Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kondeiru". It's a very appropriate word meaning "crowded", and this weekend, I went to the Tokyo Game Show 2008 which, as you can imagine, was extremely crowded.

The Game Show is a show about...... games.... It's a gigantic convention hall that remains half-lit on the inside so that thousands of LCD TV's can show off the latest and coming video games so companies like EA, Konami, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, and Tecmo (to name but a few) can increase their share of the video game market in Japan, worth some 238.8 billion yen (some $2.3 billion CAD) last year.

And despite the nature of video games, it was something every company took seriously, spending lots of money on booth design, brochures, staff, and props. In fact, there were actually very few children there since, as might be obvious, the video game market in Japan has just as many adult players as there are children, if not more. Part of that is, I suppose, due to how much time people spend on trains, which means the portable game market (whether on handheld systems or on phones) is huge, evidenced by the fact that major cell phone providers had displays at show as well.

Beyond that were the chances to try out lots of games (provided you stood your way through line-ups as long as TWO HOURS), see lots of people dressed up in costumes, see lots of unpaid fans dress up in even more complicated costumes standing outside, and, this being Japan, watch throngs of cameramen move from booth-girl to booth-girl.

I went with my roommate, his girlfriend, and a few of this co-workers (who all work as computer engineers) and while it was fun, I didn't find it as satisfying as the auto shows. While that might seem like a pointless statement to make, coming from me, the reason I say that is because at auto shows, no one expects to be able to drive the cars. The point of the show is simply to be able to have a chance to see the cars in person. After that, information is available if you want it.

At a game show, everyone wants to try out all the wares. I wanted to try GT5 but there was a 2-hr line-up for that game since everyone else wanted to as well. And likewise with all the other booths. So, in the end, it's slightly unsatisfying in that you end up wandering around looking at stuff when what you really want to do is play the games.

Having said that, there was still some really great stuff. I particularly liked the section of the show that had games from computer programming or design schools. These student-made games rarely had lines to try them and while some of them really weren't that great ("Let's jump from cloud to cloud" or "Let's stomp stick-figure zombies"), some were designed with really fresh thinking coming from the next generation of video game designers.

Yes, someone dressed as a robot. No, he wasn't part of the event.

The other interesting part of the show was Konami's Metal Gear Solid Online World Championship Final Round. Having qualified from all over the world, individuals and teams all met to determine who was the best...... umm....... Metal Gear Solid Online....... Soldier...... At any rate, I only watched the individual match which was pretty interesting, especially with the energetic announcer shouting out "HEADSHOT!!" every so often. Well, technically, he said "HEADDO-SHOTTO!!" but anyway....... Perhaps unsurprisingly, the title of world's best MGS Online gamer went to some 13-yr old kid from Japan. At least 4th place went to a Canadian soooooo....... I guess Canada has the 4th best MGS Online gamer..... yeah!!

Oh...... and I took a picture with Bomberman....... yeah!!!