Sony had already sparked some speculation and reports that the console maker would be skipping E3 2020 once again. And it turns out that these rumors were rather on point. Sony will in fact be skipping E3 2020, saying that their plans for the year don’t align with the direction the convention has taken.
The gaming entity told GamesIndustry.biz that it will be foregoing E3 2020, saying “we do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year.” Instead Sony says that it will make appearances at consumer events around the world to show off new games for both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. This likely means that Sony will be pushing the PS5 into other events, or possibly holding a full reveal event during their own event.
Everyone who called on this rumor earlier today already sussed out why the company wanted to make this decision last year, and it appears to be the same thing this year. 2020 is an increasingly competitive year for console gaming, and Sony needs every bit of the news cycle focused on their brand as possible. It’s also entirely possible that gaffs like the data leak from the ESA made this decision easier for Sony. It will also be very telling if any other developers, publishers or other companies skip E3 this year too.
Sony’s decision not to attend E3 2019 led to a lot of disappointed fans of course, but there was something more. Previous outings for Sony and other vendors had revealed a major problem for the ESA, the company behind E3, as they tried to adjust to the future.
Another rumor that was confirmed by leaks revealed how the ESA wants to use the “social good brand” of E3 to gain “positive chits for future use”. This basically amounts to the really irritating idea of pushing the E3 brand more towards a much more consumer-focused event. This meant that E3 could very well become an event choked with much more advertising and sponsorship than previous years. It’s unclear if E3 2020 will follow this route, but it’s pretty clear that the ESA needs to do something.
