Paul and Mike didn't hesitate to grab their basketballs and follow Mark.
Along the way, Mark embellished the scenes from the videotape.
"When that zombie turned its head, I swear, Danny was so scared he dropped his chips on the floor."
"Bullshit, the bag was just too slippery," Danny retorted from the side.
"And that guy named Cloud, his sword was taller than he was," Mark continued.
The four of them crowded into Mark's living room.
Mark skillfully reinserted the videotape into the machine.
As the footage played again, exclamations and sharp gasps filled the living room.
"This is what a game is supposed to look like." Paul stared at Pro Soccer World (PSW) on the screen, watching the players perform realistic sliding tackles, and shook his head repeatedly. "The 2D pixel characters we used to play... how did I even manage to play those back then?"
Across the ocean in Tokyo, Japan, the same scene was playing out.
On the electric town street of Akihabara, the special issue of Famitsu was placed in the most prominent spot.
Japanese game media were in no way inferior to their American counterparts in commercial tactics.
Not only did they edit the footage from the disc into a videotape, but they also included a Ghost in the Shell theatrical poster as a bonus.
In the lounge area of a game store, a few high school students were gathered around a public television.
The store manager had specifically put the promotional videotape from the special edition into the public VCR, playing it on a loop to attract customers.
"Kazuma Kiryu's shoulder throw is so clean." A boy in a school uniform pointed at the Yakuza footage on the screen; even the reflections of the neon lights on the streets of Kamurocho were rendered.
"I'm more interested in the engine that Sega is collaborating on with that company, id." Another boy was flipping through a special magazine supplement in his hands. "It says that developing 3D games will become much easier in the future. Yuji Naka is also on the project."
"That's just stuff for programmers to worry about. I only care about which games I'm going to buy in the second half of the year."
As the videotape circulated among the gaming community, the aftershocks from the E3 Expo began to fully erupt at the level of ordinary consumers.
The reach of text and static images was ultimately limited; those moving, sound-accompanied next-gen visuals had become the most lethal weapon.
Players' expectations for the future were pushed to the limit.
The phones at major game retail stores were ringing off the hook, all with people inquiring about pre-ordering consoles and new games for the second half of the year.
This weekend belonged to that black videotape.
It was like a spark, igniting the anticipation of gamers around the world for new games.
The hardcore gamers who spent a fortune on the deluxe special edition magazines became the most popular people in their social circles.
Kokubunji, Tokyo.
The second floor of the Production I.G studio was thick with the smell of coffee and tobacco.
Workbenches were piled high with celluloid sheets and storyboards.
Mamoru Oshii threw his pencil onto the desk and rubbed his sore eyes.
The door was pushed open, and producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa walked in holding a fax.
"It's from the publicity department at Shochiku," Ishikawa said, handing him the paper. "A last-minute interview request. Tomorrow afternoon."
Oshii took the fax and glanced at it.
The lineup of interviewers was a bit odd. One was the long-standing animation magazine Animage, and the other was the gaming media outlet Famitsu.
"The animation isn't finished yet, and the promotional period hasn't started," Oshii said, putting the paper down.
"The commotion in Los Angeles is just too big," Ishikawa said, pulling over a folding chair and sitting down. "Sega showed the Ghost in the Shell trailer at E3. Now, gamers, anime fans, and sci-fi fans all over Japan—and the world—are asking about this film. Shochiku's phones have been ringing off the hook, so they had to pick two representative media outlets to arrange a joint interview."
Mamoru Oshii picked up his cold black coffee and took a sip.
He recalled how, over a month ago, Takuya Nakayama had rushed into his studio, demanding footage that would steal the show.
The animation was in the middle of a tense production period, and there was no spare time to cut a trailer from scratch.
As luck would have it, Kenji Kawai had just delivered the master tape for "Kugutsuuta." Oshii instructed the editor to pair the rough cut of Motoko Kusanagi's cybernetic body manufacturing sequence with this track and handed it straight to Nakayama.
He hadn't expected those few minutes of footage to cause such a stir in Los Angeles.
The next afternoon, in a meeting room at the Shochiku headquarters.
The air conditioning was set very high.
Oshii sat on a sofa, a cup of barley tea in front of him.
Sitting opposite him were Takano, a reporter from Animage, and Sasaki, a senior editor from Famitsu.
On the table sat two Sony digital voice recorders, their red indicator lights blinking rhythmically.
Sasaki asked the first question: "Director Oshii, that trailer from the E3 exhibition has now been sent back to Japan on videotape. The reaction on the day of the Sega presentation was incredibly enthusiastic. Was that trailer specifically made for the E3 exhibition?"
Oshii shook his head and shifted into a more comfortable position.
"It wasn't made specifically for that," he said, looking at Sasaki. "Managing Director Nakayama came to me at the time and said there was an important exhibition in Los Angeles that needed a stunning piece of footage. I only had a rough cut I'd just finished, the part where Motoko's body is assembled. The rest of the animation wasn't very complete yet, with many lighting details still missing; that was really the only part that was relatively polished."
"But the effect was surprisingly good," Sasaki said, opening his notebook. "Especially with that eerie, ethereal background music. That music caused quite a stir in the United States; a lot of people were asking what language it was."
"That was a coincidence," Mamoru Oshii said, crossing his hands on his knees. "Kenji Kawai had just sent the track over at the time. We laid the audio track over the footage to test it, and the synergy between the visuals and the music exceeded our expectations. Managing Director Nakayama watched it once and took the master tape right then and there. He has a keen eye; he knew the Americans hadn't seen anything like it."
Takano seized the opportunity to interject: "Director Oshii, Ghost in the Shell is currently facing massive expectations on both the anime and game fronts. Gamers in the US are waiting for the Sega Jupiter console game, while local fans are waiting for the theatrical release. Does this dual pressure affect your creative process?"
Mamoru Oshii let out a laugh, picked up his barley tea, and took a sip.
"Pressure is something for Takuya Nakayama to worry about," he said, setting down his cup. "He's the one who invested the money. Whether the game sells well or the console takes off—that's a business issue for Sega. My only job is to finish this anime. We're buried in production work every single day right now. No matter how high expectations are, the original drawings still have to be drawn one by one, and the 3D effects have to be adjusted frame by frame. No matter how much is expected, I can't speed up the schedule; if the quality of the final product were to collapse, that would be the real disaster."
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