game looks ugly and another person can love the style. One person can hate the gameplay while someone else spends five hundred hours playing it. What we care about is whether the game actually works."
He leaned slightly forward. "If you want to release on ZEPS 4, your game needs to be playable from beginning to end. It needs to be finished. It can't have bugs severe enough that people can't comfortably play it, and it can't damage the system or cause obvious technical problems. Beyond that, developers should have freedom. I don't want some ZAGE employee sitting there saying, 'Hmm, I personally don't enjoy this genre, rejected.' That would be stupid."
Ayumi nodded slowly. "So technical quality control, but not creative control."
"Exactly." Zaboru pointed toward her with a grin. "That's the better way to say it. And of course we'll offer promotional options too. You've already seen the ZEPS 4 home menu, right? There will be featured sections, recommended games, new releases, seasonal sections, and advertising spaces. If a developer wants their game displayed more prominently, they can pay for promotional placement. Pretty normal advertising stuff. But paying for promotion doesn't mean we pretend the game is good. It just means more people see it."
Ayumi glanced down at her notes before continuing. "Then what about development tools? ZEPS 3 had dedicated tools around Unreal Engine 3. Does ZEPS 4 have something similar?"
"Well, definitely." Zaboru's expression brightened immediately. "Actually, the development environment is far more complete this time because we're introducing Unreal Engine 4 alongside ZEPS 4. We're making the core engine available to developers who want to use it, including smaller studios, but there will also be optional paid tools, additional services, support packages, and more advanced features."
Ayumi raised an eyebrow. "Paid features?"
Zaboru laughed. "Don't worry, developers watching this. The prices aren't horrendous. You guys know ZAGE already, right? Heheheh." He leaned back comfortably. "The reason we charge for some services isn't because we want to squeeze developers dry. Maintaining something like Unreal Engine 4 costs money. Documentation has to be updated, tools need to improve, bugs need to be fixed, new hardware features need support, developers need technical assistance, and the engine itself needs to keep evolving. So the core environment should be accessible, while studios that need deeper support or more advanced services can pay for them."
He gestured toward the ZEPS 4 behind them. "And because ZEPS 4 is much more complicated than ZEPS 3, good documentation matters even more. We'll provide proper guidelines, examples, libraries, debugging tools, optimization information, and direct explanations for things like Raijin's multiple cores, Amaterasu, unified memory, Blue-Ray, online services, and the Z-Remote. Powerful hardware is useless if developers spend half their project fighting the machine."
Ayumi smiled. "You really want developers to use everything the console can do."
"Of course. If we make a powerful console and then give developers terrible tools, that's our fault."
She looked toward him for a moment before asking the next question. "Zaboru-san, do you actually encourage ordinary people to create their own games? Is it really possible right now for a small team—or even one person—to create an entire game?"
Zaboru laughed softly. "Heheheh, nice question, my love."
Ayumi's cheeks immediately warmed. "Please answer normally."
"I am answering normally." He grinned before becoming more thoughtful. "But yes, I absolutely think it's possible, and I strongly encourage it. Maybe not every type of game. One person probably isn't going to build something with the scale of our new game like GTA San Andreas or Halo : Combat Evovled alone. But a complete game? Definitely. And I think it's going to become much more common."
He rested one arm against the chair. "Hardware keeps improving. Tools keep improving. Engines keep improving. Eventually, there will be a point where hardware itself stops being the biggest limitation for many developers. You won't need to be a huge corporation just to put something impressive on screen. But strangely, when technical limitations disappear, another problem can appear."
Ayumi tilted her head. "Creativity?"
"Exactly." Zaboru nodded. "Limitations force people to think. Large companies have money, hundreds of developers, giant marketing budgets, advanced technology, huge storage, and powerful hardware. Sometimes that freedom can make people lazy creatively because their first answer becomes, 'Just make it bigger. Add more things. Spend more money.' But a team of five passionate people doesn't have that luxury. They still have limited time, limited money, limited manpower. So they have to ask, 'What is the one thing our game does really well? What can we make special?'"
His smile widened slightly. "And that pressure can create really interesting games."
Ayumi listened carefully as Zaboru continued, "Steam is already showing us examples. There are high-quality games being created by surprisingly small teams. Some of them don't look as expensive as major ZAGE titles, obviously, but they have personality. They take risks. They experiment with mechanics that a huge company might consider too strange or too risky. I find that really reassuring."
He paused before chuckling. "Actually, I've started calling those kinds of games indie games. Indie, from independent. Small companies, small teams, sometimes even one person, making games without needing some giant publisher controlling everything."
Ayumi smiled warmly. "So you actually want an environment where those indie games can grow."
"Very much."
"Even if one day some small indie game becomes more popular than a ZAGE game?"
Zaboru blinked. "Why not?"
Ayumi laughed quietly. "Because you own ZAGE?"
"Ah, right."
