In the movie world, the yearly Oscar award is the most binding event, in the gaming it’s E3. From the community updates to new exciting titles to surprise hardware revamps, E3 makes it exciting to be a gamer. Playstation however, is skipping on the event altogether in 2019.
Sony’s absence was originally stated by the Entertainment Software Association, which only listed Microsoft and Nintendo as competitors to next year’s event. As of today, however, Sony has confirmed the lack of presence of the PlayStation brand themselves.
“As the community evolves, Sony interactive Entertainment continues to look for inventive opportunities to engage the community,” said a Sony representative in a statement to Variety, further adding “As a result, we have decided not to participate in E3 in 2019. We are exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community and can’t wait to share our plans with you.”
After this announcement, fans were quick to assume that all E3 announcements were being moved to Sony’s proprietary PlayStation Experience, but Shawn Rayden, chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment said that the company won’t be hosting that event either due to the “lack of games to show”.
Whether or not Sony will jump into the news streaming “Nintendo Direct” style announcement type, or simply create a format we have never seen before is unknown, but the lack of their presence at E3 brings players one less reason to tune in and revel in their gamer culture.