279 days ago, give or take a few hours, J Allard should have appeared on stage at Microsoft's 2006 E3 press conference wearing a dreadlock wig. He should have done this after losing a particularly bad bet to Newsweek's N'Gai Croal.

For those of you not up on this fascinating bit of game lore, here's the story from N'Gai's mouth:

The following May, Microsoft hosted a small dinner at Morton's steakhouse in downtown Los Angeles for a handful of journalists attending that year's E3 trade show in Los Angeles. The Xbox side included Allard, Xbox Live marketing manager Aaron Greenberg, and PR maven David Hufford; on the media side, Game Informer editor-in-chief Andy McNamara, G4 producer Tom Russo and Business 2.0 writer and TV host Geoff Keighley were among the invitees. As the steak was consumed and the wine imbibed, the subject of Ken Kutaragi's new baby—set to be unveiled in less than 48 hrs—naturally arose once again. And within a few minutes, it was clear that our positions hadn't changed in the slightest.

So fueled by the liquid courage of Morton's finest Cabernet, we gentlemen decided on a friendly wager. The bet: whether the PSP would reach worldwide shipments of 10 million units within the same 12 month span of time it had taken the PS2, give or take 3 months. We took the pro; Allard, the con. If we were correct and the PSP hit its mark, Allard would wear a dreadlock wig for the entire month of May, including the week of E3 2006. But if Allard were right and the PSP missed our agreed-upon milestone, he would get to shave our dreads. Onstage. During the Xbox E3 2006 press conference. In front of 1,500 attendees. (Did we mention that wine was involved?)

Naturally, what happened in Los Angeles didn't stay in Los Angeles. Word spread among the folks at Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, other publishers and among a few of our fellow journalists. During a September 2004 interview with Kutaragi in his Tokyo offices, Molly Smith, then head of U.S. PR, asked us to tell her boss of our wager. We did. He chuckled. We asked him whether he thought our six-year-old dreads would be safe from the covetous Allard. He looked us dead in the eyes and said "Yes." And just ten months after the PSP's December launch in Japan, Kutaragi was proven correct, leaving our prized dreads intact.

While Croal would have most assuredly manned up and gotten shaved in front of a hooting crowd of Microsoft employees and journalists, it looks like Allard ducked out of the show entirely.

But to be clear, the bet has him wearing that wig for an entire month, and we saw him at the hotel prior to the show, wig-free.

It is time, Allard, to put your money where your mouth is. I don't plan on letting this go until I see a picture of you in front of a sizable crowd wearing said wig. Do the right thing, you know you've gotta. Brian Crecente

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