She stared at him.
Zaboru grinned. "Still yes."
Ayumi's expression softened. "So you really would be happy if some game made by a small independent team eventually beat one of ZAGE's games?"
"Of course I'd be annoyed if our game lost," Zaboru replied immediately. "I'm competitive, U-Bunny-chan. I'd probably walk into the development room the next morning and ask, 'Guys, why did five people in somebody's garage beat us?'"
Ayumi laughed.
"But after that?" Zaboru continued. "I'd be excited. Because that means the industry is healthy. It means good ideas can still win. It means someone without billions of yen can create something people love. And then maybe our developers play that game, learn something from it, get inspired, and make something even better next time. Competition should push everybody upward."
Ayumi looked at him for several seconds before asking more quietly, "Then what do you actually want for the future of video games, Zaboru-san? Do you want ZAGE to always remain at the top?"
Zaboru paused.
This was a question Ayumi had already asked him in private before, and she knew the answer perfectly well. From the slight smile on her face, he immediately understood why she was asking it again.
She wanted everyone else to hear it.
Zaboru sighed softly before chuckling. "Heheheh… U-Bunny-chan, if you ask whether I want ZAGE to stay at the top of the video-game industry, then obviously yes. Why would I build this company and then say, 'I hope we become number twelve someday'? Of course I want ZAGE to stay strong."
Ayumi smiled.
"But my actual goal is a little selfish."
He leaned back and looked briefly toward the ceiling as if imagining something far away. "One day, when I think it's finally time for me to rest, I really want to rest. I don't want to be ninety years old still sitting in meetings arguing about quarterly release schedules. I want to wake up, spend time with you, our children, maybe our grandchildren, and wonder what game is releasing that week."
Ayumi's expression softened further.
Zaboru continued, "At that point I don't want to be ZAGE's CEO anymore. I just want to be some old gamer sitting at home getting excited because a trailer dropped. I want to complain when a game gets delayed. I want to argue with our kids about what game we should buy. I want to play something made by a company I've never heard of and think, 'Damn, this is really good.'"
He chuckled. "Old Gamer Zaboru. Sounds pretty nice, right?"
Ayumi smiled warmly. "It does."
"And for me to enjoy that future, the video-game industry itself needs to be healthy. It needs competition. It needs new developers. It needs small teams. It needs companies willing to experiment. It needs people who actually love games, not just people trying to extract money from whoever plays them." Zaboru shrugged. "I know people pay attention to what ZAGE does. Some companies copy us. Some developers listen to me. So if I have that kind of influence, then I'd rather use it to push the industry in a direction where someday I can retire and still have amazing games to play."
He looked toward Ayumi and winked. "And spend much more time with you. Heheheh."
Ayumi immediately blushed before clearing her throat and forcing herself back into interviewer mode. "A-Anyway… how do you even know which direction is right, Zaboru-san? You speak about the future of the industry with a lot of confidence."
For a brief moment, Zaboru said nothing.
The real answer was almost absurdly simple.
Because he had already seen one version of that future.
He had lived through an industry where digital distribution became dominant, where independent developers could become worldwide successes, where enormous publishers sometimes became trapped by their own size, where monetization could become predatory, where development budgets could become unsustainable, where convenience improved dramatically while ownership became increasingly complicated. He knew which ideas had worked, which ones had failed, and which mistakes he never wanted this world to repeat.
But he obviously could not say any of that.
So Zaboru simply shrugged.
"Well…"
Ayumi waited.
Zaboru grinned.
"I just know."
There was a moment of silence before Ayumi chuckled. "Should I add that to your collection of famous quotes?"
Zaboru raised an eyebrow.
"'I Just Know — Zaboru Renkonan,'" Ayumi continued. "It sounds exactly like something people will turn into a meme."
Zaboru shrugged shamelessly. "Wouldn't be the first one."
"You're already a walking meme, Zaboru-san."
"That means I'm culturally important."
"That is not what that means."
"I choose to believe it is."
Ayumi laughed and glanced toward the camera as the interview finally began wrapping up. The conversation had started with a simple question about third-party developers, but by the end of it Zaboru had effectively laid out something much larger: ZAGE did not simply want more games on ZEPS 4. It wanted to lower the barrier between having an idea and actually releasing that idea as a game.
Open digital distribution, reasonable entry costs, technical certification instead of creative gatekeeping, optional promotion, Unreal Engine 4, development documentation, support services, small-team development, and even an entirely new term—indie games.
For established publishers, it was interesting.
For smaller studios, it was enormous.
And for thousands of young programmers, artists, musicians, students, hobbyists, and aspiring developers watching around the world, Zaboru had just told them something many had never seriously considered before.
You did not necessarily need to join a giant company to make a game.
Maybe you could make one yourself.
The broadcast ended shortly afterward.
And then the reactions truly took the world by storm.
To be continued.
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