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When the Tokyo Game Show opens its doors to the public, you can expect two things: hour-long waits to play anything; and cosplay fanatics. Enjoy this collection of images we took while waiting in a line ... and then uploaded while waiting in a line. Where is this line going? Who knows! It's TGS 2009's first public day and we're going to wait here like gentlemen, dagnabbit.

Microsoft has unveiled it's Tokyo Game Show 2009 lineup and, as usual, we've got a selection of expected blockbusters sprinkled with games catered to the Japanese market. And Infernal: Hell's Vengeance is there for some reason, too. Some of the big games that will be playable include Assassin's Creed 2, Halo 3: ODST, Lost Planet 2, Bayonetta, Tekken 6 and Forza 3. Playable XBLA games will include Bomberman Live Battlefest, Raystorm HD, 0 Day Attack on Earth and ... Shadow Complex.

Naturally, there will be some RPGs and some established Japanese franchises on the floor as well, including Front Mission Evolved, End of Eternity (a.k.a. Resonance of Fate), Nier Gestalt, Ninety-Nine Nights 2 and more. There will also be some video-only showings, including Alan Wake, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Halo Legends and others. We're not sure if any of the videos will be new, but there's bound to be surprise or two.

Head over to IGN for the full lineup.

Tokyo Game Show 2009 is only two weeks away and we've finally caught a glimpse of what to expect thanks to (a supposed leak from) Konami. Today, the house that built Metal Gear revealed the TGS show floor map on its special event website, before the outline for the upcoming event was detailed by the group organizing it. While most of the map is labeled in Japanese, major booths can be spotted. Microsoft is situated near Square Enix, which is across from Sony's main booth.

Other details for the event have been slowly trickling out over the last few weeks, and hopefully we'll know more before the event begins on September 24. Make sure to keep refreshing Joystiq throughout TGS 2009, as we cover the event live from Tokyo.

[Via Andriasang]

Riiiiiiiidge Racer! ...

... Phew. Now that we got that out of our system, we can calmly inform you that Sony CEO Kaz Hirai will be delivering a keynote speech at this year's Tokyo Game Show. The title of his address: "New Tactics for 2009." Considering the reveal of the PSP Go and its download-only business model, we're looking at "digital distribution" as a big part of those new tactics. But what about old tactics? You know, slimming and trimming in an effort to reverse the recent sales slide.

Additionally, a panel discussion will help fill out the Sony exec's two-hour time slot, featuring bigwigs from Capcom, Sony, Bandai Namco, and Square Enix. Other TGS speakers have yet to be confirmed.

Tokyo Game Show organizer CESA announced (via IGN) that the show had 194,288 visitors this year, up about a thousand attendees from last year. The increase in visitors on the public days made up for the significant drop during the two "business only" days of the show.

• Thursday (Business): 27,305 ('07 - 29,783)
• Friday (Business): 24,178 ('07 - 32,390)
• Saturday (Public): 71,639 ('07 - 64,795)
• Sunday (Public): 71,166 ('07 - 66,072)

Good thing TGS is open to the public because those figures really help distract from asking: where have all the business folks gone?

Level-5's Tokyo Game Show booth featured a Closed Theater presentation (much like their competitor, Square Enix). However, unlike the other JRPG overlord, Level-5 encouraged us to actually let you watch these trailers as well by endowing us with a DVD (courtesy of booth girl). Our favorite trailer of the three new games unveiled at TGS this year is for PSP: Ushiro, a horror-themed RPG that has you playing a ghost haunting his darling (in a not-so-Patrick Swazey way).

That's not all, of course. The busy RPG team is also hard at work on a new DS game in collaboration with Studio Ghibli, and a new PSP game that lets you customize some robots. Check out those videos, and more, after the break.

The Microsoft conference kicks off TONIGHT at 11:00PM eastern (8:00PM pacific), when team Microsoft storms the TGS stage and hopefully makes a few hugely major announcements. Remember too that you can read conference play by play by visiting Joystiq, because they'll be in attendance and will be live-blogging all the juicy bits. Here at Fanboy Towers, we'll be staying up extra late just in case OMG megaton news drops. We're excited and you should be too.

While you wait for tonight's TGS festivities, we recommend clicking over to Joystiq to view a five picture photo gallery of Microsoft's Japanese Xbox HQ. Quite the nifty building, but is it just us or does the shape of the building look eerily similar to the Playstation 3?

Hey PS Fanboy readers! Long time no see! I'm taking a rare opportunity here to talk to you in first-person. I've been off on an Asian excursion -- here, you'll see I visited the Kyoto offices of Q-Games, the team behind the PixelJunk series.

