Sony will not attend E3 2019 in any form

In a crass act of surprise, Sony has announced that they will not be present at next year’s E3 show. There will be no Sony press conference, nor any booth available at arguably the largest gaming expo of the year.

Yesterday, news were coming thick and fast after an article by Variety was posted, which first explained the decision by Sony to skip E3 2019 altogether. Readers were naturally confused as to how such an unexpected shift can be explained. The confusion and frantic online talk was only escalated further after Variety took down their article. Was this an incorrect news? Or did the site publish it too early?

Shortly after this, certainty begot gamers worldwide when Gameinformer published their own article about the matter and Variety reupoloaded their original article. No more confusion. Sony is indeed no longer attending E3.

“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.” – Sony

One of the three big platform holders is parting its ways with the biggest gaming show of the year. A major surprise, as gamers have come to expect the biggest announcements and greatest surprises here, especially from Sony.

The news comes after Sony announced not to have a PSX event this year as well, due to the company not having anything new to show. So, instead of disappointing fans, they rather not have a show at all. What a stark contrast to just last year when they had too much to show.

The absence of Sony at next year’s E3 is probably due to another reason. It’s the elephant in the room. Sony’s next-gen console, the PS5. Rumors about the new console arriving either 2019 or 2020 are swirling on the web for a while now, but today’s news is probably the biggest sign of at least an announcement for the PS5 sometime next year. We wouldn’t be surprised with a Summer PSX event unveiling the PS5 and its release in Holiday/Spring 2019/2020. Kotaku’s Jason Schreier does also believe this to be a credible release window.

Reading Sony’s statement regards their decision today, it sounds like we will be seeing similar new ways of promotion. The media landscape has admittedly changed a lot with the ever-growing popularity of Twitch and YouTube, that E3’s traditional big show is starting to feel like a remnant of the 90s.

Nintendo famously changed their E3 policy in 2014, when the company decided to no longer have live press conferences but instead focus on booths and their Directs. The new PR format of prerecorded videos released in intervals during the year turned out to be a success for Nintendo. Meanwhile, Microsoft has issued a statement that they will continue having a press conference at E3 2019 which means massive PR win as they are the only platform holder having a show.