Sony has officially confirmed that they won’t be attending E3 2020 just like last year. According to a spokesperson, gamesindustry.biz reports, Sony does not feel that E3 2020 is the right venue for what they are focused on this year.
We have great respect for the ESA as an organization, but we do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year.
This new piece of information may not come as a surprise to some as E3’s presence in the gaming industry seems to have diminished in the last few years.
Kotaku’s Jason Schreier confirmed that last year’s E3 2019 remained shockingly empty in contrast to Sony not attending and Microsoft having their press showcase at L.A. Live complex which is right next door to E3.
Sony also seems to have some internal conflict or tension going on with ESA regarding their vision for the gaming’s biggest trade show, which Jason Schreier confirmed as well.
ESA, the organization that runs E3 also leaked personal information of over 2000 journalists last year which also led to the question of integrity and E3 as a whole. Speaking to Kotaku, ESA confirmed how they are planning to make up for such a highly controversial scenario.
ESA is, in partnership with outside cybersecurity experts, taking steps to enhance our data protection practices for E3 registration. We have engaged a new firm to develop and build a new E3 website. To instill confidence in the new website, we plan to engage in robust testing of the new site’s security before its launch. And moving forward, we also will change our practices in order to collect only the minimum information necessary to complete registration of our media attendees.
E3 has failed to competence itself over the last few years as not just being a security threat to the participating media companies but also an expensive one on top that. It seems as both Sony and Nintendo at this point would rather have their own events that are economically viable to them.
Many people believed that Sony didn’t attend E3 2019 because they didn’t have much to showcase whether it comes to the first-party or third-party titles. This didn’t come as a surprise since Sony’s E3 2018 was a very grounded affair as well where the company focused their event on four big games rather than a plethora of them.
This, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that Sony won’t be back at E3 2021 (if that even happens) but as of now, that ship seems to have sailed.
The PS5 reveal is bound to happen soon and Sony has confirmed that they will be “attending hundreds of consumer events across the globe to showcase the upcoming PS4 and PS5 titles.”
What are your thoughts regarding this inevitable decision by Sony? Do share your thoughts in the comments down below.