Introduction of Koichi Hosoi and Game Archive Project

 

 

Kyoto is the site where Japan’s original entertainment evolved and, historically, is a city known for its new and creative artistic pursuits. Japan’s video games trace their origin back to Kyoto and the Kansai region. It is well known that Kyoto is home to the famous video game company Nintendo, but, in the past, the city was also the site of companies that produced successful video arcade games. In the 1950s, for example, a Kyoto company made driving and clay shooting arcade games under the brand name Kasco that were a hit worldwide. Research on the influence these early games developed in Kyoto, or in the Kansai region, have had on the current gaming industry in Japan is one topic within the Kyoto Art and Entertainment COE Program.

 

Hosoi Koichi, a professor in the College of Policy Science and the vice chairman of RU’s Art Research Center is at forefront of video game research and is working on an extensive project to archive and catalogue video game software and hardware in a way that it will be preserved for the future. Professor Hosoi’s archive is the only archive in the world that aims to collect and preserve the entire gaming experience, including hardware, software, and visuals. In 1997, Professor Hosoi began his archive by acquiring Nintendo’s full collection of video game software. His completed Nintendo collection currently has 1,299 different titles. He also has a nearly complete collection of Sega games as well as many hardware systems for gaming, ranging to the mainstream to the obscure.

 

The game archive project, which is supported by the COE Program, has three main steps. The first is to build a library of the original hardware and software. A part of this step is to digitally scan and catalogue the visuals on the covers and cases of all of the video games. The second step is to preserve the games by developing emulators that run the gaming software through a USB computer interface, allowing one to play the game on a computer even when the original hardware and software, which have an estimated lifespan of up to twenty years, become unusable. Currently, Professor Hosoi has acquired the rights to Nintendo’s Family Computer (called Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES in the United States) game series and built a Family Computer emulator. The third step of the project is to visually record the screen as a game is being played, with visual notations showing what key or key combination on the controller was pressed to determine each action on the screen. These videos will preserve data of capturing the video game experience for future researchers. In addition to the video recordings of the actual play, the game’s manuals and supplementary materials are also scanned and saved digitally. The game archive can be used a base for research in a variety of fields, including the social sciences and visual arts.

 

Because Japan is the world leader in video game technology and know-how, Professor Hosoi’s feels that it is important for Japanese video game companies to play a more prominent role is developing “serious games,” which are game technologies used for such purposes as education, medical research, and emergency response training. He currently collaborates on serious game projects with Nintendo, Koei, Sega, et alia. With Nintendo, he is involved in IMA project which aim to develop serious game software for Nintendo DS; with Koei, a project to create an educational online game for junior high school students; with Sega, a project involving Location Based Entertainment which have all new concept; and with Arcadia (Osaka), in a project to create games for autistic children.

 

In December 2005, Professor Hosoi chaired a one-day international symposium called “Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference 2005; Interactive Entertainment Industry, Past, Present & Future” and hosted by Ritsumeikan University. The symposium brought together such prominent figures as Mr. Bushnell, who invented Pong and founded Atari, Iwantani Toru, who invented Packman, Miyamoto Shigeru, the inventor of Super Mario Brothers and Donkey Kong, and Robin Walker, whose company created the popular Quake video game.

 

Professor Hosoi enjoys the interactivity unique to video games and sees them as important for children’s development. He hopes to complete his archive project and continue to collaborate with leading video game companies to produce more educational and reflective games.

 

(This writing is based on interview by Ms. Erica Adams at 12 Dec. 2005)