The Tokyo Game Show is an annual video game expo and convention held in September in the Makuhari Messe convention complex in Chiba, Japan. This year’s show will run from September 17 to 20. The expo acts as a showcase for Japanese games (and a handful of international ones). The first two days are for press and business only, while the last two days of the show are open to the general public, as at Gamescom in Germany.
The Tokyo Game Show has several areas that aren’t commonly seen at North American conferences. For instance, there’s a Romance Game Simulation Area geared toward younger female gamers. There’s also a Game School Area focused on education in games, where schools and universities gather to showcase their game design, animation, digital art, and computer programming tracks as well as showcase student work.
Games we’re likely—or at least hoping—to see at this year’s Tokyo Game Show? Persona 5 from Atlus is set to release this year, so it’s likely we’ll be seeing some kind of release date for the game. It will probably be rated M for mature, but previous installments in the series have been largely teen-friendly despite a couple of more mature moments. The Last Guardian was shown at E3 to great fanfare, and we’re hoping to see more of it here. Final Fantasy XV has been getting a lot of attention lately, so it’s likely we’ll be seeing something about that. And, of course, Kingdom Hearts 3, the long-awaited next installment in the Kingdom Hearts series of Disney-meets-Square Enix games, will hopefully also be present. If not Kingdom Hearts 3, maybe Kingdom Hearts…2.9? Nobody’s really clear on what’s happening with Kingdom Hearts, but things seem to be in the works.
We’ll be covering the Tokyo Game Show here at Pixelkin, so keep an eye on our coverage for news about Japanese releases.
