The Great Pac-Man Playoffs: Microsoft’s XBox 360 Pac-Man World Championship

June 5, 2007 |

The Great Pac-Man Playoffs: Microsoft’s XBox 360 Pac-Man World Championship

By David Cassel

The Great Pac-Man Playoffs Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship You’ve run a lot of mazes, and eaten a lot of dots — but you made it. You’re in today’s Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship, Presented by Quiznos. Now what?

Judging from this Flickr set, you’d be meeting a lot of XBox geeks. Microsoft’s Game Marketing Team is already in New York City blogging the event. And Peter Moore, the head of Microsoft’s XBox division, even slipped a funny promotional video onto the web a few hours ago.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6xYR_tPoAQ[/youtube]

But let’s not forget what this is about, people. Eating virtual little yellow dots! Microsoft started identifying finalists for their first XBox Pac-Man World Championship in April. Or at least, they tried to. The start of the qualifying rounds were delayed nine full days — into May — because of a technical issue. The nine finalists were to be drawn from the leaderboard of the Pac-Man high scorers in Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade service — but the board ultimately had to be cleared and re-started. Ironically this morning, six hours before the finals, the U.S. tournament’s pages on XBox.com were still displaying those old error messages from April about the delayed qualifying round.

“Due to technical difficulties…” it announces, “we will be re-starting in the very near future…”

The abandoned web page even reminds visitors that the qualifying rounds end on May 10, “So register already!”

Today those finalists have already arrived in New York City from all over the world. They include a top player from Australia and a top player from Japan. There’s two from Europe, and one from Asia (defined in the XBox universe as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.) North America has champions from Canada and Mexico, plus two top players from the United States. At least, that was the original plan. The official contest rules also had alternate provisions if a region failed to place any players in the top 1000…

Another “wildcard” winner was chosen for proving they were the world’s biggest fan of Pac-Man — and of Microsoft’s XBox 360. (”Your entry may not contain…any content that defames, misrepresents or contains disparaging remarks about other people or companies…”)

Each winner won airfare for two, three nights in a New York hotel, and $1700 in Visa gift cards, and it looks like they’re having fun. The gaming starts Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST, although so far — ESPN is nowhere to be seen. And there’s not much about it at Quiznos.com either. Even though they’re the official corporate sponsor, they’ve only put up one tantalizing web page which offers Quiznos coupons. (”While munching on some dots, why not chow down on some tasty Quiznos, too?”)

We’re just moments away from that final battle, where fierce yellow bounty hunters chase Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde. (And swallow them whenever they turn blue.) But remember: the games official rules warn that certain actions will get you disqualified. Like: “Intentionally disconnecting the network cable.”

And then? The winner of the event will be crowned by Toru Iwatani, “the father of Pac-Man.” The grand champion will receive a special Pac-Man themed XBox 360, a trophy, and a gift card good for “26 years of Quiznos” — plus 100,000 Microsoft points (redeemable in the Xbox Live Marketplace and Zune online stores or over $100,000 dollars worth games, themes, or music files).

And then — I’m just guessing here — he’ll tour the auditorium making siren noises and licking dots off the floor.

Though remember, you’re not the world Pac-Man Champion — just the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Champion. If you come up against the champion Pac-Man player from the Wii Virtual Console…

You’re on your own.