By David McCarthy

For as long as I have been reading and writing about the Tokyo Game Show, people have been predicting its demise. So it's surprising to be able to tell you that this year’s event was perhaps the biggest in its history. The official numbers are not in yet, but, now in its 30th year, the show was certainly the biggest I've ever experienced, and I've been attending for the past 25 years, off and on. There were more attendees than I've ever seen; there were more exhibitors; and it didn’t feel as though there was an inch of unused floorspace.

The entrance to the show on Friday morning afforded ample opportunity to take it all in. My Pikmin Bloom app tells me that it took 3,200 steps from the start of the queue for the security check to actually entering the first hall, a circuitous loop that involved trudging away from the venue, across a river and into an empty parking lot in snaking lines, moving with all the speed and attention of rush hour traffic on the Chuo Expressway. I have never seen that many attendees at any Tokyo Game Show, or such a long line to enter. Once inside, the scale of the show was also obvious. 

I’ve been to plenty of Tokyo Game Shows that have struggled to fill the entire floorspace of the Makuhari Messe, but walking from Hall 1 to Hall 8, every space was  taken (and crossing over, later, to the satellite Halls 9–11, they were equally rammed). I’d completed all my daily Pikmin missions by Hall 2.

But what's more surprising than the bustling scale of this year’s show is that Chinese publishers and developers largely stayed away. The burgeoning Chinese videogame scene has been increasingly apparent at recent Tokyo Game Shows, but this year, amid nervy political relations between Japan and China (and, as military historians will tell you, a slightly inauspicious timing), they were conspicuous by their absence. 

So who was there? Well, Hall 1 was home to the ever growing academic sector, with scores of colleges and universities trying to attract students to technical courses. There were, of course, the industry stalwarts, leaning into nostalgia, such as Sega with Crazy Taxi; Koei Tecmo (Dynasty Warriors, Nobunaga); Capcom (Mega Man, Onimusha, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter); and Bandai Namco (Ace Combat, Gundam, One Piece). Then there was the newer tier of Japanese publishers who have solidified their status after growing to prominence during the smartphone boom a decade ago – companies like DMM, or GungHo. And while foreign companies were relegated to desolate and empty halls at my first TGS after moving to Japan in 2009, this year they felt fully integrated, whether it was Mabinogi’s elaborate fireside booth, or the long lines for Lego Batman.

Once more for those at the back: double-A is incoming

One trend that I did think was particularly prominent at and around the show was the rise of indie-games and mid-budget titles. Bumping into a former colleague from a publisher-developer just outside of Japan’s big six, it felt telling that he had been appointed to a newly created division devoted to publishing indie titles. I was largely at the show to help a company called Shochiku Games, part of a larger entertainment group that started out making kabuki shows 130 years ago that's now scouting smaller-budget indie games.

In many ways this is partly a recognition that Games as a Service was not the industry panacea many publishers thought it was during the pandemic. Indeed, while the Tokyo Game Show is, itself, in rude health, it's difficult to know what this all means for the larger industry.

There was a gaping void in the triple-A space. No major announcements or earth-shattering news. Many behind-the-scenes conversations expressed doubt about the future viability and direction of both Xbox and PS5 (though there was continued excitement about Switch 2). There were lots of discussions about what AI means for the industry, but no clear consensus. 

And the sheer volume of games on display just demonstrates the ongoing difficulties around discoverability, particularly on Steam. The industry has been through this before, of course. Way back in the mists of time the alarm calls around Tokyo Game Show centred on the declining contribution of the arcade sector. A decade later the smartphone boom brought in a bunch of new noisy neighbours who looked like they might edge out some, or even all, of the Japanese big six.

So this year’s show, far from reflecting a moment of unique fecundity, probably reflects an industry in the midst of an inflection point. And while it is not entirely clear what that means for the future, all those academic booths and indie games do suggest that there are plenty of green shoots to shout about. Also, I nailed all my Pikmin Bloom missions.