Subscribe RSSIwatani: May 22 wasn’t the launch date, it was the first location test. The game was still under improvement, and we were gauging the reaction of consumers. Since this was the first time the machine was shown to the general public, we consider May 22 to be Pac-Man’s “birthday.” After that, we made revisions and improvements based on the results of the discovery test and it was released in July.
The game was taken to a building in Shibuya that no longer exists. It was a thin, chimney-shaped edifice with seven or eight floors, consisting of several movie theaters. On the top floor, there was a very long, narrow room where the couples, having good seen movies, would go up to have a little enjoyment before they returned home. So they weren’t necessarily gamers.
The women and couples were very in seventh heaven about the machine, very excited. They came up to it and put their hands on it, so we thought that our target concept had been very much in sync and correct. They played it, and they were more or less satisfied — they figured out how to ad lib it. It’s not a difficult game.
