For many, E3 is considered the magical place where the video games industry comes together, for a show jam-packed with exciting game announcements, demos and exclusive access to developers from all over the world. For me, however, the one event in the games industry calendar that has always held the most fascination is Tokyo Game Show.
I grew up as a Sega kid, and was fascinated by the company’s stream of console games coming out of Japan. I looked forward to TGS, as you could always expect the biggest announcements from the Tokyo-based company there (unlike the Kyoto-based Nintendo, which traditionally favoured E3, outside of rare exceptions such as Satoru Iwata’s reveal of the Wii remote at TGS 2005).
With E3’s cancellation this summer (and perhaps forever, though the ESA claims it still plans to ‘reinvent’ the show for 2025), this year felt an opportune time to finally make the TGS pilgrimage, in a year where the show returned to full size at its home in Tokyo’s Makuhari Messe for the first time since the pandemic. 243,238 people attended over four days – less than the show’s 2018 peak, but still an impressive number considering the country’s return from Covid restrictions, amidst the ongoing bounceback of the Japanese games industry as a whole. Keiji Inafune infamously declaring the games industry “finished” 14 years ago now feels like a long time in the past.
Still, it’s not until you’re there in person that you appreciate the difference between perception and reality. I had already been made aware of this beforehand but, despite the name, TGS isn’t actually in Tokyo itself. The Makuhari Messe is all the way out in Chiba – technically a different prefecture despite still being part of the Greater Tokyo region. Sure, it’s similar to venues like the Birmingham NEC, or ExCel London being outside each city’s centres, but we’re still talking a hell of a commute. And it’s far further out of town than Gamescom’s Cologne-based Kolnmesse (whose German word for ‘trade fair’, messe, inspired the Makuhari Messe’s name).