While Nagao was speculating on why Gamestar Electronic Entertainment had so much money, he also began adjusting the investment in his own company's funds.
Nowadays, YOO was involved in a wide range of fields.
Nagao had always been ambitious and wanted to create a super media group that would encompass every entertainment industry.
He firmly believed that the future of the entertainment industry would be the most powerful money-making machine. As long as he laid a solid foundation in the entertainment industry, his future would be limitless.
So, to achieve this goal, he had been making all kinds of entertainment-related investments from the very beginning.
Acquiring shares in TV stations, acquiring entertainment production platforms, acquiring game studios, founding his own internet video platform, creating his own e-commerce platform—everything revolved around the internet, trying to solidify the foundation of his entertainment empire.
However, this foundation required a huge amount of money. By now, he had already spent over a hundred billion dollars.
Previously, he had boasted that he would spend billions of dollars to acquire Gamestar Electronic Entertainment, but he wasn't just speaking casually.
...
...
He truly was a visionary. At the time, he had realized the dominant position Gamestar Electronic Entertainment held in the gaming industry. If he could acquire such a company, even if it didn't make money in the short term, YOO would eventually become the absolute ruler of the global gaming industry.
However, Takayuki completely ignored Nagao. Nagao had no choice but to settle for acquiring dozens of large and small game studios, which cost him around several billion dollars.
Then came the acquisition of TV station shares. He spent about a billion dollars to acquire a 15% stake, giving him a foothold in the TV media sector.
Next, he began building his own video and social platforms, figuring out ways to drive traffic to these platforms, spending another several billion dollars.
These two investments were inspired by Facebook's current operation model.
Facebook rose on the back of social networking, and by accident, it became a huge success with its video platform after the release of the Final Fantasy 7 movie. It has since become a money-making tool with over a million paying monthly users.
Nagao naturally coveted such a video platform, so he decided to emulate it by creating a similar social network and video platform. But as a latecomer, he needed more investment to reach the scale of Facebook, and more effort to compete with Facebook for market share.
Fortunately, Japan was somewhat averse to foreign capital, especially from the U.S., and Facebook's development in Japan wasn't as smooth. This gave YOO's social platform room to grow.
Then, he invested another $100 million to create a domestic e-commerce platform.
Lastly, he focused on what made him successful—the internet portal and news platform.
This took up the most of his money, more than half of his total capital investment.
At this point, his liquidity was starting to run low, which left him feeling disoriented.
What was happening? He had thought he had plenty of funds, but now it was all depleting so quickly.
But thinking about it, it was normal. All the investments he made were long-term, bets on future success.
Now, the short-term investments were acceptable.
However, it seemed like the investors behind him were beginning to express dissatisfaction.
It might not be easy to ask for more money from them now...
With this thought in mind, he decided to temporarily halt the investments in his video platform and e-commerce platform, taking some of the funds from those areas and injecting them into the game development side.
Right now, he was focused on competing with Gamestar Electronic Entertainment for the European market. Hayakawa Ueto also supported his plan, partly because it wouldn't affect his own profits. Since Nagao was so eager to fight Takayuki, Hayakawa was happy to see this outcome—he didn't have to spend much money and still had a powerful ally.
Having made his decision, Nagao called his assistant over and told him what he planned to do.
"Mr. Nagao, our gaming business department is actually doing fine as it is. I think we shouldn't make such a risky investment in developing a football game. The risk is really high, and our video platform is gradually improving, and so is the e-commerce platform. I believe we shouldn't divert funds from these two departments. It would hurt morale and impact our future plans."
Did Nagao not know this?
No, of course, he knew. But he didn't want to think about that right now. Takayuki's near-provocative attitude had made him a little obsessive, and he felt the need to prove that his company was stronger than Gamestar Electronic Entertainment with a single game.
Moreover, he had already invested so much in licensing fees and development costs. If he gave up now, it would mean all that money was wasted, which he couldn't accept.
If he gave up now, the shareholders would definitely come after him.
"You've spent so much money and you want to give up? What were all your previous decisions for? Do you think that money is just yours to waste?"
Nagao waved his hand, "You don't need to worry about that. This company is still under my control, right?"
The assistant opened his mouth, then slowly nodded, "You're right, the company is still under your control."
"Then don't argue with me. I'm going to do this. Do you really want me to give up?"
"No..."
The assistant was ultimately just an employee.
He only expressed his concerns out of professional habit.
But if the boss didn't care, then why should he?
Still, it left him somewhat worried.
What about the future of this company?
If it were before, he would have thought the future was bright because everything had been going smoothly, the money was abundant, and as long as they got through the initial phase and stabilized their brand, the media group would definitely succeed.
But now, everything seemed a bit uncertain.
As per Nagao's orders, the funds from the video and e-commerce departments were adjusted, and most of that money was directed toward the development and promotion of the football game. About 30% went to development, and 70% went to promotion.
The consequences of this decision were far-reaching.
First, the sudden reduction in funding to the video department made Facebook, a competitor, feel much less pressure.