ese is a bit rusty-interviewed Mr. Naka-
mura in late November at the lAAP A show
in New Orleans. They talked about Mr. Na-
kamura's impressions of the United States
and his experiences in Japan as an operator
and manufacturer.
PLAY METER: What was the first amuse-
ment device that you built?
It was a submarine game,
NAKAMURA:
called Periscope, a three-player game, three
periscopes set up in parallel.
PLAY METER: And what was the next step
from there?
NAKAMURA: Then we made a tank game
adapted from a big tank battle between the
Allied forces and German forces during the
second world war.
PLAY METER: When you started manufac-
turing, did you sell these games to your
competitors, the operators you had been dis-
tributing to?
NAKAMURA: Yes.
PLAY METER: The submarine game that
you mentioned sounds like Seawolf, yet this
was ten years ago: would that be the first
periscope game ever?
NAKAMURA: I don't believe so, but it was
the first famous submarine game in Japan. I
think there were some similar games before.
However this was the first famous periscope
game.
PLA Y METER: Did it make a lot of money?
NAKAMURA: It made considerable money.
But still the manufacturing part of the busi-
ness was relatively small, smaller than the
operating portion of the business. For in -
stance, at that time, it was about 80 per
cent operation and 20 per cent manufacturing
and sales. The biggest advantage I had (and
still have) was the fact that everything we
manufactured, we can always utilize in our
locations. So if we make 100 games, we can
sell 50 but the rest of the 50, we can use
those games in our own locations.
PLAY METER: Don't Sega and Taito operate
in a similar fashion?
NAKAMURA: Yes.
PLA Y METER: And they are your major
competitors over there? They do the same
things?
NAKAMURA: Yes exactly, on a little bit
larger scale than Nakamura.
PLAY METER: Up until F -1, what was the
best game you ever came out with?
NAKAMURA: That was about seven years
ago. I developed, the company. developed a
game called Racer. It was an upright arcade
driving game, sort of a prototype of F-l.
PLAY METER: Similar to Speedway by Chi-
cago Coin?
NAKAMURA: Well, in appearance, yes, like
Speedway. However the device in this origi-
nal game was similar to the device present
on F-1, so that device was invented about
seven years ago.
PLAY ·METER: What more can you tell me
about Racer?
NAKAMURA: The Racer- we don't have a
picture with us at this time. The features of
the game are much like F-1, but it was an
upright game, a small game. Then we en-
larged the whole device and developed a
game called Formula X
Mr. Nakamura had with him at the inter-
view a number of pictures of the earlier
games he had manufactured. He is showing
these to our interviewer as the discussion
continues.
PLA Y METER: I've seen this before. Where
could I have seen it?
NAKAMURA: We gave many pictures to ma-
ny people in the United States. This is a
very big piece of equipment. It's about six
feet in width; the depth is about ten feet;
and the height is about seven feet. The
game is, of course, covered by those patents
applied to Germany, France, Italy, Great Bri-
tain and the U.S.
PLAY METER: Is this machine still for sale?
NAKAMURA: No, we discontinued production
about two years ago, but the secondhand
game is still available on the Japanese mar-
ket.
PLAY METER: I see that this has several
cars on the race track where F -1 has only
two. Why is that?
NAKAMURA: This is a very, very sophis-
ticated machine. First of all, this race car is
(Cont inued on page 14)
~
"I believe the video game will retain its position
in the market just as the pinball game has beep
retaining and still expanding."
~
_
;
==
13