"1 E-prize, 3 G-prizes, 1 F-prize! Please proceed to the prize redemption area to claim your winnings. Our staff will assist you with the exchange." The staff member at the counter repeated the standard spiel with a hint of fatigue.
"Here's 3000 yen, I want to buy five more draws!" a young man said, waving his cash.
"We sincerely apologize, but due to the current queue, you are only permitted to purchase five prize tickets. If you wish to buy more, please rejoin the end of the line after claiming your prize! Kindly refrain from causing inconvenience to other customers."
"Damn it, only 20 draws left, and neither of the A-prizes have appeared. If I could just have five more draws, they'd all be mine!" The young man gritted his teeth, looking at the exquisite and cute Pikachu prize on a shelf. He could only reluctantly go to the redemption area.
Fortunately, the Pokémon cups offered as G-prizes were quite interesting, displaying different Pokémon skin colors based on the beverage's color. He directly drew three mugs, followed by a Pikachu, a Ponyta, and a Mewtwo, which considerably improved his mood.
However, in the next second, he heard the staff member who had been handling the payments and draws shaking a bell and announcing loudly, "Congratulations to this customer for winning two A-prizes!"
Immediately after, all the staff members in the convenience store echoed the announcement in unison, though their voices clearly conveyed exhaustion. Repeating congratulations hundreds of times in a morning was indeed a grueling task, and their throats were practically sore.
The customer who was previously redeeming his prize was suddenly overwhelmed with extreme envy and jealousy. He resented the lucky winner and approached him, asking, "You have two A-prizes, can you sell me one? I'll pay 5000 yen!"
In his opinion, buying an A-prize for 5000 yen, when the winner had only spent 2500 yen to draw two, was a very good deal. It was unreasonable for the lucky winner to refuse.
But the other person looked at him as if he were an idiot and sneered, "You don't know, do you? In second-hand shops, these A-prizes go for 10,000 yen each!"
"Ten thousand yen? That's insane!" the man exclaimed. Second-hand shops sounded quaint and traditional, but in Fusang, they were simply stores that sold used goods.
In other words, 10,000 yen was the market-validated price that people were willing to pay. The value of this A-prize was truly terrifying.
After all, a full set of these blind box lottery prizes, the "Hua Huang Prize," had 80 tickets, and buying out the entire set would cost around 40,000 yen.
However, this set included two A-prizes, two B-prizes, three C-prizes, and three D-prizes, totaling ten poseable Pokémon.
If all of these could be sold for 10,000 yen each, wouldn't that mean a profit of 100,000 yen?
No, there was also a Last Prize, which was clearly even more valuable.
Actually, that wasn't entirely true. In second-hand shops, only Pikachu could fetch 10,000 yen; the rest were priced around 2,500 yen.
Furthermore, even though there were two A-prizes, one was Pikachu, and the other was Meowth. The latter's popularity could not compare to the former. It was worth noting that since the boxes containing the A-prizes were also completely sealed blind boxes, it was a matter of pure chance who would get Pikachu and who would get Meowth.
The other B, C, and D prizes followed a similar pattern, all packaged in blind boxes, with the outcome depending entirely on luck, truly living up to the name "blind box."
The only certainty was that the Last Prize was Mewtwo, the sole grand prize, with no exceptions.
It was precisely because the Last Prize was Mewtwo that its price soared to 6,000 yen. Thus, a customer faced with only 10 tickets remaining and only one Last Prize left could happily buy out all the remaining prizes.
In any case, all five sets of the "blind box Hua Huang Prize" that had been drawn had sold out; not a single empty slot remained. The only set that had been unlucky, with 24 prizes remaining before it was completely drawn of A, B, C, D, and other major prizes, was bought out by a devoted Mewtwo fan for 12,000 yen.
"Sir, you can also check the prize tickets inside your prize boxes. These tickets may also contain blind box tickets for one of the legendary birds!" a staff member kindly reminded him. The buyer then remembered to draw his blind box tickets.
This "blind box Hua Huang Prize" was naturally designed to embody the blind box concept. Besides the A, B, C, and D prizes that were determined by drawing blind boxes, there was another blind box mechanic: each prize, whether A, B, C, D, E, F, or G, contained a blind box prize ticket. This prize ticket could also be torn open, with a 1% chance of obtaining a special Pokémon of the legendary birds.
"Huh? I got it! I got the legendary birds!" The buyer's overjoyed shouts were then heard. He had drawn a legendary bird prize ticket from a G-prize.
This burst of excited cheering further solidified the confidence of other players to make purchases.
