Play Meter

•
cOlnman
of the month -
Projection
Racing
/
Conversation with
Masaya Nakamura
Inventor of F-l
"The most important thing to stimulate and
keep this business field going is to prevent copy-
ing. Otherwise you cannot have a sound market . ..
Masaya Nakamura's card reads [in Japan-
ese] "designing and planning, manufacturing,
sales and management, leasing, exporting and
importing." The inventor of F-1, probably the
hit of this year's MOA show, is obviously a
jack-of-all-trades in our industry.
Mr. Nakamura got started in the industry
as an operator. His father was a gunsmith,
and Mr. Nakamura considered foUowing in his
footsteps, but "the regulations for handling a
gun in Japan are very, very severe," he said,
"and for that reason the business hasn't such
good prospects." Mr. Nakamura graduated
from Yokohama Industrial Technical College
where .he majored in shipbuilding.
StiU, in 1955, he became an operator, with
one smaU location. The first years were diffi-
cult. "At that time I had no international
support," Mr. Nakamura recaUs. But his busi-
ness did start to expand-although slowly-
"so that within seven years I was able to
have about three or four locations." And he
began to talk to manufacturers about supply
ing machines in larger quantities, "also with
long stretch payment terms and a relatively
cheap price. "
The operation began expanding more rapid-
~ ly and soon Mr. Nakamura was buying his
:: games in quantity and getting quantity dis-
~ count prices.
So he began distributing as
; weU. "Since I could get the games cheaper,
~ I was able to seU some to other people in
12
the same area, small location operators." Mr.
Nakamura now distributes exclusively in Ja-
pan for Atari, who in turn represent him in
the U.S. and Canada, also on an exclusive
basis.
Soon Mr. Nakamura had arrived at a point
where he envisioned certain machines for his
locations that no one else was making. And
in 1965, he began making his own games.
"We couldn't make any games to match my
ideas at first," he said, so they began by
fixing up their kiddie rides
"with a little
reasonable idea of my own put in." For
example, Mr. Nakamura was the first in
Japan to utilize cartoon charaoters on the
rides, and later he entered into a contract
with Disney Enterprises in Japan so that he
could make rides using those famous charac-
ters.
That was only the beginning of course.
Soon he was manufacturing games after his
own ideas, the latest and most exciting to
date, of course, F-1, the projection driving
game.
Mr. Nakamura is active in the Japanese
Amusement Trade Association. Currently he
is vice-chairman of the association itself and
chairman of its show committee. He is mar-
ried and has one daughter, nineteen years
old.
With the help of an interpreter, Play Meter
editor/publisher Ralph Lally-his own Japan-