In the past, there are only two game shows that are matters, E3 and Tokyo Game Show (TGS). The rest are pebbles on the side road. Publishers and developers are preparing lots and lots of new announcements, contents just for those two shows. And TGS is usually better than E3.
Indeed TGS '09 just finished last Sunday, and truthfully there nothing much newsworthy. Most of it just updates of announced games.Attendance is lower from last year, even Capcom's Inafune is unimpressed with the show. He said,
Personally when I looked around [at] all the different games at the TGS floor, I said "Man, Japan is over. We're done. Our game industry is finished."
This raised a new question. Is Japan game market really shrinking? Yasuhide Kobayashi at DICE Summit Asia tells that if they depend on Japan market, they will go bankrupt. Need to make games that appeal globally.
While it may be true, but a lot of Japanese developer's income source still comes from domestic market. 92% of Koei income came from Japan. Square received 87% of its income from its domestic market.
Developers are indeed trying to inject some life into Japanese game industry, but for now, looks like the industry is in danger. And if all of them decided to make more western appeal games, Japan is at risk in losing their identity. And we certainly do not need to play some WWII FPS all the time.
PS: One thing that is bothering me is why didn't Capcom decide to announce Super Street Fighter IV at TGS? After all TGS just finished two days ago. Is it they haven't prepare the material or maybe they just didn't care? Hope it is the former one.
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