We looked into the visitors to Tokyo Game Show 2017

This is Haraoka from Beyond. Today, we will be introducing the trends of visitors to Tokyo Game Show 2017, where Beyond also exhibited on Business Day, based on the Tokyo Game Show Visitor Survey Report. Source: Tokyo Game Show 2017 Visitor Survey Report

80% of Tokyo Game Show visitors are male

Apparently, Tokyo Game Show is famous for its cosplayed female companions, and 80% of the attendees were men. It was an event with more men than I expected, and it's true that there were fewer women. (Note: The figures have been rounded up or down. Approximate figures are omitted. Same below.)

75% of visitors are from the Tokyo metropolitan area

Three-quarters of the visitors came from the four metropolitan prefectures of Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, and Kanagawa. Beyond was present from Osaka, but there were few visitors from Western Japan

66% of visitors were working adults, and 23% were students

Compared to last year, the number of university students decreased by 3.8% and the number of company employees increased by 3.7%. Since Beyond exhibited on Business Day, most of the attendees were working adults

68% of visitors are heavy gamers

Heavy gamers make up 8.6% of the general public, so that means there were eight times as many heavy gamers as usual. This is definitely an event for hardcore gamers

60% of visitors play home video games on Nintendo 3DS/2DS

Even among heavy gamers, the 3DS is the most popular. The second most popular device was the PlayStation 4 at 53%, and the popular Nintendo Switch at 23%. Considering the difficulty of obtaining a console, this may also be considered a high play rate

70% of visitors are currently playing home video games on an ongoing basis

This is also a fairly high percentage, as the general public accounts for 15%

57% of visitors buy five or more new software titles per year

The average number of home video game software purchased is 8.7, making them a valuable customer for the video game industry

77% of attendees currently play smartphone and tablet games on an ongoing basis

This is also a fairly high percentage, but since 73% of people who play games continuously among the general public also play smartphone/tablet games continuously, this does not seem to stand out as much

72% of visitors paid for free-to-play games with item-based purchases

The paying rate is quite high at over 70%. This is 2.4 times higher than the 30% paying rate for regular gamers. It seems that the visitors were those who actively spend money on games

Other game play

16% of people are still playing feature phone games, 35% are still playing PC games, and 33% are still playing arcade games. All of these figures are about 1.5 times higher than the average game player and about 4 times higher than the average consumer

 

■Summary

To summarise the above, it seems that the Tokyo Game Show is an event that attracts many heavy male gamers in the Tokyo metropolitan area who spend a lot of money on games. (This may be an obvious conclusion without even needing to look into it further...) Incidentally, 43% of attendees have also visited Comiket, so the characteristics of attendees at both events may be similar. I have attended for three years in a row, and the Tokyo Game Show is a very fun event for game lovers. If you are a game lover who has not yet attended, please do try it next year. Beyond is planning to exhibit again next year, so please stop by!