While the PlayStation 5 will be launching later this year, Sony confirmed today that it won’t have a presence at E3 2020 as recent rumors had indicated.
“We have great respect for the ESA as an organization, but we do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year,” a spokesperson for Sony Interactive Entertainment told GamesIndustry.biz. “We will build upon our global events strategy in 2020 by participating in hundreds of consumer events across the globe. Our focus is on making sure fans feel part of the PlayStation family and have access to play their favorite content. We have a fantastic line up of titles coming to PlayStation 4, and with the upcoming launch of PlayStation 5, we are truly looking forward to a year of celebration with our fans.”
This marks the second straight year that PlayStation won’t be at gaming’s biggest trade show. They had been a mainstay at the Electronic Entertainment Expo until last year, where they skipped having their usual press conference and didn’t have any space on the show floor. They traditionally had one of the largest booths at the show until this point and will once again not have a booth at E3 2020.
While industry rival Microsoft will still have a presence at E3 2020 and put on their yearly press conference to show off Xbox Series X, Sony will be looking to show off its new console in different ways. PlayStation has slowly moved away from press conference reveals with its State of Play series of prerecorded announcement videos taking the place. These types of streams became a mainstay in gaming thanks to Nintendo’s Direct series, and they allow Sony to spread announcements throughout the year rather than focusing entirely on big E3 reveals.
