This should be the year that E3 – once the brightest center of the video game universe – returned as a live show “recognisably epic” for the first time since 2019 following industry setbacks and a global pandemic. Today’s reports show: however, that it will do without any the power player of the console industry.
One story further IGN tonight says “All three of gaming’s first-party console makers appear poised to skip E3’s grand return,” meaning that for the first time in the live show’s history, not a single one of them will be at what has traditionally been its climax event was year.
While this is the definitive straw for E3, this has been coming for a while. Nintendo stopped holding major E3 press conferences ten years ago (although the company had a showroom presence at the last live show in 2019), and Microsoft and Bethesda recently opted to host their own showcases alongside the E3 celebrations. Sony too started sharing E3 stuff a few years ago.
While Microsoft won’t be attending official E3 events, boss Phil Spencer says Xbox will be doing things in 2023 like it has in recent years Next E3 so that all the press and industry people who are in town for this show will be there for theirs too. It’s unknown what Nintendo and Sony will do in lieu of E3, if anything, although Geoff Keighley’s rival Summer Games Fest will take place around the same time.
It’s important to note that this isn’t the same E3 as it was in the old days. The event specialists ReedPop took over the planning the show last yearand said:
For years we’ve heard, heard and studied feedback from the global gaming community. E3 2023 will be recognisably epic – a return to form that honors what has always worked – while redesigning what didn’t work and setting a new benchmark for video game trade shows in 2023 and beyond.
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How they’ll be without “recognizable epic.” any It’s unclear if the platform’s main owner is present, although in a statement to IGN, ReedPop said:
Having spent much of 2022 refining the shape of E3 2023 and reflecting on the feedback we solicited, we haven’t sent a single contract to an exhibitor as of earlier this month. We’ve had tremendous interest and verbal commitments from many of the biggest companies in the industry and when we’re ready to announce the exhibitors we’re confident it will be a lineup well worth the trip to Los Angeles for industry and consumers alike.