Visitors to the Tokyo Game Show on September 21, 2023 in Chiba, Japan (AFP/Richard A. Brooks)
After the years of pandemic, the Tokyo Game Show, one of the largest video game shows in the world, returns on a large scale near the Japanese capital, where visitors can discover the latest trends until Sunday.
This show, launched in 1996, has not been a major place for international announcements dedicated to gaming for years.
But while the American E3, one of the main global industry events, has bowed out this year, the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) wishes to excel in its role as a popular Japanese gaming festival.
“Compared to last year there are a lot of exhibitors, which means that the TGS is very lively, it’s a very good thing,” rejoices Keisuke Kikumoto, video game teacher at AFP. the Nihon Kogakuin school, whose students came to show off some of their creations.
After three editions reduced or organized online due to Covid-19, the organizers announce for these four days – the first two of which are reserved for professionals and the media – a record number of 787 exhibitors and 2,291 games presented, on consoles, mobile or PC.
Visitors facing the sweltering heat of the TGS exhibition halls in the great suburbs of the capital can try highly anticipated local games like “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth”, the second part of the remake of the famous role-playing game from the 1990s, the combat “Tekken 8” or “Like a Dragon 8”, the latest opus in the “Yakuza” series.
– PC gaming boom –
Formerly reserved for consoles, many of these games are now being released on PC, a platform that has been rapidly developing in Japan in recent years, where the video game market is largely dominated by mobile games.
Visitors to the Tokyo Game Show on September 21, 2023 in Chiba, Japan (AFP/Richard A. Brooks)
“Before Covid, PC gaming was not very visible” in the country, noted Thursday William Yagi-Bacon, vice president in charge of digital sales at Japanese gaming giant Capcom, explaining that more home lifestyles linked to the pandemic had led many players to try it.
“Over the past five years, Japan has been one of the fastest growing major markets in the world on Steam,” said Erik Peterson, a manager of this PC gaming platform.
Revenues generated by PC games in Japan increased in 2022 by 43% year-on-year to 189.2 billion yen (1.2 billion euros at current prices), according to the Kadokawa Ascii research institute.
Visitors to the Tokyo Game Show on September 21, 2023 in Chiba, Japan (AFP/Richard A. Brooks)
A number of social media influencers also walk the aisles of the show, such as the Franco-Japanese Remi Anri Doi, former captain of the Japanese handball team and one of the most followed TikTok users in the archipelago.
“As I do video game lives it gives me the opportunity to keep up to date with new titles, to meet other creators and to have new ideas,” he explains to AFP, saying he is particularly interested in the use of NFTs (“non-fungible token”) in games.
– Blockchain very present –
These unique digital works exist thanks to blockchain technology, on which bitcoin”>cryptocurrencies are also based. In the video game, they are associated, for example, with characters or cards that players can exchange or monetize.
This practice is denounced by some players as a form of cynicism and frowned upon by certain publishers such as Mojang, which announced last year that it would no longer accept NFTs in its Minecraft game, deemed contrary to its “spirit”. “.
Visitors to the Tokyo Game Show on September 21, 2023 in Chiba, Japan (AFP/Richard A. Brooks)
“In classic games, the objects that we have made or evolved only exist in the game, but with blockchain, they become + assets + owned by the player, who can use them even if the game does not no longer exists, or even in another game,” explains Akari Oeda, communications manager for the company Oasys, to AFP.
This company, developing its own blockchain for video games, has established partnerships with many major publishers, particularly in Japan (Square Enix, Bandai Namco, Sega, etc.) and in South Korea, where the fun applications of this technology meet a strong enthusiasm.
Among the TGS exhibitors, the French company Ubisoft is also presenting its experimental title “Champions Tactics” due out in 2024, a game based on this technology which features fights between NFT figurines.
© 2023 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends using the buttons below.
