Chapter 315: The Creed Chaos System I

It wouldn't be long before Nintendo will find all their hard work wasted again and all that they could do from there was to futilely attempt to stall their demise.

Of course, Alexander wasn't that cruel.

He was devious but he wasn't going to discount the effort that Nintendo put into revitalizing the worth of video games.

He knows the history and he didn't have the motivation to go through what they did.

North American retailers' aversion to video games was so brutal that it would be an incredibly tedious process to change their minds.

Of course, with Nintendo going through thick and thin to hotwire the video game industry into revving up, Alexander and Creed Games would just need to jump right in.

He wasn't going to kick Nintendo out of the driver's seat of this kickstarted car. If anything, he just wanted to hitchhike because Nintendo deserves to be applauded and praised as the dependable bro.

Then again, that was all Alexander could commend them for. Other than shamelessly hitchhiking, he was also going to rip them off from here on out.

After all, who was he kidding with this hotwired car and hitchhiking metaphors?

Alexander's goal was to grow Creed Games and sell Creed Chaos System, which makes Nintendo and their NES his competitor, rival, and foil.

In any case, let the better company, video game developer, and console provider win.

-----

February of 1986 came... and a little unexpected console war had just begun.

Although they didn't do stuff to the same amount of fanfare, both Nintendo and Creed released their respective systems to select retail stores around the general Los Angeles area.

Nintendo went with their city-wide, store-lobbying approach while Creed went with their comic book store focus like usual.

It wasn't that Creed was intentionally trying to overlap with Nintendo... it was just that Creed has to test their market as well.

As confident as they were with the product, they didn't want to be blindsided by errors, hitches, and disappointing market reception. Nationwide product recalls would be pretty destructive in this case.

This was the medium leagues with a $200 product now and not the low-end range that comic books and most toys are.

There's also the fact that mass production is still limited for the Chaos units, so Creed had to start small for now.

Fortunately, prior experience with Tetris arcade machines from last month had prepared them for what the nuances of video game products are all about.

These Tetris cabinets were actually multi-purpose when comic book store owners really thought about it.

Aside from introducing Creed Games to the general gaming public, it was also a practice run for Creed's new operations, and a dangling bait that would entice frustrated Creed costumers on what was to come.

If the free arcade cabinets for comic retailers were a sneaky marketing ploy, then it was clear now that there was actually a much sneakier layer to it.

Even the Creed Play Train and the growing frustrations of having to share only one Tetris arcade cabinet among plentiful other Creed fans would just be a part of it.

If the alternative of the Creed Chaos System had always been on the agenda, then it's hard to not speculate about how everything from start to end is by meticulous design.

It was simple but grand... and the mastermind behind it must be something else.

Whether this was true or not... didn't really matter.

What mattered was that the Creed Chaos System had Creed in it. The majority of comic book goers would always go for whatever was made by that brand.

They didn't even care for the $200 price tag or how home video game consoles are generally perceived to be dead.

Those with the cash in had brought it home while the usual nerds and geeks were dedicated to saving up.

As long as they could play Tetris in the comforts of their own home plus two new games that the illustrious Alexander Creed had made... the Creed Chaos System was a must-have.

Of course, not everyone felt this way. However, these non-buyers couldn't really stop the buying trend.

Before long, sales were already made and news of the system's offering had already spread far and wide. Even outside the Los Angeles test market area.

It wasn't even a comic book anymore yet comic book store owners, comic book aficionados, and the whole comic book industry was looking forward to it.

That's just how it was when a brand becomes established as it is. It only took almost two years for Creed to get to this point.

Either way, the Creed Chaos System was selling and the process wasn't as melodramatic as the process that Nintendo had to go through.

----

This peeved Nintendo.

In fact, this terrified Nintendo.

Just when they thought that their NES could finally have some time to breathe easy... this had to happen.

"What is going on?" Nintendo of America President Arakawa could only ask.

"Another video game console is selling and it's not from any of the companies we were looking out for." NoA Vice-President Howard Lincoln answered. "Mattel's Intellivision, Coleco's ColecoVision, Sega's rebranded Master System, Atari's Atari 5600, their rumored Atari 7800, and even the disgraced Atari 2600. With us revitalizing consoles, these are the likely suspects that we thought would ride our coattails. This new Creed Chaos System completely blindsided us."

"I know all of this already." Arakawa clarified. "I meant what is going on with this Creed? Where did they even come from?"

"Beats me." Howard Lincoln was clueless. He did remember reading something like Ace Attorney from his lawyer pal but that was comics, not games.

Game tester Howard Phillips had his answer. "They are actually a multi-faceted entertainment company that just entered into the video game industry."

"Just entered?" Arakawa was perplexed. "How come they already jumped to making consoles already?"

"Me and Phillips were actually just interested in their puzzle-stacking Tetris game. That game is quite good and popular for the NES to miss out on." Another game tester, Don James, supplemented his game-testing pal.

"We were hoping to broker a deal so that we can port Tetris into an NES game. We are only just finding out about their console plans as well."

"You guys are getting screwed as well, huh." Don Kingsborough of Worlds of Wonder can't help but sigh. At least, they weren't the only ones.

The lot of them were actually just plotting to bundle Teddy Ruxpin and the NES so that retailers would have no choice.

It had to be said that as a former Atari sales director, Kingsborough kind of wanted to stick it to his old company with the NES.

On the other hand, Nintendo could partner up with a fresh toy retailer that is churning out one of the hottest toys in America right now.

Either way, Worlds of Wonder would become one of Nintendo's distributors and it will be a win-win for both their products.

This sudden news of the Creed Chaos System did just put another unexpected overlap in their team-up.

"Do you have something against them, Mr. Kingsborough?" Arakawa asked.

"Well, their Hobbes toy is a piggybacking menace if you ask me. Teddy Ruxpin is so much better than that crappy tiger." The WoW President complained. "They're at it again. This time, they're piggybacking on the console market that you guys have opened up."

"There's that and... uhm..." Don James was a bit hesitant to say this part. "It's just that this Creed Chaos System may actually be better than ours."

"What do you mean?"

Arakawa had a bad feeling about this.

"How could it be better?"

"Mr. Arakawa...." Howard Phillips took over for this one. "Their packaging has some 16+bit typo but this Creed Chaos System might actually be a 16-bit console."

"What?!" Arakawa can't help but stand up.

This was bad. Extremely bad. How could their 8-bit NES even be able to compete?