E3 Day One (6)

WipEout.

This footage lasted forty seconds.

In those forty seconds, the sounds from below the stage changed three times.

At first, there was silence.

Everyone was adapting to this visual experience that had completely leapt free of the framework of traditional racing games.

Ten seconds later, low exclamations began to appear.

"The frame rate is so high. This is almost sixty frames, right?" The reporter from Electronic Gaming Monthly stared at the screen, the pen in his hand unconsciously tapping against his notebook.

Twenty seconds later, someone let out a whistle.

As the craft took a corner, it fired a homing missile that struck the opponent ahead. Firelight scattered amid the high-speed motion, and the feedback from the physics engine was so real it made one's scalp prickle.

Forty seconds ended.

The image froze once more on the title of WipEout.

Applause rang out.

It was not the polite kind of clapping.

Several European and American reporters stood up outright, clapping hard.

Americans' love for wheels was carved into their bones.

But when Sony took the wheels off, replaced them with anti-gravity engines, and then doubled the speed, that pure adrenaline rush directly punched through their aesthetic defenses.

Ken Kutaragi stood on the stage, watching the reaction below.

He said only one thing.

"This is the gift PlayStation has prepared for everyone at this E3."

Then he bowed, turned, and left the stage.

The entire press conference had lasted less than ten minutes.

Two games.

Clean and sharp.

Below the stage, everything was in chaos.

Not because there had been too much content on display, but because there had been too little.

"He only showed two? Two and he's done?" The reporter from Popular Mechanics held his recorder, a little dazed.

He had just changed the tape, ready to record