PlayStation’s performance at the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo helped assure the PS4’s success. Yet, on the console’s five year anniversary, PlayStation is withdrawing from E3 2019. Why?
Happy birthday, PlayStation 4! In marking the PlayStation 4’s fifth anniversary, Sony announced a console sales milestone (86.1m units,) revealed a new console bundle (for “Call of Duty: Black Ops 4,”) and published a list of developers’ favourite games (“God of War” was top, with “Horizon Zero Dawn” and “Bloodborne” next in line.)
It also confirmed that in 2019, and for the first time in 24 years, it would not attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
E3 is where, in 1995, Sony announced its debut console, the PlayStation, and undercut Sega’s doomed Saturn by $100 USD. In 2013, Sony did the same to Microsoft and hobbled the Xbox One.
But now PlayStation is withdrawing from E3 2019, not long after announcing that its dedicated fan expo, December’s PlayStation Experience, would likewise skip 2018.
“PlayStation fans mean the world to us and we always want to innovate, think differently and experiment,” it told Game Informer.
“We are exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community in 2019 and can’t wait to share our plans with you.”
That desire for new modes of engagement was seen at E3 2018, when PlayStation focused on just four games — “Death Stranding,” “Ghost of Tsushima,” “The Last of Us Part II” and “Marvel’s Spider-Man.”
Not entirely successful, the room-to-room presentation landed partway between a traditional keynote and Nintendo’s single-title, day-long showfloor focus.
Perhaps a more critical reason might be a lack of product. “We wouldn’t have enough… we don’t want to set expectations really high and then not deliver,” Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden said of the PlayStation Experience in September.
Creative playset “Dreams” and post-apoc adventure “Days Gone” were still on for 2019, he said, leaving space for “Death Stranding,” “Ghost of Tsushima” and “The Last of Us Part II” to arrive in 2020 or beyond.
In addition, PlayStation is expected to produce a new machine in the near future, the sort of announcement that usually occurs as a dedicated Sony-hosted event.
But if PlayStation is staying away from E3, it’s one more opportunity for Xbox to take full advantage. Microsoft now has the more powerful console, the Xbox One X, and in Xbox Game Pass a monthly subscription option that offers the kind of advantage PS+ gave Sony on the cusp of the PS4 era.
Yet both are now dealing with the rise of mobile phones and, through cross-platform games like “Fortnite,” the possibility that the next generation of consoles will be the last.