Ah, Tokyo, it has been a while. Last time I was in Japan was about 5 years ago and I still clearly remember the cultural lessons learned (eg, don’t make jokes about Godzilla to Sega execs ;) Anyway.

I’m heading out to the Tokyo Game Show tomorrow. Should be lots of fun. Not only do I have plans to connect with many local developers, but several other friends will be landing in town and will be ready for action (eg, Robin Hunicke, Doug Church, Justin Hall, Alan Yu, Kim Pallister, etc). Mark DeLoura and Gonzalo Frasca are already there… Fun!

Of course, I’m there on official IGDA business, giving the intro/opening to the “premium” developer portion of the conference. Also, the IGDA’s Japanese chapter will be hosting a developer party for local, and visiting, attendees. After the event I’ll be heading out to take in some Japanese culture by visiting the famed Ghibli museum!

To round out the trip, Gonzalo and I have been invited by the University of Tokyo to lecture on industry/academic collaboration. It is great to see that the extent of academic interest and study of games extends to Japan as well.

On the whole, I’ll be curious to gage the TGS/industry vibe and how the Japanese are reacting to the constant decline in sales (and significance?) of video games in Japanese culture. Check out the “Gaming in Japan” feature series that GameSpy ran a few months back for some additional background/perspective.

Yoshi, hajime!