The Glass Room

“Yeah, we were just checking in. We have an interview with Miyamoto – Daily Radar.”

“Okay, you want to speak to [so and so], hold on one minute.”

So and so came and said in a regretful tone, “the thing is that we’re about 30 minutes behind schedule now, and we’re even having to cut back on interview time to move things along.”

“Okay.”

“So it’ll be about ten more minutes, really sorry guys.” [Genuine]

[10 minutes later]

“Yeah, we’re just about ready to get you in, but the thing is you’re only going to have about ten to fifteen minutes with him.”

I thought, “we’ll take the 15 please.”

“That’s fine.”

[Minutes later]

“Okay guys, come on in.”

We made our way through the velvet rope again and along the inside of the café to the glass rooms. The door was glass; the exterior wall was glass, and the inside three walls were made with gray cubicle material. This is the same room where IGN’s high-bandwidth interview footage was filmed. We stood outside and watched as a camera crew (not IGN) were packing up and leaving, with expressions of great thankfulness and respect on their faces. But before we went in I looked over to Wolf and asked, “so how are we going to do this? Are you just going to read the questions directly from my paper and improvise in between?” He replied, “Yeah. Actually if you wanted to go ahead and ask the questions, and I’ll step in when I think something needs to be added, that’s fine with me.” I laughed, but the laugh was both sudden nervousness and a great sense of honor. I was honored that Michael had even suggested it. I accepted.

Now the camera crew was out of the small room, and Michael and I stepped in. I paused to let Michael have his choice of chairs. He let me have the one directly across from Miyamoto. Shigeru Miyamoto stood, as did his colleagues, Yasuhiro Minagawa (personal translator) and Eiji Aonuma, the director of Majora’s Mask. Before sitting all three handed Wolf and I business cards, and Wolf exchanged cards back. I, on the other hand failed to realize that one absolute necessity at E3 was having business cards. With the Japanese especially, it reflects badly on you as a businessman when you don’t have a card to exchange. “My first error, a small thing. Keep your cool Carl.” We all sat and I nervously pulled up my chair and opened my Activision folder as Wolf hit the record button on the tape player.