After Big Presence Last Year, Xbox Skipping 2015 Tokyo Game Show

Microsoft will not have an official presence at this September's Tokyo Game Show, one of Japan's largest video game events. The company announced the news on Friday in a statement to Japanese media.

"This year, Microsoft will not exhibit the Tokyo Game Show, but we're making various preparations to deliver the latest Xbox news to fans and media," Microsoft Japan marketing executive Masayuki Inoue said in a statement to Gematsu. "We will provide an update as soon as we can."

Inoue did not elaborate further on why Microsoft is skipping TGS this year. He went on to say that Japanese Xbox fans can look forward to an "attractive" lineup of games for this year.

In 2014, Microsoft had a booth on the TGS show floor where attendees could play nearly two dozen Xbox One games. Last year's TGS was held just one week after the Xbox One was released in Japan.

Competitor Sony, which is based in Japan, usually attends TGS, but has not announced its plans for this year's event. TGS 2015 runs September 17-20. Attendance for the public event last year was down, but the 251,832 attendees still represented the second highest in the show's history.

The Xbox One has not sold very well in Japan since its release there in September 2014, but Microsoft hopes to improve sales over time by listening to gamers' suggestions. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer said in previous interviews that Japan is a "soulful" place for games, and one that is "critical" for Microsoft to support.