Happy New Year! (maybe I'm a little late...) Kobayashi here.

I've recently been going touring to all sorts of places with my friends.
During the night of December 19, I went to see night views of the expressway with Nagamatsu FD and other coworkers who love driving. (I thought I might be able to meet some fans of the Wangan Maxi games, but I couldn't find any...)
At night on New Year's Day, I took a long ride to Hakone to see the first sunrise of the year with friends who have the same type of car as me. It was 2 degrees below zero! The air was absolutely freezing, but I enjoyed driving with the sunroof open!
Tomorrow, I'm going to take a long ride to Hakone with the Wangan team members (Maeda, Uchida, Nagamatsu and some others).
Driving always makes me happy!
Even the tiredness from working every day disappears when I get into a car!

By the way, we are going to hold an event called "The Fastest Player in expressway Match; 2008 in AOU" (VS player match) at the AOU show in Makuhari Messe.
We have held a match at a show before, but this is different.
Players from Taiwan, China and Hong-Kong will come to Japan and battle Japanese players at the final match! It's going to be a full-scale international event!!!!!

Now qualifying trial matches are being held in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong and some players have already been selected.
Wangan Maxi 3 is also very popular in these countries.
VS player mode is especially popular, and there are many players who can play better than the staff on the development team.
Such strong players from overseas!
I cannot wait for the match to begin.

Taiwan! China! Japan! Hong Kong!
You cannot miss Amusement EXPO this year because there the players from these countries will fight a great fight!!

That's all for today.
Thank you and see you again soon!

(Original article in Japanese released on 1.16.2008)