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Thread: Sony to Skip E3

  1. #1
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    IMPress Polly's Avatar Senior Member
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    Sony to Skip E3

    Wow. So Sony has recently announced that they will not attend next year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3 for short), which is, of course, the video game industry's most prominent annual trade show. It's been put on annually since 1995 by the Entertainment Software Association, which is the American video game industry's lobbying arm. The connection to 1995 lies in that it was at that first E3 that Sony announced the original PlayStation, so there's an historical connection there between the founding of this annual ritual and Sony's original entry into the console gaming market. It strikes one as at least symbolically significant then that, for the first time, they will have no presence at all at next year's E3: no press conference, no booth, no nothing. Totally abstention.

    Sony released a vague statement saying that they hope to communicate with their player base in more "innovative" ways in the future as the sole official explanation, leaving one to speculate that perhaps the company's more substantive motivation might lie in a lack of previously undisclosed software to announce. They have recently announced that they are now in the process of creating a new home console (presumably to be innovatively called PlayStation 5 ). The general suspicion is that Sony is in the process of crafting a solid launch line-up for this next console, to presumably launch in late 2020, and, for that reason, would have little of note in the way of first-party titles that hasn't already been announced for their existing system, the PlayStation 4, to disclose next year. I'm inclined to agree with that and also would note the sour reception that their press conference this year garnered. I actually liked their heartfelt, soulful press conference the best this year, but apparently that is yet another way in which my thinking is not aligned with that of typical gamers to judge by the prevailing responses I saw on gaming forums indicating a broad preference for Microsoft's bland, corporate one. Perhaps this negative treatment from both gamers and the gaming press might also be part of the calculation here, methinks. Anyway, with the PlayStation 4 enjoying a 58% market share among 8th generation gaming consoles, Sony can definitely get away with this. (A study released over the summer, incidentally, found that 70% of Switch owners also own either a PS4 or an Xbox One, so don't be deceived by sky high Switch sales; those are mostly people who already own PS4s, not new or different gamers.)

    Nintendo similarly skipped E3 altogether back in 2013, though they went back to having a booth at the annual trade show afterward. Being as their then-new Wii U system had quickly become a flop, one saw the motivation. Still, the decision to only do a pre-recorded online broadcast was shocking at the time; a certain thumbing of the nose at the broader industry and gaming press that, always feeling like kind of an outsider even among gaming geeks, I empathized with and supported, as some here may recall. I found there to be something subtly noble about Nintendo throwing the proverbial bird at the larger gaming industry, seeming to discount profit as a motive for making games and to say that they'd rather be true to themselves than make more money. I find there to be something similarly empathetic here, personally, for the same reasons. But maybe I'm just too emotional and excessively sympathetic to Sony as a publisher after the new trailer for The Last of Us Part II from this year's E3 and the ridiculous controversy that it caused for daring to include a lesbian kiss. (For perspective, TLOU2 will be the first AAA release in history to center a lesbian character, to which end it has special emotional value to me already.) What do you think?
    Last edited by IMPress Polly; 11-25-2018 at 08:11 PM.

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    Ethereal's Avatar Senior Member
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    I don't really understand it. I could see investing less money into their E3 presence, but not showing up at all? That just seems lazy. Even if they had a relatively spartan set up, they would still get solid exposure from being present. If they really are working hard on a PS5 system, then they should talk about the future of Sony gaming. Really, ANYTHING would have been better than NOTHING. But, as you noted, they can get away with this, since they are so huge.
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
    --John Adams

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