Trigger Happy
of character in videogames. So I’m going to brave the crush and see for myself.
Inside Makuhari Messe, the vast national exhibition center (whose undulating roof gives it the appearance of eight hi-tech railway stations shoved together), more than a hundred and sixty thousand Japanese men, women and children have come over the two public days of the exhibition in March 1999 to see and play the newest videogames, the ones that will be launched in the next six months. Each hardware or software company has its own stand in the enormous, roaring halls, all competing with their neighbors to attract the gamers’ attention with gigantic neon signs, hundred- strong ranks of TV monitors with consoles lined up underneath them, constant blasts of game sound effects and music, and professional software “spokespeople”: glamorous Japanese women dressed in skin-tight PVC, silver miniskirts or Lycra bikinis, who smile, hand out leaflets and pose for batteries of photographers. (The show presents an award to “the most excellent companion lady.”)
Just as in Los Angeles at the E3 show, the big companies advertise themselves with their videogame mascots—the stars of their top games. But whereas Sony, for instance, contents itself in America with
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