I’m back from TGS which was fun. I’ll post some decent impressions of stuff I saw and played later, but in the meantime I have plenty of photos and a rundown of the day.

As for the rest of the day, I woke up at around 5am and couldn’t sleep so after grabbing this photo out the window I jumped on Skype and made some calls home. When everyone else was up we headed on over to the Makuhari Messe for TGS (about an hour by train) and on the way got talking to a Japanese guy who lives in New York but was back in Japan for business. He helped point us in the right direction when we couldn’t read the kanji on the signs. Before we headed into the show we got some traditional Japanese food for breakfast (thick noodles with various seafood and vegetable things – £5 in yen can get you a hell of a lot of decent food if you eat traditional). I failed miserably at chopsticks but got there eventually.

After a good few hours around TGS we headed back and dropped into Akihabara briefly on the way back. I picked up both Katamari Damacy games (£15 for the first one and around £25 for the second) and the Katamari Damacy soundtrack, as well as a couple more of those PSP screen protectors. Jan picked up a white PSP for himself and Eynon managed to find four more Famicom Game Boy Micros. After that we were so tired from so much walking that we just got a taxi back to the hotel (five minutes’ walk at most) and that’s where you find me now.

Tomorrow has nothing planned but we’re probably going to look at a nearby shrine and the Imperial Palace.

First Game Zone Live, now ECTS and GDCE. Even SCoRE, the retail arm of the industry’s annual excuse for a big piss-up, is no more. Are there any legs remaining in the UK trade show?

After last year ECTS may have been more of a mercy killing, but it seems almost inexplicable at a time when Europe is pushing up the list of the world’s biggest games markets we can’t hold a good show. Germany has the apparently excellent GC (stands for “games convention” – gotta love that German efficiency), but that barely registers on the radar of most who would prefer to wait for E3 and Tokyo Game Show where the big guns come out to play. Germany aren’t exactly the hotbed of development in, uh, development either. The US and Japan might be the spiritual homes of gaming but when so many influential developers are based around Europe – Rockstar North, Ubisoft, Rare, Lionhead, Core Design, and others have made billions for the industry – why can’t even a public show where they charge for entry be a success?

E3, apart from a handful who’ll cough up $300 for a pass, is trade-only and none of them pay for entry, but it still remains incredibly successful. TGS strikes the balance by having a day for the trade and then makes some more money by having two days for the public. Last year they charged £12 per person for access to Game Stars Live and it was packed for the Thursday and Friday (both school days) so I dread to think how many they pulled in for the Saturday…

I suppose I shouldn’t try the price of admission angle since I get into every show I can free and don’t pay them anything, but I still find it baffling that we can’t make it work. Then again I look at our trains, buses, postal service, health service, and I’m not actually that surprised anymore.