TGS 2008 Breaks Attendance Record

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As E3 diminishes, the Tokyo Game Show continues to grow. According to GameSpot, TGS 2008 has once again topped all previous shows in terms of overall attendance, even though most industry journalists will agree the event lacked any big announcements.

TGS attendance hit an all-time high last year thanks to a playable Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots demo and the fact that all three new consoles were on the presenting block. This year, they've done it again: the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) reports that total visitors for TGS 2008 tallied 194,288, which just barely breaks last year's record of 193,040. The event ran for four days, even though the first two were restricted to business and members of the press. Thing is, there weren't anywhere near as many reporters in those first two days as there were last year, but due mostly to a large number of games on display, the public traffic on the last two days made up for it. In fact, each of those last two days topped last year's attendance totals by more than 5,000 visitors each. For a frame of reference, less than half as many total visitors attended TGS 2002 (134,042), which means TGS traffic has more than doubled in only 6 years time. Well, if they keep cranking out the games for the public, they should keep growing.

Sadly, we didn't get much in the way of headliners from this year's show, but we're all well aware of how many great games are on the way. And besides, we have other business conferences during the year; it's nice to have one that appeals primarily to the fans.

10/14/2008 John Shepard

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