According to the official statement, the legendary bird prize tickets were not fixed in each set but were randomly included among all the prizes.
This meant that one set might contain over ten legendary bird blind box prize tickets, while ten or more sets might not contain a single one.
Therefore, the legendary birds could not be directly redeemed at local convenience stores. Players needed to go to specific Xiyou convenience stores or designated redemption centers in department stores in various cities to claim their prizes.
Of course, if they were willing to wait, they could also redeem them through the convenience store where they made the purchase, but this would require a day for inventory transfer.
Considering that a 500-yen ticket offered two different chances to win, it was indeed very exciting. Coupled with the immense popularity of Pokémon, the first series of the "blind box Hua Huang Prize" Pokémon lottery undoubtedly ignited an unimaginable frenzy in Fusang.
On the first day, people were queuing up at every Xiyou convenience store to draw prizes. On the second day, there were no more.
Because the daily quota of ten sets was completely sold out, Xiyou convenience stores directly announced a stockout. The second batch of goods would require three days for replenishment.
Heaven knows, Mr. Huang himself did not anticipate such a level of popularity. The 100,000 sets of "blind box Hua Huang Prize" he had initially allocated for the Fusang market were expected to last for a week, allowing him to replace them with the second series of the "blind box Hua Huang Prize."
Unexpectedly, they were all sold out in a single day.
Fortunately, there were some remaining stocks in the warehouse, which had to be shipped overnight along with the second series of the "blind box Hua Huang Prize."
However, this achievement had shocked everyone, from Xiyou Corporation to Jiangnan Group. Knowing that each set retailed for 40,000 yen, 100,000 sets amounted to 4 billion yen. With a profit split of 37%, Xiyou Corporation would earn 1.2 billion yen in net profit, while Jiangnan Group would net 2.8 billion yen.
After deducting taxes, approximately 2.2 billion yen remained. If they further subtracted around 400 million yen in production costs, the net profit was about 1.8 billion yen.
That's right, the cost of something selling for 4 billion yen was merely 400 million yen. This was because it was produced in Huaxia, where the prices were genuinely cheaper yet the quality remained high!
Calculating based on the current exchange rate, 1.8 billion yen was equivalent to about 20 million US dollars. While this might not sound exceedingly high, earning 20 million US dollars in a single day, with a large number of users unable to purchase any, all eagerly awaiting the second batch, meant that the "Pokémon blind box Hua Huang Prize" would at least generate 100 million US dollars in revenue.
This was even more than the monthly profit of the Jiangnan blind boxes in the Huaxia market previously, truly astonishing.
Oh, and the manufacturers were all members of the Jiangnan Council, with Mr. Huang himself holding about 40% of the shares, making it a truly overwhelming success.
While the Fusang market was experiencing immense success, the Huaxia market appeared rather subdued, or perhaps even disappointing.
Although Pokémon, translated as "Jingling Bao Ke Meng" in Huaxia, possessed immense popularity and was the childhood memory of countless children, the problem was that each draw of the "blind box Hua Huang Prize" cost 50 yuan, whereas Jiangnan Group's blind boxes were priced at 10 yuan per box. This enormous price difference directly deterred the financially constrained Huaxia populace.
Moreover, since the prizes were merely toys, it essentially eliminated the adult market, with only wealthy children purchasing them.
Huaxia was initially allocated 50,000 sets, but Mr. Huang directly diverted 30,000 sets to the Fusang market, and the remaining 20,000 sets did not sell out.
Given this situation with the hugely popular Pokémon, the results for other IPs were self-evident. Consequently, many stores only symbolically displayed one or two sets of the "blind box Hua Huang Prize," with all remaining production capacity diverted to meet the demand from the Fusang market.
Even so, these symbolically displayed "blind box Hua Huang Prize" sets often remained untouched, with not even a single prize ticket being drawn. This was considered a rare failure for Jiangnan Group.
However, it was rather miraculous that these unsold "blind box Hua Huang Prize" sets were eventually sold off one after another, with many old prizes stocked for over a year also being cleared.
It was later discovered that the purchasers of these older "blind box Hua Huang Prize" sets were all tourists from Fusang. This was because "blind box Hua Huang Prize" generally did not have mass production; instead, production quantities were artificially set based on the value of the IP, ensuring that virtually all produced "blind box Hua Huang Prize" sets would be sold.
As a result, extreme opposites formed between Huaxia and Fusang. In Huaxia, they were largely unsellable, while in Fusang, they were almost entirely snapped up. Consequently, many Fusang individuals who missed out gradually discovered that they could still purchase their past regrets in Huaxia. Wasn't that a cause for extreme excitement?