September 1, 1999
The official sales figures wouldn't be in until at least the following week, but reports from Soul Calibur's launch were good. Extremely good. In many stores, particularly EB Games and Gamestop stores, Soul Calibur was selling even faster than Sonic the Hedgehog 5, and Tom Kalinske couldn't have been happier at the news.
But there was a cloud to go with that silver lining. Soul Calibur was selling plenty of software, but from the early reports, Saturns weren't flying off the shelves any faster than before. Though the $249.99 combo pack containing the Saturn, the Ring, the Soul Calibur game, a controller, and a fight stick was a popular buy, and even though Saturn owners WERE buying lots of Rings to play the new game, the Saturn base console itself hadn't seen its sales tick up even a tiny bit. The layoffs were continuing, though they'd slowed, and Kalinske hadn't had to fire any of his friends in a while. Sega's profits had stabilized.
And later in the month, Sega was planning to have a major presence at the Tokyo Game Show. They were finally going to formally unveil the Katana and the first wave of games for the new console. A number of upcoming Saturn games would be shown off as well. One of which, Dragon Quest VII, was sure to be a hit with the Japanese crowds. But in North America, the Saturn's market share had eroded significantly. The Ultra Nintendo was still selling extremely well, more than tripling Saturn sales in most months.
“Hey John, how's it going?” asked Kalinske. He was talking on the phone to John Antioco, Blockbuster's current CEO. “Oh really? That's awesome, thanks for letting us know.”
Antioco had just revealed to Kalinske that Soul Calibur had set a record for release date rentals from Blockbuster, and that the Ring had smashed a record for single-day peripheral rentals, a record that had previously been set by the Super Nintendo CD on the day that Doom had launched for the SNES-CD in 1995.
“The Saturn and its games have really been successful for us at Blockbuster and it's a partnership we'd like to keep going,” said Antioco. “Which brings me to my next request, is there anything you can let me know about the new thing you guys are coming out with? I think the Katana is what it's called? We'd love to be in position to have lots of units available for rental when it's released.”
“Sorry, John, not much I can tell you...” said Kalinske, and it wasn't just because he wasn't authorized to tell his Blockbuster friend anything...it was because he'd been left out of the loop on it as well, at least about certain aspects of the Katana's particulars. “You're welcome to come down to Tokyo in a couple weeks, we'll be showing it off to everybody there.”
“Ah, corporate secrets, huh?” replied Antioco with a laugh. “All right, all right, don't want to get you in trouble. “Hey, great work on the Saturn, it's really been a massive hit with all our customers. Remember, if Nintendo had their way, we wouldn't be able to rent out games at all!”
“You know, I wouldn't mind if all you guys carried were Sega games,” joked Kalinske. “But I've always been glad to have Blockbuster's support. I promise to let you know whatever I can as soon as I can and if you come to Tokyo, we can hang out together.”
“That'd be awesome, Tom. I'll see you there, buddy.”
Kalinske set the phone back on the receiver and sighed. The phone call with Antioco reminded him just how much was slipping out of his fingers. He had Blockbuster's support, but as for Sega's, he could no longer be certain.
He was hoping to meet with company brass in Tokyo and get some things straightened out. In the meantime, he had a few more phone calls to make, more Soul Calibur early sales reports to confirm.
Good news always helped calm his nerves.
