Sony to Skip E3 for Second Year Ahead of PS5 Launch

On Monday, Sony announced the company will again pass over the game industry’s most critical event: The Electronic Entertainment Expo.

“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 company representative told GamesIndustry.biz.

Sony is expected to launch its next-gen console, the PlayStation 5, this year. An E3 appearance would have set the stage for one of the most important console showdowns in years, as Microsoft is also expected to launch its next-generation XBOX system at the end of the year – and will now have the attention of the industry largely to itself there.

Sony will instead showcase both PS4 and PS5 titles at “hundreds of consumer events around the globe,” said the company representative, not specifying what those events are.

Sony has not officially attended the show since a bizarre and, at best, disjointed presentation across multiple locations in 2018.

A response from the Entertainment Software Association, which organizes E3, did not have a single mention of Sony:

E3 is a signature event celebrating the video game industry and showcasing the people, brands, and innovations redefining entertainment loved by billions of people around the world. E3 2020 will be an exciting, high-energy show featuring new experiences, partners, exhibitor spaces, activations, and programming that will entertain new and veteran attendees alike.