As publishers begin gearing up for the 2019 edition of the annual trade conference, Sony has announced major news regarding their status at the event.
The Electonic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is the biggest trade show of the year for the gaming industry and is a place where most companies announce the biggest titles every year.
Despite the status of the show within the industry, it looks like the 2019 edition will missing one of its “Big Three.”
Confirmed in a press release on November 15, Sony will indeed be skipping the event in 2019, meaning that only Nintendo and Microsoft will be the only two of the Big Three in attendance.
This marks the first time in the event’s 24-year history that Sony will not be attending the event.
This looks to be another blow to the conference that has been waning in popularity over the last few years. While many companies still hold their major releases for the show, some are beginning to hold their own events separate from the show itself.
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During E3 2018, both Electronic Arts and Microsoft both held events during the same week of E3, but didn’t hold them at the Los Angeles Convention Center where the rest of the event took place. Nintendo has been showing pre-recorded videos rather than live conferences for the last couple of years, as well.
Despite many seeing this as Sony not seeing the relative worth of holding a conference at the event, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier believes there is another reason completely for the move.
IMO this move says less about E3's relevance and more about Sony's overall 2019 strategy (nobody needs another Death Stranding trailer) but if it is the harbinger of E3's doom, that'll be a bummer
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) November 15, 2018
While he agrees that it would be a sad sight to see if this truly is the death bell for E3, he mainly believes that this is another sign that the PlayStation 5 will be released in 2020.
There have been rumors about the next generation of consoles for the last couple of years, and if this is true, it looks like things could be on their way sooner rather than later.