Sony really shocked the world late last year when they announced that they were going to go and skip E3 2019. The company had been going to E3 for over 25 years, and the fact that they were skipping the whole show cold turkey was a big red flag to some in the industry. Was it because of the games they didn’t have to show? Was it about the event itself? What was the reason for the dismissal?
If you call, their first statement on the matter was thus:
“As the industry evolves, Sony Interactive Entertainment continues to look for inventive opportunities to engage the community,” the company told Game Informer in a statement. “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.”
Now, in another interview with Game Informer, Sony’s Shawn Layden has explained that there needs to be a bridge before they come back to E3, and that they will come back in 2020:
“If we jump from the trade show thing to the consumer show… I do think the bridge will appear,” said Sony chairman Shawn Layden in a recent interview with Game Informer. “We did PSX, we didn’t know what that was going to be like. We did it for the 25th anniversary of PlayStation, but we got lucky. If you build it, they will come. That’s the conversation we’re having in real time right now with the ESA. Just because PlayStation is not at E3 2019 doesn’t mean we won’t be there in 2020.”
Whether this strategy is a good one remains to be seen.
