In 2006, then-PlayStation CEO Kaz Hirai made one of the most memorable on-stage presentations in video game history, talking his way through a lengthy PSP loading wait by uttering the classic line "Riiiiidge Raaaaacer".
Part of a wider PlayStation presentation that can charitably be labelled a disaster--it also included the PS3's "$599" announcement and the "MASSIVE DAMAGE" stuff--what was at the time seen as painfully cringe, ammunition for countless memes, has in time matured into something that's now seen as more of a heartfelt moment, a glimpse of a man who was CEO because he loved Ridge Racer and had spent a long time working at PlayStation, not because he was a Wall Street psychopath obsessed with making a line go up every quarter.
Like, it's one thing to have been involved in a press conference gaffe, loads of people have done that and we've forgotten all about it. Few video game executives get to see a whole entry on their Wikipedia page dedicated to one:
His real name is "Kazuo(一夫)," but he is commonly known by the shortened version, "Kaz." In Japan, he is also affectionately called "Ridge Hirai(リッジ平井)." This nickname comes from the 2006 E3 event, where, during a PSP presentation, he passionately shouted "Riiiiidge Racer!" while demonstrating the game. He is aware of this nickname and even mentions it in his autobiography.
You can tell how much it (and the series!) meant to both Hirai and PlayStation that, in honour of both, Sony reportedly commissioned Nike in 2007 to produce a handful of pairs of Air Max 90 360s emblazoned with the line “Ridge Racer” so they could be presented to their CEO as a gift. These aren't part of the 24 pairs that were reported on in the media in 2009; I'm told they were made just for Hirai, and have only turned up now because one of the pairs are for sale.
Australian sneaker collector MSOLE--whose collection includes stuff like a number of game-worn Jordans, and who has presented at international sneaker conferences--has got his hands on what he says are one of only six pairs ever manufactured, and in procuring them managed to learn a little about them as well.
He tells me the shoes aren't third-party customs; the tag you see in these images means they were manufactured directly by Nike in a factory in Korea. MSOLE says all six pairs were made in Hirai's size and presented to him as a gift, and that while the former PlayStation CEO kept two pairs, he presented another to a former colleague, while three remaining pairs ended up unaccounted for. Those three are now all in the hands of collectors, with MSOLE owning one and another unnamed person in the USA owning the other two.
I've reached out to Joe Howley, the man named on the production tag (who was formerly of Nike, and who now works at Under Armor) to see if he could tell me anything else about them, but at time of publishing I haven't heard back.
I, someone who likes to think I've done a lot of video game x sneaker reporting, had never even heard about these shoes until now! And I only heard about them because Friend Of The Site Andrew Elmore tipped me off to the eBay auction selling them, with a 'Buy It Now' price of...AUD$15,000 (which is around USD$10,000 at time of publishing).
That is a lot of money, bordering on 'fuck you' money, but then these are also extremely rare shoes, both in number and in terms of how they were made; they're so rare that this auction is the only result you get for them on Google, making these a commercial sale and a learning opportunity.
Which is neat! I don't think any of us are in a position to be putting bids on $10,000 sneakers, but getting the chance to learn about an extremely rare and special pair of PlayStation x Ridge Racer Air Maxs (fast approaching their 20th birthday) for the first time after all these years has been cool.
