Year: 2008

It was yet another exciting TGS event here in Tokyo, running October 9 – 12, and the ‘Ready For Game Time’ theme was splashed around Makuhari Messe with plenty of next-generation mobile games coming out into the public eye. Wireless Watch Japan was on site – as always – to get a sneak peek at the latest, and some soon-to-be greatest, offerings coming out from the usual software powerhouses.

While we didn’t make it out there for Cosplay Saturday, like last year, we noticed a marked improvement in performance on the latest handset models and saw several very cool networked products that are sure to please above average casual gamers.

We spent most of last week out at Makuhari Messe running around the CEATEC tradeshow with clients visiting from overseas. While we were considerably distracted, catering to their specific focus, it was certainly interesting – as always – to get a glimpse of the mobile future. Of course while most of the usual players were on-site with their wares and the media was swarming to get the inside skinny, btw: plenty of great material from Tech-On Here, two of the most obvious trends we noticed was a definite move towards green technology along with next-generation networks and handsets.

This concept model – the Voyage – from KDDI was a prefect example of innovation aimed at solving one of the major challenges, never enough juice, increasingly faced by mobile users. There was not much in the way of details on that unit when we asked at the time however based on past experience with AU Designs it would be reasonable to expect something like this hitting the street a few years from now and we’ll be digging for more intell. on this one! Meanwhile, some of the other concepts on display especially the Ply device with it’s built-in projector and their Trio design – hint: watch the video demos launched via ‘prototype’ icons on lower nav. bar – were also attracting the crowds.