Facility for people with disabilities to become professional gamers

There are various welfare facilities for people with disabilities in Japan, but a cool facility ONEGAME will open in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture in June. It's a facility where they aim to become professional gamers in e-sports.

One-Life, a company that provides welfare services mainly in Gunma Prefecture, has originally been involved in e-Sports participation of people with disabilities. They introduce equipment for each type of people with disabilities and train by coaches. In addition, in August 2019, they held Japan's first people with disabilities e-Sports competition event using the League of Legends.
ONEGAME is a development form of these, and is a facility for continuing jobs. They not only train e-Sports players, but also event management staff and announcers to help people with disabilities become independent through e-Sports.

This is Japan's first welfare facility and a welfare project. I hope this succeeds.

Tokyo Game Show 2020 and CEDEC 2020 canceled(and CEDEC will be held online)

Of course this is due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Today, Japan's Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association(CESA) has made two big decisions. They will cancel this year's Tokyo Game Show 2020 and CEDEC 2020, the conference event for developers.

These two events are held in September each year, and autumn feature of Japanese game industries. However, CESA considers the health of visitors, exhibitors, presses, and staff, as the coronavirus infection is spreading worldwide and it is still unpredictable in Japan. So they decided to cancel.
However, they also decided to host the events online at the same time. It has already been decided that CEDEC 2020 will be held online without changing the schedule. Details such as specific contents and platforms will be announced in the near future.

It's future artists - Let's create a virtual singer with AI

Even though today's virtual artists have virtual figures, real people are in them. Even popular vocaloids are based on the voices of real-life actors. However, what if AI learns music and aims to become a singer?
EXDREAM, a company that manages music TECH schools, opened an AI Virtual Singer Lab in the online salon community operated by the crowdfunding platform CAMPFIRE.

This is a project to create and grow him/her with supporters, aiming at the music production by AI by making AI machine learn MIDI. In this project, supporters provide MIDI data, and AI learns them. The research results of what he/she composes will be shared with the supporters. In addition, the machine learning data generated by this project will be distributed, and supporters will be free to use them for their own research and studies.

Of course, he/she has shows on Youtube or Facebook like other virtual artists(VTuber). There are two monthly billing plans to participate in this project. For a monthly fee of 1000 yen, you can watch his/her show every month and read the report email magazines. With a monthly fee of 10,000 yen, you can get many benefits, but unfortunately, all support is in Japanese only.

Japanese virtual performer startup COVER has raised 700 million yen

The real entertainment industry is in recession due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the virtual entertainment industry is booming and the news of funding is continuous.

See also:
Japanese VR performance platform VARK has raised 200 million yen

Japanese virtual performer startup COVER has raised a total of 700 million yen from venture capitalists and individual investors. As a result, their cumulative amount raised to about 1 billion yen.

They are startups of virtual performers(VTuber). Under their umbrella are women's VTuber group Hololive, men's VTuber group Holostars, and the virtual music label Inonaka Music.
In particular, they have recently been focusing on overseas expansion, starting activities in China's video sharing service Bilibili in January 2019, and starting a VTuber business in China in September 2019. They also started the VTuber business in Indonesia in April 2020 and are currently holding a VTuber audition in the English-speaking world.

See also:
Japanese VTuber Productions will expand into the English-speaking world

Their most popular VTuber Tokino-Sora. She debuted in September 2017 and their business started.

Now they have 50 VTubers, and the total number of YouTube and Bilibili fans has exceeded 15 million.

With the funds raised this time, they will strengthen VTubers support, further accelerate VTuber business overseas such as English-speaking countries, and develop new services of XR such as virtual show platform.

The world's largest VR creative festival Virtual Market 4 got over 500,000 visitors

Currently, all real-life events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, virtual world events are thriving.
Japanese VR startup HIKKY announced that the VR creative festival Virtual Market 4 they have been holding since April 29 got more than 500,000 visitors. It will be held until May 10, and they expect to eventually reach one million visitors.

Virtual Market is a creative festival in the VR world. 43 companies and 1400 general creators are exhibiting, and various virtual goods made by them are on sale. In addition, companies are promoting their real products in a virtual world. It's like a real trade show, but because it's a virtual world, the venues are ornately decorated.

See also:
The postponed movie Black Widow will participate in the VR Creative Festival

At this event, exhibitors and visitors can buy and sell various virtual goods, real clothes, PCs, etc. They can also ride the vehicles, watch the videos, walk the cities and enjoy communication. 
This is an event sponsored by a Japanese company, but users from various countries as well as Japan are visiting here. According to them, visitors say, "I feel as if I'm running around outdoors," "I can enjoy safely in a virtual world even under recent circumstances."

Exhibitors also said, "In the virtual world, customers can receive services from their homes without being affected by the coronavirus, and products are purchased." "Feedback not only from Japan but also from overseas users I was able to get it and felt the potential for a new market."

Below are the major companies exhibiting.

Audi Japan:

Visitors can test drive the virtual version of the electric car e-tron.

High-end department store Mitsukoshi

Fashion brand WEGO

Movie company TOHO Cinemas

Convenience store Seven-Eleven

Game company Square Enix

Virtual Market 4 is being held on VRChat and Virtual Cast until May 10.

Way to participate:
https://www.v-market.work/v4/access