Play Meter

(continued from page 13)
the actual size of the actual race ear. And
then the game is classified into three levels
of driving skill. The player can push a but-
ton which determines the difficulty of a parti-
cular play.
PLA Y METER: What makes the play more
or less difficult?
NAKAMURA: With the four -shift pro-grade,
you had to drive the car exactly as you
would drive a real race car. You had to
change gears and use the clutch if you
wanted to shift. You had to drive it just
like the real car. That's the most difficult
game. The next easiest step is almost like
an automatic transmission driving game. You
still have to change a gear, one, but without
using a clutch at t he second gear. The easi-
est one, you don't have to do anything. You
just drive, step on the gas and steer.
PLAY METER: Why didn't you incorporate
that into F -1?
NAKAMURA: This was too sophisticated a
machine, that's No.1; and No. · 2, it was too
large for just about any location, and it was
a little bit too expensive for operators to
purchase. So it had to be modified, and we
came out with F -l.
PLAY METER: What's next? What comes· after
F -1?
NAKAMURA: I would like to tell you about
it but the timing is a little too soon.
PLA Y METER: But we can look to your
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MOA
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company to provide several pieces during the
coming year?
NAKAMURA: The Nakamura Co. will intro-
duce at least ten pieces a year to the
Japanese market. Within that ten to twelve
pieces that we're introducing in Japan, prob-
ably three or four should be acceptable to
the international market and hopefully one or
two of those that we will introduce into the
international market will be real winners.
PLAY METER: Better than F -1?
NAKAMURA : Hopefully, yes.
PLAY METER: Will that be at. the A.T.E.
in London?
NAKAMURA: Maybe, but as you know, this
is a very delicate point. Therefore, although
we may well be able to introduce a game at
the A. T .E., still we might not do it. Since
we're doing so well on the F -1, we will
stick to the F -1 to a certain point; then we
will come out with a new game. Of course
the games that we are talking about are
being developed in our central laboratory.
PLAY METER: As a manufacturer, do you
worry about other manufacturers copying
your games, reverse engineering in effect?
NAKAMURA: In Japan we made a provision
in the Amusement Association regulations that
when the original game manufacturer displays
his own game in a show, whoever is a
copier of this game is not allowed to show
the copy game in the same show.
PLAY METER: How do you settle who had
the game first? At the MOA, for example,
there were about four different night driver
games. How would the association go about
deciding whose gets to be shown and whose
doesn't?
NAKAMURA: Everybody is free to display
his games. However, if somebody claims "that
guy is copying my game, " then the associa-
tion will go into very severe investigation as
to who developed the game first; then they
will decide.
PLAY METER: So you police yourselves on
that. I don't think you'll see that happen
here unfortunately, mainly because we don't
have an association of manufacturers. There
is no common body or organization that the
manufacturers belong to, to my knowledge,
not one at any rate that would police an
eventuality like that.
NAKAMURA: The most important thing to
stimulate and keep this business field going
is to prevent copying. If there is an original
idea maker and he comes up with a very
good idea and he develops it and starts
making something, which becomes a fabulous
game and well accepted by people and the
market, then somebody starts copying it to-
morrow or the next day or something, then
his enthusiasm or strong will to manufacture
an original game will disappear and because
of this attempt made by these copiers. A
copier just copies; he does not go through the
(cont inued on page 49)