By now, you may have seen some of the things I’ve written about other companies and their Tokyo Game Show 2022 offerings. There were some interesting games from Square Enix, Bandai Namco, and Konami in particular, which isn’t terribly unexpected given the fact that mobile gaming remains the most popular form of video games in Japan. What is perhaps more surprising is who didn’t have any mobile games to show. Whether these companies didn’t have any mobile games to show at all or simply chose not to put them forward at the show, it was interesting to see names who had been aggressively pushing mobile just a few years ago opt to place their focus elsewhere.
Capcom has always been hot-and-cold when it comes to mobile gaming. Sometimes it will go a year or two without any major efforts in the market, then suddenly drop a bunch of amazing ports. We’re in a bit of a cold period at the moment, with the company’s only recent mobile release of note being a re-done version of Ace Attorney Trilogy that came out earlier this summer. Like many of the major publishers at Tokyo Game Show this year, Capcom opted to concentrate its booth on a few key titles. Friends, when you’ve got Resident Evil Village for PlayStation VR2, Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, Street Fighter 6, Exoprimal, and Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection to show, I can’t begrudge you for skipping on other things. I’m sure Capcom will eventually turn its head to mobile again, but for now I’m going to enjoy its impressive console offerings.
Adopting a similar strategy was SEGA, who featured five of its own games and three Atlus titles in its booth. This booth was one of the highlights of the show in terms of design, with a giant Sonic statue and some cool Persona statues about. On the SEGA side, Sonic Frontiers and Like a Dragon: Ishin! took center stage. These two brands are basically SEGA’s two strongest globally these days, so it’s not weird that they chose to push them to the front. Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown was also prominently displayed, which… well, I appreciate their optimism if nothing else. Maybe port that to something other than PlayStation 4? I imagine Xbox and PC gaming fans would like to get in on the fun. Interestingly, SEGA also opted to throw some decent promotion behind Two Point’s Two Point Campus and Amplitude’s Endless Dungeon.
Making our way over to the Atlus side of the booth shows that the SEGA subsidiary knows where its bread is buttered. As you may or may not know, the Persona series, which curiously seems to have started with 3, is making its way to a variety of platforms soon. Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal are coming to Microsoft Xbox, Windows, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 5 in the coming months, and Atlus really wanted everyone at the Tokyo Game Show to know that. As mentioned, they had some very cool statues set up, making it very hard to miss the news if you weren’t already aware.
Another publisher who in the past usually had at least a few mobile games among its Tokyo Game Show offerings is Koei Tecmo. Well, the company’s TGS 2022 booth wasn’t completely bereft of mobile game references. Nobunaga’s Ambition: Hadou, the online multiplayer take on the long-running franchise, may not have been ready to put into the hands of players yet, but there was a bit of promotion for it in the form of a handy disposable fan emblazoned with its art. These things are extremely valuable in the hot, humid September weather in Japan. Otherwise, Koei Tecmo used its limited space to go all-in on Team Ninja’s action-RPG Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and the recently-announced Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key.
It’s hard to say whether the lack of mobile titles at the booths of some major publishers this year are a one-time thing connected to the unusual circumstances of this comeback event or part of a larger trend, but I suppose in the end where the games end up is less important than the fact that the games exist at all. Level-5, where did you go? Well, maybe if we ask Atlus really nicely, they’ll toss us a Persona mobile port one day. Will the indies save the Tokyo Game Show as they often do? Stay tuned, friends.
