Record Show, Shortened by a Typhoon: Tokyo Game Show 2026's Business Story
TGS turned 30 with its biggest exhibitor list ever and a first five-day schedule, then lost its final day to a typhoon. Korean publishers came in force with anime-style games. What the numbers say about Asia's biggest games fair.
Tokyo Game Show had planned its thirtieth birthday carefully. For the first time it would run for five days, with more exhibitors than ever and an extra hall. Then the weather intervened. With Typhoon No. 25 approaching on the national holiday of September 21, organisers cancelled the final day to keep visitors, exhibitors and staff safe.
Even shortened, TGS 2026 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba was the biggest edition by the measure that matters most to the business: 1,138 exhibitors from a record 53 countries and regions, filling 3,999 booths. Over four days, from September 17 to 20, it drew 257,642 visitors, slightly below the 263,101 of 2025, which had a full schedule.
The numbers, day by day
The organiser, the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA), reported these attendance figures:
- September 17 (business day): 53,630
- September 18 (business day): 52,545
- September 19 (public day): 78,678
- September 20 (public day): 72,789
The exhibitor list was split almost evenly: 540 Japanese and 598 international companies. To fit them in, TGS used Exhibition Halls 1 to 11, the International Conference Hall and a newly added hall, the TKP Tokyo Bay Makuhari Hall, plus outdoor areas for food and cosplay.
One country's presence shrank sharply. According to the research firm Niko Partners, exhibitors from mainland China fell from 112 in 2025 to 72 in 2026, a drop of about a third.
Korea's anime offensive
If China pulled back, Korea pushed forward. Korean publishers treated TGS 2026 as a launch pad for Japan, the world's third-biggest games market, with about 10% of global spending in 2024 according to Korea's game white paper. And most of them brought the same kind of game: anime-styled "subculture" titles, the genre Japanese players know best.
- Nexon brought Mabinogi Mobile, which is preparing a Japanese launch, and the first playable build of Pareidolia, the anime-style RPG from Nexon Games previously known as Project RX.
- Netmarble ran a solo booth for the second year running with three new games, including a playable Shangri-La Frontier game based on the Japanese manga, Solo Leveling: KARMA and the collection RPG Pearl in Blue.
- NCSOFT gave a whole booth to one new RPG from its studio Dynamis One, a fantasy set in a version of 1889 Tokyo, shown publicly for the first time.
- Smilegate showed two collection and roguelike RPGs, one of them based on a Japanese manga.
- NHN returned after eight years through its Japanese subsidiary with seven games.
- Shift Up showed Stellar Blade Complete Edition on Nintendo Switch 2 for the first time anywhere, at the Sega and Atlus booth.
Independent Korean studios came too. Ironmace (Dark and Darker) and Project Moon (Limbus Company) had their own booths, and KOCCA ran a Korean pavilion of 15 companies.
Why Korea chose Tokyo over Busan
The Korean presence in Chiba had a side effect at home. Nexon, NCSOFT and Netmarble are all missing from the main exhibition at G-STAR 2026 in Busan, which opens on November 19. For publishers whose next growth market is Japan, a booth at Makuhari now does more commercial work than a booth at home.
That reflects the games they are making. Subculture RPGs, with collectible characters and anime art, live or die in Japan. Showing them at TGS puts them in front of Japanese players, press and influencers months before launch, and the reaction on the show floor helps decide how much to spend on marketing. Gravity, maker of Ragnarok Online, used the show to reveal a Ragnarok console RPG aimed at the first half of 2027.
What to watch
TGS 2026 proved the show can grow even as other events shrink, but it also showed the risk of September in Japan: a five-day plan can become four with one weather forecast. CESA will need to decide whether the five-day format returns in 2027.
WGC's take: for Korean publishers, Tokyo is now the most important show of the year, more than Cologne and certainly more than Los Angeles. The question is whether the flood of Korean anime-style RPGs can stand out in their genre's home market, or whether they end up competing mostly with each other. For the history behind G-STAR, see our G-STAR business story.