Tokyo Game Show sets dates for 2005

The Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, Japan's main trade body for the interactive entertainment business, has announced dates for next year's Tokyo Game Show, with the event set to run almost two weeks earlier than this year's show.

TGS 2005 will run from September 16th to 18th at its traditional venue of the Nippon Convention Centre (Makuhari Messe) in Chiba City, just outside Tokyo, which makes it ten days earlier than the event this year.

The earlier date is significant because it could see TGS clashing with one of the other big events on the Japanese trade show calendar, namely the Amusement Machine show, which is organised by the JAMMA arcade trade body to showcase the latest developments in arcade games.

Dates for AM 2005 haven't been finalised yet, but if it sticks to its usual timing, the arcade show - which runs at Tokyo Big Sight, a giant convention centre on Odaiba island in Tokyo Bay, which is much more central than the Chiba venue of TGS - could find itself clashing with its home console equivalent.