Partial 2006 TGS Game List Released

Organizers of Japan's Tokyo Game Show 2006, to be held from September 22nd to the 24th at the Makuhari Messe in Tokyo's Chiba prefecture, have revealed a preliminary list of titles expected to be shown during the event, including several projects for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The list, available on TGS' Japanese website, and translated by consumer website GameSpot, represents the products that will be shown by 93 of the companies that registered for the event by July 21. Organizers have confirmed that this year's show will see an all-time high 140 companies showing a total of 1,709 individual products. It's notable that first or third-party titles for Nintendo's Wii are not included on the list at all, though the list itself is preliminary, and will be added to significantly. It's confirmed that Nintendo will again not make an appearance at the event, as is traditional for the company, but it's expected that some third-party Wii titles will appear at TGS. (The Kyoto-based firm once ran its own Space World events as an alternative to appearing at TGS, and now eschews public exhibition of its games at a large-scale event.) That said, both Microsoft and Sony will have next-generation representation at the show. Titles for the PlayStation 3 scheduled to be shown include Koei's Blade Storm: Hundred Years War and Fatal Inertia, Namco Bandai's Gundam: Mobile Suit and Ridge Racer 7, and Vampire's Rain from AQ Interactive. Xbox 360 titles currently listed include Namco Bandai's Culdcept Saga, The Idol Master, and Mobile Suit Gundam; D3 Publisher's Chikyuu Boueisen X and Oneechanbara X; and AQ Interactive's Bullet Witch and Vampire's Rain. In addition, the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) announced that the TGS Forum, currently scheduled to take place on September 22, will include a Characters Session headlined by Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi, film director Takashi Yamazaki, and Hirofumi Inagaki, who is currently producing Gundam: Mobile Suit for the PlayStation 3. As previously announced, the 10th anniversary show's theme, jointly announced by Japanese game industry trade body CESA and its chairman and Square Enix president Yoichi Wada, is 'new stimulus, new feeling, new era', according to a Japanese-language press statement released on the official Tokyo Game Show site. The theme, according to CESA, "is meant to reflect the changing and converging landscape, one in which consumer consoles, online games, mobile games and next-gen are all supported."