Record Number Of Games At TGS, Lost Odyssey T...

Record Number Of Games At TGS, Lost Odyssey To Prevail?

In the wake of E3's collapse, the gaming shows from the second half of this year have been seeing increasing support from publishers and such. It's how the Games Convention in Leipzig got to receive a great amount of attention, and it's how this month's Tokyo Game Show is expected to do the same. CESA, the show's organizers, are claiming that TGS 2006 will host a record number of games, with a total of 573 games on public display - 57 more than last year.

Maybe a bit surprising, given Japan's console culture, most of these games will be for the PC (127 titles) and mobile phones (125), closely followed by the long-running PlayStation 2 (about 100 titles). Nintendo's DS will have 52 titles shown, and there will also be 33 games for the PSP, 20 for the Xbox 360, 18 for the PlayStation 3 (although a lot more are expected to be presented behind closed doors), and only 5 Wii games, most likely third-party. Because, as usual, Nintendo will once again be absent from the event. Stats courtesy of Gamasutra, who also have a breakdown on games count by genre to be shown at TGS.

The most significant Xbox 360 announcements are expected to take place at Microsoft's X06, between September 27-28, however a few of them might surface a few days ealrier at TGS 2006, which is taking place next weekend between September 22-24. In particular, Next Generation is anticipating that Hironobu Sakaguchi's Lost Odyssey role-playing game could easily steal the show in Tokyo, despite the Xbox 360's rather undesired status in Japan (not to mention Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4).

Lost Odyssey is being created by Mistwalker, the young studio founded in 2004 by Hironobu Sakaguchi - if the name "Final Fantasy" rings any bells. Another veteran of the FF series, Nobuo Uematsu is also involved in the project, as composer of the game's music. Little has been shown about Lost Odyssey so far, but there's a new picture in our local gallery in case you missed it earlier this week.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)