Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 266)

Trigger Happy
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carrying out the ceremony are as intricate as they are
because the point is to feel the beauty involved in each
and every movement.”
So, the point is not the flowers themselves; the
point is not the tea. Form is its own content. And the
Japanese words that describe such an aesthetic—ma
(timing) and aida (balance)—are also used of forms of
play such as Sumo and judo wrestling.
Within the adult age group, both sexes of
respondents to the CESA survey nominate game ideas
that illustrate the highly idiosyncratic Japanese
approach to concepts of simulation. Videogame
“simulations” in the West, as we saw in Chapter 2, are
generally highly complex games of combat flight or
Grand Prix driving. They simulate fast, dynamic
processes. In Japan, however, “simulation” is a much
more inclusive, and at first sight wildly eccentric,
genre. At the 1999 Tokyo Game Show, videogame
companies were offering new products in the wildly
popular genres of fishing simulations (you wind a
plastic rod connected to the console and catch virtual
fish), gardening simulations (you water virtual plants)
and train-driving simulations (you can drive a train
round an accurately modeled 3D representation of the
Yamanote line on Tokyo’s subway system).