Sony announced this week that it won't be attending E3 2020, marking the second year in a row that the hardware manufacturer has decided to skip the convention. In response to the move, the ESA -- the company known as The Entertainment Software Association which runs E3 -- has published a rather empty statement which doesn't exactly inspire a whole lot of confidence in this year's show.
It reads:
“E3 is a signature event celebrating the video game industry and showcasing the people, brands and innovations redefining entertainment loved by billions of people around the world. E3 2020 will be an exciting, high-energy show featuring new experiences, partners, exhibitor spaces, activations, and programming that will entertain new and veteran attendees alike. Exhibitor interest in our new activations is gaining the attention of brands that view E3 as a key opportunity to connect with video game fans worldwide.”
Despite teasing new experiences, partners, and programming, it sounds like E3 2020 will be very much par for the course. Combine that with Sony's new focus on pre-recorded livestreams that take the form of State of Plays and you can start to see why the Japanese giant has moved away from the event. The hardware manufacturer seemingly no longer needs E3, and following last year's unfortunate leak of journalists' personal details onto the Internet along with a supposed tension between Sony and the ESA, you start to get a much clearer picture of the reasoning behind the decision.
It has already been touted that E3 2020 will be a "fan, media, and influencer festival" as the ESA works to rebrand the expo, reportedly allowing an extra 10,000 tickets to go on sale to the public. The E3 we knew and loved seems to be all but gone, and while Microsoft will still be in attendance, it really does look like the Electronic Entertainment Expo is on its last legs.
How do you react to the ESA's statement? Try and convince Sony to return to E3 in the comments below.
[source theesa.com]
Comments 35
E3 has become irrelevant for the gaming industry as the big 3 and developers have many avenues to get their information out to fans. Although I still like watching Todd Howard going on stage spouting nonsense for an hour or so, generating memes for years to come
E3 is on its last legs, most of the games that are shown in e3 are usually leaked before hand with maybe one or two games that actually do suprise us. Think sony is right to skip e3, and just do their own thing.
I'm wondering what 'activations' are in regard to E3 exhibitors?
While this would be a good chance for Microsoft to promote the Series X and some games Im betting on trailers over gameplay and thats just not fun. Plus most of the xbox conference will be games shown at the Ubisoft and EA conferences. I think Sony are better off not attending
The times they are a changing!
E3 is only as good as the Devs and Companies that attend it. Without a great showing by them E3 fails. I used to take a day off to watch all the E3 press events. But I havent since 2017. E3 stopped being relevant when the 2 thirds of the Big 3 stopped prioritizing it. It was a Great run but now the curtain closes on an Era.
Btw the 1st 2 PSX events felt more like E3 than E3 did so Sony is well covered.
Ms had the spotlight last year, and a lot of the news during that time was about the ps5 and Sony didn't attend. Sony announced they aren't going again, and they are grabbing headlines again. If this was 2008, this would be a huge mistake by Sony, but this era it isn't.
I officially lost interest in E3 once they announced they'll have a bunch of online influencers at this year's show.
I'll just watch the trailers/gameplay and try to avoid everything else, which is kinda sad cause I always looked forward to everything E3 had on offer.
Oh well, times change.
@Deadlyblack @thebakerswife Right with you both. Online influencers: people who'll promote anything if the money or reward is good enough. But I guess you can't blame the ESA when a huge percentage of the population will put their belief and trust in someone, dependent on how many subscribers or likes they have.
So Microsoft is left on a sinking ship. How metaphorical!
E3 is on its last legs?
I doubt Sony will ever go back to E3 and if the Series X is Microsoft’s last console then E3 will most definitely be no more. It’ll be an end of an era, people will have fond memories but will also accept that times are a changing.
I'll miss the days of old staying up to watch the Sony conf but I'm a new dad now. Ain't got the time for that anymore 😂
"Influencer festival", i guess there will be a lot of ethots selling their bath water then, lmao!
E3 will thrive when they close the doors to the public.
A bit harsh to say it's on its last legs. It's still a focal point for publishers, many of whom couldn't get the same exposure by setting up their own expo.
@TheBuzz Hasn't it always been a festival for stroking the egos of "influencers".
@8itmap_k1d exactly. Sony isn’t there so Push Square write it off. No surprise. There should be at least a tiny bit of balance to the reporting.
E3 was good for the gaming industry.
There is every chance Sony will be back at E3 in the future. Basically, they blew their creative load in 2017, screwed it up royally in 2018 and were afraid of ridicule in 2019.
When they feel like they can top 2015-2017, or enough time has passed, they could well show up again. If E3 is still going, that is.
E3 Become source of leaks last few years thank to the workers inside i cannot blame sony to avoid such irrelevant show while sony can make it in it's way as big company with phenomenal studios.
@Stocksy Is it any wonder that Push Square are leaning more towards the direction taken by Playstation bosses? Sony Entertainment probably made the right move here.
