Opening Night
Microsoft gathered many Japanese celebrities to kick off opening night. They got celebrities from both inside and outside the game industry, to open the doors to the Xbox 360 Lounge on Monday evening.
The night kicked off at 7:00PM. Afro arrived nearly an hour late, but still managed to make it in time for the arrival of the night's stars. Big-name game creators like Keiji Inafune (Capcom), Yuji Naka (Sega), Hideo Kojima (Konami), Yoichi Okamoto (Game Republic) and Hiromichi Tanaka (Square Enix) took the stage first and gave brief statements about the X360. Naka stated "I hope the industry is spurred by the appearance of the Xbox 360," with Kojima simply stating "I've been waiting!"
The assembled television camera crews seemed a bit more interested in the stars Microsoft had lined up for the event, though. Many of the stars are big in Japan but unknown in America: Hitomi Nagasawa, Ishikawa Asami, Kazuhi Sakuraba (the Pride fighter), Otoha (future Gaming Life in Japan young idol). Olympic swimmer Kousuke Kitajima, when clued in on the fact that there aren't any swimming games, pointed out that it's hard to make such a game because you can't see the swimmer's face. Many of these stars, including track & field star Dai Tamesue, had designed a face plate.
Read more about this topic: Xbox 360 Lounge
Famous quotes containing the words opening and/or night:
“The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
—Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)
“Bob, it’s the second night of violence in this normally quiet, yet generally swinging, Casino Capital of the East.”
—John Guare (b. 1938)