Tokyo Game Show is going online-only this year
September's show is cancelled
The long list of cancelled events keeps pushing deeper into the year, with the Tokyo Game Show now cancelling its September expo due to the pandemic. The organisers are planning to run an online event instead. TGS is more of a public show than the marketing-o-rama that is E3, but it does tend to bring a few announcements and other goodies each year. Capcom and Konami often have something special to show on their home soil.
TGS 2020 was due to run September 24-27th. Not anymore, the organisers announced on Friday. They said in a statement on the TGS site:
"Due to the outbreak of novel coronavirus (Covid-19) on a global scale and the situation remains unpredictable in Japan as well, the organiser and the co-organisers have reached this decision after a long consideration to place the utmost priority on the health and safety of visitors, exhibitors and stakeholders. We ask for your kind understanding and cooperation."
Sensible. They add that a replacement "is now planned to take place online", and they'll have more to say about that from late May onwards. Announcements will doubtless still be announced, but replacing the communal vibe and demos is a bit trickier.
Many shows are hosting games events on Steam with free demos and livestreamed presentations, like The Steam Game Festival and LudoNarraCon. One such happening, the Digital Dragons Indie Celebration spun off from a cancelled Polish event, will start on Wednesday. There are other ways, of course - we ourselves joined in Rezzed Digital with livestreams and videos filling in after our corporate siblings cancelled the March show. Probably don't expect anything like Likelike Online from TGS, though.