The crisp click of a coin dropping sounded like the call to charge.
Over the next few days, that sound became the most beautiful symphony in Frank's arcade.
Virtua Fighter's coin-eating rate was terrifyingly high.
A single match usually ended within a few dozen seconds. The loser refused to accept defeat, the winner wanted to keep going, and the spectators were itching to jump in.
In front of every machine, there were always three or four people lined up, each clutching several coins, eyes locked onto the screen, mouths constantly shouting advice at the players in the match.
"Kick his legs, idiot!"
"Block it! Counter-guard!"
Frank's phone rang. It was another arcade owner, his voice barely containing his excitement.
"Frank, you sly bastard! How many did you order? My line's already out the door!"
"Not many, not many," Frank said modestly as he leaned against the counter, watching the boiling crowd in the Virtua Fighter section. The wrinkles on his face nearly split open from smiling. "Just enough to keep the kids busy until next year. What, regretting not ordering more?"
"I regret it so bad my guts are turning green! We've practically blown up Sega's sales line! I just want to know—are these coin boxes bigger than Metal Slug's?"
"No idea if they're bigger," Frank said smugly as he hung up, "but I sure empty them more often."
What surprised him even more was the arrival of another wave of fresh blood.
Jesse and Tim—two boys who had just emerged from the grand, tragic world of Final Fantasy IV—were in that post-clear, sage-like haze.
They had saved the world, seen love and hatred play out to the end, and felt that they couldn't get into another RPG anytime soon.
Bored, they walked into their familiar arcade, planning to mow down a few more rounds in Metal Slug.
Then they were drawn over by a level of noise they had never heard before.
"What's that?"
When they squeezed into the crowd and saw two fully three-dimensional human figures clashing at high speed in a ring, both of them froze.
This was nothing like any fighting game they had ever played.
"Move aside—let me try!" Jesse couldn't hold back. He pulled out a coin and shoved his way forward.
A few minutes later, he walked back down with his head hanging.
"Well?" Tim asked.
"This game is poison," Jesse replied curtly. But his eyes burned with something called unwillingness. He turned around and snatched another coin from Tim's hand. "One more. I've got the feel for it now!"
Just like that, the core players who had finished Final Fantasy IV at home were seamlessly funneled into the deep pit of Virtua Fighter.
Carrying the patience and analytical mindset forged by an epic RPG, they dove headfirst into this simple yet profoundly deep 3D fighting world.
Inside the arcade, two completely different kinds of joy intertwined.
On one side, Metal Slug's explosive hail of bullets.
On the other, Virtua Fighter's bone-crunching, hardcore duels.
When Minoru Arakawa received the report on Virtua Fighter, his expression didn't change in the slightest.
Ten thousand units.
The number lingered in his eyes for barely half a second before he pushed the file to the corner of the desk, as if it weren't ten thousand money-devouring beasts, but an irrelevant lunch menu.
He was standing with Howard Lincoln, finalizing the last phase of SNES promotion plans over a massive map of the United States.
The arcade market?
Let Tom Kalinske worry about that.
Arakawa didn't even have the emotional bandwidth left for jealousy.
All his chips were stacked on the living-room war about to begin.
For a full month, North American warehouses had been packed with SNES consoles shipped from Japan.
Those gray machines lay quietly in their boxes like a silent army, waiting for the order.
Now, the supplies had arrived.
"The English versions of Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past—the first containers have cleared customs at the Port of Los Angeles," Howard Lincoln said, a long-lost excitement in his voice. He jabbed a finger hard at Los Angeles on the map. "The trucks are already rolling. In three days, we'll cover all major western channels!"
The arrow was on the string—there was no choice but to fire.
"Flood the channels," Arakawa said, only two words, his eyes never leaving the map. "Notify all distributors. Execute the highest-tier plan."
Overnight, it was as if the color palette of the entire United States had changed.
The most prominent billboard in Times Square was taken over by Mario and his new partner, Yoshi. Buses rolling through Chicago bore the image of Link holding the Master Sword aloft. During prime-time TV, that hypnotic slogan played on repeat:
"Now you're playing with SUPER power!"
Across major sales channels and partner stores throughout North America, SNES posters went up in unison.
This overwhelming offensive finally made players who had been immersed in Sega's game world lift their heads—from arcades and from their bedrooms.
They suddenly realized that they hadn't touched a Nintendo game in a very long time.
Of course, that didn't include the little kids whose parents had stuffed an NES into their arms as a Christmas gift.
"Hey, look—it's Nintendo," a boy who had just stepped out of a comic shop said, poking his friend and pointing at the huge poster outside the game store across the street.
"Nintendo? They finally remember they still have a North American market?" his friend scoffed.
He was a die-hard Sega Genesis fan and had long since written Nintendo off as a relic.
But when his eyes landed on the poster—on Mario riding a green dinosaur, soaring through the air in a blue cape—the mocking expression froze on his face.
"Th-that—what is that? Mario can do that now?"
"Not just that," someone nearby chimed in, clearly just out of the store, a flyer still in hand. "He can ride a dinosaur, dive underground. This new game's called Super Mario World."
"My God—"
For players who still had an NES sitting at home, the emotions were even more complicated.
They watched the refined visuals and vast world of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on TV, then looked down at the old, dull-gray controller in their hands, and felt an unmistakable sense of being left behind by the times.
Nintendo's offensive was all-encompassing.
Thanks to the enormous user base built during the NES era and an unparalleled brand reputation, the SNES launch felt less like a sales event—and more like a coronation that had arrived a year late.
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