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| ■'Let's Create and Construct New Systems Of Play' New Year Greetings by President Yoshihito Kakihara of JAMMA |
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| I wish a very happy New Year to you all and express my earnest thanks for your support and cooperation given last year to our association and its members. The amusement industry was born early in the 20th Century as a form of urban pastime, which was made possible by the advancement of scientific technology. During the latter half of the l970s, the industry made a spectacular expansion due mainly to the emergence of television games. Recently, however, the environments surrounding the industry have undergone great changes, such as vanishing of the border line between the console and coin-op game machines; the wider use of mobile terminals such as portable phones for entertainment purposes, mainly by the younger people, and growing time and money they spend for this kind of entertainment; and the equipment of broadband in console game machines that has started lately. Such phenomena can be regarded as signs of arrival of the 'Age of Network.' As the inventions of type printing, telegraph and telephone have changed the way of our living greatly, the network is expected to clear off national boundaries and walls of racial prejudices, so that everybody can have access to common information at the same time. As a result, the people will feel mutually closer than ever. When such a move becomes prevalent, the world will become a society, in which a wide variety of values will be born and can be 'enjoyed.' Our amusement industry has grown up, keeping pace with the technological advance, and established creative technologies of game design and manufacturing through competition with each other for better technology and more enjoyable plays. These technologies are the precious 'intellectual property' of our industry and many of them can be useful in the forthcoming new age. It is quite possible for us to innovate an evolved form of games, that is, dispatch on the network such games as are both 'entertaining' and refined, made possible by our highest level of technology and 'intellectual property.' Now is the time for our industry to do the best to 'create and construct' new 'play' systems. The most important factor of these new games is expected to be 'communication.' When we succeed in materializing such new systems, they will certainly become one of Japan's favorite industries, greatly contributing to the growth of our national economy and sending messages of great cultural significance to the world. Before concluding my greetings, please allow me to ask for your guidance and support and to pray for your great leap forward in this new year. |
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