"fan, media, and influencer festival"
and that there is enough to put anybody off watching it
@Stocksy they will still cover the event like last year, while you wont see the XBOX or Nintendo stuff covered here all the third party publisher news will be because that is still relevant to the site
remember this is a PlayStation focused site so if there is no PlayStation stuff involved then Push Square wont cover it
Baldur is invulnerable to all threats, physical or magical
I dont blame Sony for avoiding E3 if its because of leaks. The ESA Basically "leaked" the personal info of Journalists and YouTubers last year. So why would Sony trust them with their PS5 info 🤣
@FullbringIchigo To be fair Push Square has been covering certain Xbox news over the years, especially lately with the Series X because it’s the main competitor to the PS5 so it’s relevant.
Also I think Push Square could do with reporting on other stuff rather than just PlayStation, what with Sony rarely engaging with others these days so there’s hardly anything to report on PlayStation wise. There’s only so many times they can keep reposting old articles like Best PS4 Racing Games, Best Sports, Best Open World etc just because they are having a slow news day.
@Callmegil They opened the doors to the public bc it was dying to begin with. And in no small part due to gaming journalists leaking things they weren't supposed to.
When CDPR first revealed Cyberpunk, they put on a private display for the journalists. They were asked to turn over all recording devices before hand. One decided his phone wasn't a recording device, then recorded the private reveal. He later claimed he didn't believe phones were recording devices, despite using it for precisely that reason.
Lets be very clear, those aee the reasons companies are backing out of E3. The public being allowed in was to make up for companies the companies pulling out.
Influencers. I’ve always disliked these people and disliked them about 27 times more after watching the Fire Festival documentaries. Anyway, as I’m a gamer who only owns 1 console and doesn’t play PC games I guess E3 really won’t interest me so much.
E3 is the Microsoft Show anyways, cuz Sony always got d—Ked over with the later time in the evening.
E3 tickets $249, Pax Tickets $50, GamesCon Tickets $10 Public events don't sell floor space and tickets at a 5 to 25 times higher price! This is a big problem now the E3 has gone public.
A trade show is for retailers and news media who buy and report giving free advertisement. This is very valuable to the big 3. Take that out or cut it in half by selling pubic tickets devalues E3.
E3 is loved by BILLIONS around the world Really? That's a big overstatement aka lie. The big 3 consoles have sold less than 300 million consoles in the last 6 years. I don't think PC that is a very small part of E3 makes up the other one billion seven hundred million to even hit 2 billion or above.
Its sad to see such a big icon in gaming fall, but E3 went in the wrong direction. It would be easy to make the mistake that more ticket sales would make E3 bigger and not see the damage inviting the public would do. However is was voiced by the professionals that attended the show. E3 did not respond in favor of them now they are leaving.
The problems started back in the early 2000s. By 2005 - 2006 to many attendees were not involved with direct business of the industry/media. ie. there were to many game stop employees attending. Vendors were complaining that they were spending millions on booths and the crowds made it harder to network.
So in response they did away with the expo part in 2007-2008, but that didn't work and by the time they went back to the expo in 2009, the recession hit, and the smaller company that use to fill teh space including Kentia Hall and actually pay for the expo(for the longest time it was still free to attend) were either gone or didn't have the money to spend on the expo.
Nintendo stopping attending was a big hit, without the support of the larger companies it harder to put on the show and make it free. That why they opened it to the public to make back some of the money.
@MaccaMUFC i would rather see a article about best (insert genre) game than xbox news. This is a playstation site why would they cover anything other than playstation. There are xbox and nintendo sites for news for those consoles. Kinda be like reading a webpage for your favorite sports team, but they are doing articles about teams u dont care about.
I pay attention to E3 news for what announcements and details it offers, not for inspired confidence. It's a literal exposition venue, and I can't see why I would object to there being more exposition venues and tease/release/Direct timing excuses rather than fewer ones.
I really liked E3, purely for Sony/Microsoft announcements. Now that it is just Xbox it feels a bit flat. Sony does need to try and recapture that magic and hype that the E3 of old brought to the table and if they can successfully do that then that will be proof that they really don't need E3. lets hope for a big event and for Sony to come out with some surprises.
@stua12t I think they did just that at PSX 2014 and 2015
The Uncharted 4 live demo and the Untill Dawn live demo were iconic moments just like E3.
Tbh if sony was attending we'll all probably be all hyped and very excited as come on we all love Sony and they've had some frigging amazing shows at e3 in the past, they really have blown it out the water with some shows, but because they're not attending everyone's all like oh e3 is over so it don't matter. I don't Know if you realise but that's like trying to get something you really like and losing out to someone else and then telling yourself oh I didn't really want it so I'm not mad, but inside your dying, it reminds me of that kinda situation, look I get it were fans of Sonys work. But let's not fool ourselves, clearly something is going on behind the scenes some beef between the organisers and Sony because this along with their own state of play etc would be huge for ps5 this year, its going to be huge no matter what, I get that. But the more the merrier. Just my view fans will always make excuses for the brand they're loyal to and hey that's all good but i personally would have loved Sony to come out and show their monster in as many places as possible and e3 is still massive today as it was back in the day. Probably even bigger now with all the influencers.
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