Tokyo Game Show and Paris Games Week Canceled Due to Coronavirus

Tokyo Game Show and Paris Games Week have both been canceled in response to the spread of COVID-19.

The Toyko Game Show was originally scheduled to run from September 24-27 at Makuhari Messe but the event’s organizers say that they’ve made the difficult decision to cancel the physical version of the annual show after “a long consideration to place the utmost priority on the health and safety of visitors, exhibitors, and stakeholders.”

The current plan is for the Tokyo Game Show to be converted to a digital event for this year’s presentation. The event’s organizers intend to share more details about that digital event sometime later this month.

It’s a similar story as it concerns the state of the 2020 Paris Games Week event. That event’s organizers also cite the “technical and logistical complexities” caused by the spread of COVID-19 as the primary reason this year’s show will not take place, and they also lament the fact that people will not be able to enjoy the show they had planned.

“This year should have been special, with a line-up full of new releases, and an anniversary edition which we were thrilled to celebrate with you,” says the Paris Games Week team via a blog post. “We are already preparing next year’s edition and are looking forward to seeing you again.”

Unlike the Tokyo Game Show, there don’t currently seem to be any plans to replace Paris Games Week with a digital event. That’s not really a surprise given how dependent that show is on the live attendee experience.

We’re feeling like a broken record at this point, but it’s worth reiterating that cancellations such as this, the stoppage of E3 2020, and numerous delays of film premieres and other forms of media should hopefully send the message that if there’s a live event that was set to occur sometime over the next few months (at the least) then you should probably expect that event to be canceled.

While some live event organizers are clearly holding out hope that they’ll be able to hold events before the end of the year, it’s looking like 2020 will be the year of the digital showcase. As we’ve seen in the case of Nintendo Direct announcements, such showcases can actually be incredibly entertaining and tremendously informative.

As we saw in the case of the recent Xbox Series X showcase, though, there will undoubtedly be some growing pains as we transition into what is quickly becoming the all-digital age.