Updated:
Game Informer has received a statement from the company, giving fans a little look into why the company is not participating in E3 2019:
“As the industry evolves, Sony Interactive Entertainment continues to look for inventive opportunities to engage the community. 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.”
Original Story:
Variety has reported that Sony will be skipping E3 2019 and won’t have any presence at the show for the first time in 24 years.
Apparently, the news was buried inside the Entertainment Software Association’s announcement of the 2019 show that quoted competitors Nintendo and Microsoft. Earlier this year Sony also canceled another showcase presence, PS Experience.
Rumors were flying around that the company would split from the E3 conference, but no one thought it would be true. In today’s day and age, the conference isn’t as meaningful for developers to show off their games anymore because, with the massive following on social media, YouTube, etc the company could announce something online or hold their own event like EA Play or even their own show PS Experience and get the news out that way.
Shawn Layden stated earlier this year that Sony didn’t want to bring people altogether for an event and disappoint them by not delivering on “really high expectations”.
“Now that we have ‘Spiderman’ out the door, we’re looking down in 2019 to games like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Days Gone’ but we wouldn’t have enough to bring people altogether in some location in North America to have that event,” Layden said.”We don’t want to set expectations really high and then not deliver on it.”
Perhaps Sony canceled PlayStation Experience 2018 to have their own big showing coinciding with E3 2019. Or perhaps they are gearing up with a new batch of games that are worth their own conference sometime later in 2019. With E3 2019 scheduled for June, Sony still has some time to officially announce their plans to the public.
What do you think about Sony skipping E3 2019? Let us know in the comments below and make sure to keep your eyes peeled on Gameranx as we will be bringing the latest updates on the matter.