While we can't say what we saw (not yet!), we wanted to give you a heads-up to our Tokyo Game Show coverage ... which starts in just a few hours! Here's just a slight preview of our coverage plans (all times in Japan time):

Wednesday (10/8)

• SCEA/SCEE cocktail
  Last year's cocktail had a few surprise games. What will we find this year?

Thursday (10/9)

• Preview: Capcom
• Hands-on/Interview: Patapon 2
• Hands-on/Interview: LocoRoco 2
• Preview: inFamous
• 12PM - Platinum Games presentation
  
• Preview: Tecmo
• Preview: Ryu ga Gotoku 3
• 2PM - Koei press conference
• Hands-on: Resistance Retribution
  
• Interviews: Tecmo
• Interview: Sonic Unleashed, Sega
• 3:30PM - XSEED/Marvelous press conference

In total, Microsoft has 23 games listed, but conveniently left out any mention of a Bungie title. We're sure the secret Bungie title/DLC will not be on the show floor, which is why it isn't on the list, but some acknowledgment of its TGS appearance would be nice. You can't fool us Microsoft, we know you have some secret Halo TGS plans ... oh, we know.

Two things surprise us about Namco Bandai's announced Tokyo Game Show lineup: the complete dearth of Katamari titles and, coincidentally, the inclusion of Katamari creator Keita Takahashi's Nobi Nobi Boy for PlayStation 3, a title we haven't heard about since October 2007. According to the publisher (via Siliconera), the game (the title literally translates to "Stretch Stretch Boy") will be shown in video form only, a bit surprising considering the playable prototype that appeared last year at GameCity.

Namco Bandai's lineup includes 29 titles, including Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm and the multiplatform Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2. Interestingly, the publisher is also showing off four PlayStation 2 titles, edging out Sony's support of PS2 at this TGS by a margin of 4 to 0.

While Sony will be showing off nine unannounced PS3 titles at this year's Tokyo Game Show, they'll be showing off three new games for the PSP. All of the games will be published by SCEI, meaning they'll either be new IPs, or extensions of currently popular Sony franchises.

Some of the known titles to be showcase at TGS this year include Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Patapon 2, Bleach: Soul Carnival, and Loco Roco 2. For the complete list (in English), visit PSP-Hyper.

The third project from the "Olympic Team" behind both Shadow of the Colossus and Ico looks like it might make its long anticipated reveal next month at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show. What appears to be a newly launched TGS teaser website calls the game ICO 3 The Queen, adding that Japanese PS3 owners will be able to yank the title off store shelves on October 9, 2009.

Given the name, as well as the site's reuse of the original game's logo, it remains unclear if the title will be any sort of direct follow up to the original Ico or another stand alone project, but whatever the case we cannot wait to find out more once TGS gets underway.

Note: As some have pointed out, the site's validity is suspect, meaning we now wait until next month's TGS to see if in fact the next game from Team ICO will make an appearance or simply break our hearts.

[Thanks pico!]

Koei president Kenji Matsubara spoke recently with Gamasutra about making third party titles in Japan. More important to our readers, part of that discussion involved PSP. Pointing to the PSP's success with Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G (yes, everything comes back around to Monster Hunter PSP savior), Matsubara said it is encouraging to make games for the PSP as opposed to other tougher markets (the PS3 and 360).

In line with this, Koei has acted accordingly by revealing plans to announce new PSP titles at this year's Tokyo Game Show in October. What those titles are, it won't say, but we're certainly curious to find out. Deducing from the article, it sounds like Koei is aiming to make a game that utilizes Monster Hunter's team-focused gameplay. Hmm, perhaps a game where Guan Yu and friends go around Han Dynasty China looking to slay mythical creatures? We wouldn't be surprised ...

Anyway, don't get too excited yet. While Koei sings a PSP paean, it can't deny a lack of enthusiasm from Western markets. Perhaps, these new games will be Japan-only. Stay tuned, we'll have more from TGS next month.

Under the new leadership of Fatal Frame alumni Jin Hasegawa, Tecmo's Itagaki-less Team Ninja is poised to unveil its latest titles at Tokyo Game Show, IGN reports. Newly appointed Tecmo president Yasuhara Kakihara began a press conference in Tokyo today with an announcement that the studio has three new action games aimed at a "worldwide audience" prepped for TGS, which gets underway on October 9.

Tecmo has also firmed up its US release schedule for the rest of 2008, which includes the M.I.A. Wii title, Rygar: The Battle of Argus, listed for December. The remainder of the publisher's '08 slate includes: Robocalypse (DS, 10/28), SPRay (Wii, 10/28), and Tecmo Bowl Kickoff (DS, November).