Cut corners: The triumphant return of what was purported to be one of many gaming business’s greatest annual occasions took a serious hit. E3 2023 would be the first occasion within the Los Angeles Expo’s 18-year historical past with none main console maker exhibiting.
IGN sources have confirmed that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have declined to take part within the 2023 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The massive three console makers will not be holding press conferences or exhibiting up in showrooms this 12 months.
Microsoft will maintain its showcase across the identical time as E3, however the latest information makes it the final console maker to cease collaborating instantly within the expo. Over the previous few years, Sony and Nintendo have stayed away from it.
Every 12 months since 2013, Nintendo has launched a pre-recorded presentation as a substitute of an E3 press convention, but it surely continues to indicate it within the exhibit corridor. Sony utterly refused to take part in E3 from 2019, because it adopted Nintendo’s follow of manufacturing pre-recorded displays all year long. Microsoft launched its first pre-recorded announcement reel final week, suggesting that every one three console makers have discovered alternate options to bodily press conferences.
Losing the Big Three — beforehand seen as the guts of the occasion — will not assist E3 recuperate from pandemic-related cancellations. The occasion was canceled for the primary time in 2020, with an online-only occasion held the next 12 months. The hybrid E3 was deliberate for 2022, however switched to a different online-only occasion earlier than failing utterly.
Event organizer ReedPop will handle the deliberate hybrid E3 2023 with the Expo’s conventional supervisor, the Entertainment Software Association. Other main gaming corporations have but to announce plans to attend E3 or maintain particular person occasions this summer season.
Whether it aligns with E3 or not, Nintendo remains to be more likely to launch a “Nintendo Direct” presentation in June. Electronic Arts has but to say whether or not it can maintain an “EA Play” alongside E3 this 12 months, a follow it began in 2016 however skipped final 12 months. Ubisoft hasn’t mentioned something up to now, and PC Gamer hasn’t confirmed E3 2023’s PC gaming present.
Microsoft’s withdrawal from the occasion got here as a shock, as Xbox boss Phil Spencer praised E3 in a latest interview with IGN. He mentioned he needed to assist make the expo successful, suggesting that Microsoft’s summer season occasion would complement E3, even when the corporate did not present something on the exhibit flooring this 12 months.
As if to trace, the Twitter account for Summer Game Fest remind Followers of its deliberate date will host displays from many main gaming corporations – June eighth.
