Sony is Skipping E3 2019 Entirely [Update]

PlayStation won't be at E3 2019.

News by Matt Kim, News Editor

Updated on 15 November 2018

Sony issued a statement to Game Informer as to why it is skipping E3 2019 this year:

"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

Sony will be skipping next year's E3 expo entirely in what is sure to be a major blow the annual video game conference.

Revealed in the Entertainment Software Association's news blast for the 2019 E3, Sony and PlayStation will not be attending the event for the first time in 24-years. No word on why exactly PlayStation decided to sit out one of the biggest video game conferences of the year in 2019.

Sony previously cancelled its own platform-specific conference, PlayStation Experience, this year citing a lack of games.

However, that shouldn't necessarily be the case for 2019. Sony announced it is working on the PlayStation 4 successor, presumably the PlayStation 5, and there are several high-profiled exclusives in the works like The Last of Us 2 and Death Stranding.

E3 has changed in recent years in the face of competing exhibitions and conferences. There are now several events catering to video games in the calendar year including Gamescom in Germany, Paris Games Week, and increasingly, company's hosting their own events.

EA and Microsoft both moved away from the main convention venue for their own nearby locations. And Nintendo no longer hosts a keynote event, opting to showcase its games at the event while delivering announcements via a Nintendo Direct.

What's more, Nintendo now delivers a steady stream of Nintendo Directs throughout the year, and earlier this month Microsoft revived the X018 fan event in Mexico City to make its own platform-specific announcements.

Last year E3 opened its doors to the public for the first time, essentially becoming a consumer conference in the process. But as the relationship to E3 changes and more avenues for spread out exclusive announcements become available, it's interesting to see how E3 will fare with the news of losing one of the big three exhibitors. Will game announcements and events become more fractured and spread out in the future?

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Matt Kim

News Editor

Matt Kim is a former freelance writer who's covered video games and digital media. He likes video games as spectacle and is easily distracted by bright lights or clever bits of dialogue. He also once wrote about personal finance, but that's neither here nor there.