The Japan Sport Association (JSPO), one of Japan’s main governing bodies for organised sport, has officially announced that it’s going to set up a new, independent national esports competition called JAPAN GAMES ESPORTS (JGE).
The announcement was made at a press conference in Tokyo, where JSPO also signed a cooperation agreement with the Japan eSports Association (JESU), the country’s main esports governing body. JESU became a JSPO member organisation in June 2025, and this agreement builds on that relationship.
JSPO is aiming to hold the first JGE competition between January and March 2028, with the event repeating annually after that. However, a host city for the tournament has not been revealed yet.
JSPO president Toshiaki Endo said the goal behind launching a national esports competition is to treat esports as a genuine sporting competition rather than a side cultural attraction and to communicate its value and potential to the public as what he called a “new sport”.
Notably, the national esports competition is not being built from scratch. It replaces and upgrades the National Prefectural Esports Championship which ran from 2019 to 2025 as a cultural side-event attached to the Japan Games. That event had teams representing Japan’s 47 prefectures compete across several game titles, with an overall prefectural champion crowned at the end.
Organisers emphasised that several key details remain undecided, including the featured game titles, overall budget, and the qualification format for participants. At the press conference, Endo tried out eFootball, Konami‘s soccer game, which has been a regular title in the predecessor tournament, though this was a demonstration rather than a confirmation that it will be used in JGE.
Before JAPAN GAMES ESPORTS formally begins, there will be a bridging event. JESU is running “National Prefectural eSports Championship 2026 Online – Road to the NEXT”, an online championship scheduled for December 12–13, 2026. It will feature eFootball, Gran Turismo 7 and Puzzle & Dragons, along with a Puyo Puyo eSports exhibition match.
This is not the first esports investment announced by Japan’s sports governing body in recent months. Last month, the Japan Sports Council opened HPSC ESPORTS LAB, a new research facility dedicated to esports. The facility is located at Japan’s Ajinomoto National Training Center, inside the Indoor Training Center East building.
