In a shocking and upsetting move, Sony announced earlier today that PlayStation is skipping E3 2019. The news broke through Variety and confirmed by the ESA and Sony.
As the industry evolves, Sony Interactive Entertainment continues to look for inventive opportunities to engage the community,” according to the statement. “PlayStation fans mean the world to us and we always want to innovate, think differently and experiment with new ways to delight gamers. As a result, we have decided not to participate in E3 in 2019. We are exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community in 2019 and can’t wait to share our plans with you.”
This marks the first time in 24 years that PlayStation is absent from the ESA-run event which is hosted in Los Angeles every year. This is now the second time in so many months where Sony announced an annual event cancellation, with PSX no longer happening in December.
According to Shawn Layden, the PSX event being cancelled was due to studios not having enough to show to consumers but studios were making good progress on their respective games.
The past few years has seen giants like Electronic Arts forego E3 and instead host their own event in the week leading up to E3. Nintendo has also moved away from the typical stage presence at E3 and instead featured pre-recorded footage for events. Microsoft even decided to get in on this with an event being held at a theatre in LA.
What makes this rough for consumers and developers is just how big of a presence Sony has. Being absent from one of the biggest conferences in the world now leaves a large gap. From here, who knows how the ESA decides to close up the hole created now that Sony is gone.
Currently, this week marks the fifth anniversary of the PlayStation 4. Rumours begun to swirl earlier this week about the successor, the PlayStation 5.
If anything, this sets a tone for the event and a likely inclination that Sony has big plans for the next year. There could very well be a reveal event sometime in 2019 for the PlayStation 5 and hopefully another PSX event, too.
