Top eSports players yesterday traded digital blows at a show in Tokyo as laggard Japan moves to up its game in the booming spectator draw now worth billions of US dollars annually.
Scantily clad women hawking games and virtual reality operators are also to compete for the attention of the more than 250,000 mostly male visitors expected to turn up at the four-day Tokyo Game Show, which started yesterday.
However, eSports — multiplayer computer games played in front of spectators — took center stage for the first time at the annual event, as the best of the best faced off in games like Street Fighter V and on virtual battlegrounds.
Photo: Reuters
They might not have household names like Ronaldo or Beckham quite yet, but eSport champions are winning superstar status these days with hundreds of millions of people worldwide jumping into the action.
Top players can make millions of US dollars in prize money alone from tournaments played at packed stadiums in front of up to 50,000 spectators.
They are to be a full medal sport at the 2022 Asian Games in China, while the newly minted Asian eSports Federation president Kenneth Fok is shooting for a spot at the Olympics.
Despite their soaring popularity in North America and parts of Asia, eSports are only now taking off in Japan, home to videogame heavyweights Sony Corp and Nintendo Co.
Operating restrictions on public gaming and prize money limits have held back growth in the video game-crazy nation, but top billing at the Tokyo show could put eSports to the next level, industry insiders said.
“I hope Japanese people will eventually see that winning prize money and making a living out of this as a pro is just as great as being a tennis player like [Kei] Nishikori or other professionals,” said Taichi Shibuki, chairman of game company JPPVR.
“Not many people here even know the word eSports,” he said. “But this [show] could drastically change things.”
Unlike traditional separations in sports for gender and physical disabilities, eSports can be played under “equal conditions,” he added.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a man, a woman, young or old, or if you’re physically disabled,” Shibuki said. “It’s a field where everyone can compete with an equal shot.”
The Tokyo show is to host more than 600 exhibitors with everything from virtual romance and digital puzzles to shoot-’em-up games and role-playing adventures on offer.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last