The E3 Gamers Loved Is Dead and Buried
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3 for short, has been losing relevance for several years now. It was, for a while, a convenient place to gather the press and let them cover upcoming games and consoles, and continued to be for a gaming audience that wanted all their news and streams from the biggest gaming companies in one place. But its influence began fading when companies realized they could hold their own conferences and streams on their own time, to go right to the audience. It’s why Nintendo hasn’t done a conference since 2012, though they’ve continued to have a presence at the show.
Sony exiting E3 entirely in 2019 was the biggest evidence yet of the event’s declining relevance, though it wasn’t enough to determine that E3 would forever be changed. At the time, it appeared to be a one-off occurrence thanks to Sony being in a transitional period. They haven’t announced an exclusive title since Ghost of Tsushima at their Paris Games Week conference in 2017, and for a while, that’s been one of their only upcoming titles alongside the recently-released Death Stranding, and the upcoming The Last of Us Part II. Other projects were being saved for the PlayStation 5, while the remaining PS4 titles could be shown on their own time.
This is why their choice to also skip this year’s event is the real illuminating occurrence, and confirms that E3 as we know it is dead in the water.
Sony’s announcement, first reported by GamesIndustry.biz, came as a surprise after all signs pointed to them attending E3 this year. They announced how they’d skip E3 2019 all the way back in November of 2018, and were likely to use E3 as an opportunity to promote the PS5 and its software. No such announcement regarding their presence at E3 2020 had come from them in November or December 2019, so it seemed they would be there, even though it wasn’t too late for them to confirm their absence. Now, we know for sure.
A Sony spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz that instead of attending E3 2020, Sony will be present at “hundreds of events” throughout the year. (This means they’ll be at a lot of them — there are no “hundreds.”) “We have great respect for the [Entertainment Software Association] as an organization, but we do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year,” the spokesperson continued. The ESA responded by promoting how they’ll still have a great show, but interestingly noted how it will have new “experiences” and “activations,” perhaps implying how it could be a different kind of show.
As mentioned above, skipping E3 makes sense these days thanks to the bevy of options that exist to reach the gaming audience, though this is easier for some companies compared to others. But there’s something peculiar happening here: If Sony is really attending so many shows throughout 2020, why not this one? Rumor has it that beef exists between Sony and the ESA, though details about it are tragically thin. It’s unlikely they’re backing out due to the ESA carelessly leaking contact info of several E3 attendees for the past several years, something moronic on its own. Maybe more details about what’s happening between them will leak in the months ahead.
None of this is to say E3 2020 won’t make for an entertaining time, because the overall event won’t become entirely irrelevant overnight. Xbox Head of Studios Phil Spencer quickly acknowledged on Twitter that they will be present with several announcements, particularly for Xbox Series X next-generation consoles. Nintendo will likely attend, too, but they don’t tend to confirm their potential presence until around March or April. It will also be entertaining from a different perspective if the ESA’s new plans for E3 turn the show into a mess.
Before E3 arrives in June, Sony will have a big event to reveal the PS5 and its software. That could happen next month, according to Vice’s Patrick Klepek on the latest Waypoint Radio podcast (go one hour and 39 minutes in). The timing would make sense given that Sony held a PlayStation Meeting to reveal several PS4 games and specs in February 2013. The question here is the precise time when it will happen, and whether Sony will a show the PS5 hardware this time. The actual PS4 hardware wasn’t revealed until E3 2013 that year, so it’s bound to be different this time around.
There was a time when E3 was referred to as “Gaming Christmas,” thanks to the bevy of announcements made all in one place. But that time has come and gone, and the audience will simply have to accept that it will never be the same again. It’s not like the ESA hasn’t been preparing for this inevitability, to make future E3’s more similar (but not exactly identical) to the PAX conventions that occur throughout the year — including one this weekend. The new arrangement could work out for Sony, but whether this will be fine for the ESA and E3 will be determined — assuming the ESA doesn’t make any further unforced errors from here on. Don’t count them out.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
