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Once it was a major industry event, the Tokyo Game Show has been overshadowed by global competition in recent years, but as the pandemic forces it to connect, some see the possibility of reinventing themselves.
Opened online from Wednesday, the exhibition features Japanese video games and is still packed with enthusiastic players, attracting more than 250,000 people a year since 2013.
But its star has faded in the industry, and most of Japan’s leading developers have chosen to launch new offerings elsewhere.
“TGS has followed a drop in the last 10 to 15 years,” said Serkan Toto, an analyst at Kantan Games in Tokyo.
This is partly the result of a decline in the dominance of Japanese gaming companies, he said.
TGS began in 1996 and was an industry focus in the early 2000s, but has noticed that its leadership position eroded through the E3 festival, held in Los Angeles in June, and Gamescom in Cologne in August.
With the growing importance of US gaming markets, the US is not the only one in the world to do so. But it’s not the first time And Europe, Gamescom now attracts more than its rivals and is the main place for the introduction of new products.
“What happens with TGS is that the number of other people they provide each year feels that the number of participants is increasing. But the latest news and all that is on the opposite curve,” said Brian Ashcraft, who writes for the specialized Kotaku page and has been covering TGS for 15 years.
TGS has targeted the domestic market, providing the maximum of its japanese-only content.
“In the more than two years, it has become increasingly transparent that the TGS is hunting inward than a foreign show,” Toto said.
“TGS allows visitors to watch games” that have been announced elsewhere in September before the holiday season, said Yasuyuki Yamaji, general secretary of the Cesa agreement administered by TGS.
“People also come for the atmosphere, to watch e-sports competitions, to cosplay or to laugh with the family,” he said.
The pandemic makes this impossible, but TGS organizers expect the broadcast of the program online to increase its audience, both in Japan and abroad.
“Usually,” from 70 to 80% comes from Tokyo and its surroundings,” Yamaji said.
But online, “space, distance and time disappear. “
This year’s program is delayed at night in Japan, giving those in remote time zones the opportunity to watch e-sports battles and game demonstrations.
Several presentations will also be presented in English and Chinese, as well as in Japanese, and some games will be available to play online, regional availability restrictions would possibly pose challenges.
However, some of the biggest releases this year are on TGS.
Microsoft, which has achieved only 0. 25% of its Xbox One sales in Japan, will be in TGS but will provide its new console.
Nintendo, whose games and the Switch console dominated the Japanese market in 2019, has rarely had a presence on TGS.
Organizers say this year’s occasion can motivate permanent format changes.
“We would like to make a hybrid physical occasion that keeps the benefits of an online TGS, such as remote presentations,” Yamaji said.
It remains to be seen whether attracting a wider foreigner will convince industry players that TGS has once again been able to launch new products.
But at the very least, the pandemic creates an opportunity for inventions in a format that has replaced little in years.
Yamaji said part of this year’s exhibitors are Japanese, making it a more global TGS.
“I think next year will be attractive because it’s going to be like” what’s important?Ashcraft says.
“What can they show digitally? I think this year he’ll give you a barometer for that.
The Japan Times LTD. All rights reserved.