As first reported last night by IGN, E3 will apparently be a low-key affair, thanks to the absence of Sony, Nintendo, and Xbox. The news comes from unnamed insider sources who confirmed that all three companies would skip the show, which is expected to return as an in-person dual-pronged event beginning June 13th.
Sony’s PlayStation umbrella hasn’t been at E3 since 2018, although to be fair, E3 2020 and 2022 were canceled while E3 2021 was all-virtual anyway. Like EA with EA Play and Nintendo with Nintendo Direct, Sony has been content to run its own separate showcase. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer had previously declared the company’s support for E3, but it will also formally skip the event, though as Microsoft will be holding its own event nearby the same week is kinda not that different.
E3 was having a rough time even before the pandemic began, and 2023 is the first year when it will be run by PAX’s ReedPop rather than the ESA itself.
“Since ReedPop took on the contract to run E3 six months ago, we’ve worked diligently with ESA members based on their feedback to create a new type of E3 that supports their goals and needs,” ReedPop told IGN. “We continue to work tirelessly to create a show that brings together the global gaming industry. We believe we’ve created a new format for the event that serves the needs of both the industry and its fans, and are committed to building and growing it in the coming years. As we spent much of 2022 refining how E3 2023 would take shape, reflecting on the feedback we solicited, we did not send a single contract to an exhibitor until the start of this month. We have received a tremendous amount of interest and verbal commitments from many of the biggest companies in the industry, and when we are ready to announce the exhibitors we are confident it will be a lineup that will make the trip to Los Angeles well worth it for the industry and consumers alike.”
