Nintendo wins on mindshare despite traditional absence from TGS

Tokyo Game Show TGS2005: Battle of the console and handheld platforms, while native mobile game applis on the path to disrupt

by Gerhard Fasol

Here some highlights of this year’s Tokyo Game Show TGS2005:

SONY vs Microsoft.

At last year’s TGS2004 Microsoft’s XBOX exhibit was pretty low-key in a secondary hall. This year, at Tokyo Game Show TGS2005, Microsoft moved with a much bigger exhibit up into the prime position of the main hall right next to (current) market leader SONY Computer Entertainment (SCE)… While in 2004 and before, SCE was the uncontested leader of the market, Microsoft is not accelerating efforts with XBOX-360. While SONY’s PSP is fantastic, it’s being outsold in Japan by Nintendo’s DS…

Japan game market report (398 pages, pdf-file):

Japan’s game makers and markets (32nd edition) – disruption by smartphone games

XBox as a broadband home entertainment machine:

XBOX home entertainment system at Tokyo Game Show 2005

wLAN hotspot for PSP (SONY PlayStation Portable) for game sharing and
download. However, with a little bit of software, PSPs could be used to hold VOIP telephone
calls via these (or other) wLAN hotspots:

SONY Playstation WiFi spot at Tokyo Game Show 2005

Japan’s game industry consolidates

This year is the first appearance of merged BandaiNamco, which used to be separate companies until recently:

Bandai and Namco merged - at Tokyo Game Show 2005 — Bandai and Namco merged – at Tokyo Game Show 2005

The following figure summarizes some of the recent mergers in Japan’s game software industry:

Consolidations and mergers in Japan's game industry (Tokyo Game Show 2005) — Consolidations and mergers in Japan’s game industry (Tokyo Game Show 2005)

SONY staff greeting customers at the end of the first day of the show
(while greeting customers there were facing Microsoft’s impressive Xbox360 exhibition area…):

For a summary, see: Japan game market report (398 pages, pdf-file):