Xbox to Air Tokyo Game Show Broadcast on September 26

After Microsoft had its biggest presence ever at the Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany last month, the company announced that it will once again air a special broadcast during Tokyo Game Show later this month. The Xbox conference will air at 6AM ET on September 26, and Microsoft plans to put the spotlight on some of its own games as well as third-party games from Asian developers.

“We warmly welcome players around the world to tune in as we share content from Xbox Game Studios, Activision, Blizzard Entertainment, and Bethesda. We’ll also showcase an exciting lineup of games from third-party partners primarily based in Japan and across Asia, including games coming to Xbox Game Pass,” the Xbox team said today.

Xbox has a somewhat contrasted relationship with Asian developers in recent years. A renowned Japanese publisher like Sega has been putting a lot of its games on Game Pass, and Microsoft also managed to get the surprise hit Palword on Game Pass on day one earlier this year. However, a lot of high-profile games such as Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are currently exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation 5. Black Myth: Wukong, one of the biggest games of the year developed by Chinese developer Game Science is also a PS5 console exclusive.

It doesn’t help that Microsoft recently announced the closure of Tango Gameworks, its only Japanese studio that released the critically-acclaimed Hi-Fi Rush in January 2023. Instead of shutting down for good, the renowned studio has now been acquired by Krafton, the Korean publisher of PUBG: Battlegrounds.

All in all, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft, now one of the biggest video game publishers in the world following its acquisition of Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, manages to bring more games from Asian developers to the Xbox platform. The Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2024 broadcast will be live streamed on the TGS official YouTube channel as well as various Xbox channels with audio descriptions in both Japanese and English.