Topic: Sony's skipping E3. Again.

[Shaymin]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-01-11-playstation-will-not-participate-in-e3-2020

"After thorough evaluation SIE has decided not to participate in E3 2020," said a Sony Interactive Entertainment spokesperson. "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."

Remind me again why this show continues to exist?

[broodwars]

This move just baffles me. Sony skipping out last year made sense, since they had nothing to show. But this year, they not only have a new console to show off, but a console to dissuade people FROM buying in the Xbox Ranger Operator Series X (  ). For whatever it's worth, Microsoft's going to pretty much have E3 to themselves to show off their (worthless) console that won't have any exclusive games for 2 years.

Between Sony's continued silence on the PS5 and this, I'm starting to wonder if Sony actually has a plan this time with PS5. It feels like nothing is ready to show any time soon.

Now watch Sony announce a PS5 reveal event for 2 weeks from now. 

[ShyGuy]

Arrogant Sony? Sony Exculsive conference? What are the game leaks for PS5?

[nickmitch]

It baffles me that Sony is skipping E3.  It makes me think the console isn't ready/might be pushed back.  Even if they reveal it early to get ahead of Xbox, having it on the floor at E3 gets it more hands.  But if it's not ready and E3 comes and you've got nothing, you're effed because MS will be there.

Assuming Sony isn't totally pooping the bed, I'm gonna assume there's an event they'll announce soon for sometime in the spring.

[Khushrenada]

Nobody thought there could be a bigger win at E3 than the Wii vs PS3 2006 show with people stampeding to get to Nintendo's stuff but then Nintendo curbstomped everyone in 2018 and Sony knows they'll never be able to outdo them so they've packed their bags and left E3 for Nintendo. To the victor goes the spoils!!


Althoooooouuuuugggghhhhh, Nintendo never debuted the Switch at E3. They had a brief clip of the console in September 2016 and got people hyped on the concept. Then they had the Jan. 2017 Switch launch Direct and launched the darn thing two months later in March. Maybe Sony has been looking at Nintendo's Switch success and decided to copy in that regard of not using E3 to debut the PS5 at the same time Microsoft will be talking about their competing console. They may want to generate their own hype when there isn't much else happening in order to dominate the gaming conversation when it happens and have the gaming world sort of focused on them and their plans alone. The way Nintendo handled the Switch release (along with their handling of E3 the past 6 years) may have changed how companies now handle when and how they inform the public of their products.

[lolmonade]

I suspect Sony knows they can make a splash whenever they want to have the PS5's coming out party regardless of the venue or medium it's announced.  I agree with Khush that they're very likely to emulate Nintendo's Switch roll-out, although I don't know if that'll result in the same level of success.  There were a lot of factors leading to Nintendo's Switch reveal, including the fact that people were hopeful for a good Nintendo console.

[Order.RSS]

There's just a lot of inherent risk to sharing your big roll-out reveal in the same week as your primary competitor. 2013 Kinda showed that when both Xbox and PlayStation share details so close to each other, the horse-race media frame becomes inevitable. Sure, it'll always happen, even if the console releases are staggered a year apart (see PS2 vs. Xbox/GC or X360 vs. PS3), but at least then you have a year to build a library. Now they're releasing in the same year again, I think both parties are seeing the risk-reward proposition and deeming it not worth taking.

Sony won with ease last time around, but amongst core gamers/early adopters I think there's a brewing desire for an Xbox comeback story. Does that demographic matter much? Not really in the long run, but for initial buzz it's nice to get them on your side.
Microsoft is pretty effectively signaling they're in this for the long haul, with a focus on software going forward. They're building momentum, kinda like how the PS3 did towards the end of that generation. PS3 dropped prices hard, doubled down on software and just tried to get into as many homes as possible; which is how they ultimately overtook X360 sales late in that generation, and carried great momentum into the current gen. Right now that's basically mirrored in the Xbox One S/All Digital strategy; sell them for 175$ with 3 games included and GamePass as your trojan horse.

I don't know how much Sony could gain from E3; Microsoft could undercut them somewhere (be it price, launch line up, maybe they'll make Xbox Live free) and then you're left scrambling. Sony already ceded E3 to Xbox last year, so it feels like less like they're avoiding a direct confrontation and more like a continuation of a new business strategy.
They can skip (or undercut!) E3 without losing too much face, and their 100 million consumer base will likely be largely receptive to their future marketing endeavours anyway. It's Microsoft who need to prove themselves on the big stage - if MS goes all out, Sony just risks looking weak. Better to launch on their own terms, business-wise.

[Adrock]

Ehh, I don’t think this will hurt Sony much, if at all. PlayStation 4 pretty handily dominated Xbox One. Sony will get the media coverage whether or not it has a booth at E3. Once it formally announces a PlayStation 5 event, many of those same journalists will be present. On top of that, every PlayStation 4 connected to the internet will get ads and whatnot.

I remember when it was controversial when Nintendo stopped having E3 press conferences even though it still had one of the largest booths at E3. That got overblown, and I feel like this will too.

E3 isn’t as important as it once was because of the internet. Companies have so many different ways of reaching people now. It’s still nice to be able to gather thousands of industry folk in one place.

[ThePerm]

What's the point of e3 now that decent video streaming exists now?

Sony won't be at e3, but they'll probably have a youtube video telling us all about it when e3 happens. Why rent a giant hallway when you don't need to?

Back when I used to get all excited about e3 it was a different time. It took 2 hours to download a 4 minute video and it was low quality. Now I don't have any problem watching a 4k video without it even needing to buffer. They don't need to wait to enclose a bunch of journalists in a big room to get the word out. They can just release a video on Youtube and there will be 4000 commentary/reaction videos a minute later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr21yytlGCc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu3Xdo1Azrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SsT2ldXF90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzPFzN0_uE4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVu3RrfPSo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlpqdmJI5wo

[lolmonade]

What's the point of e3 now that decent video streaming exists now?

Sony won't be at e3, but they'll probably have a youtube video telling us all about it when e3 happens. Why rent a giant hallway when you don't need to?

Back when I used to get all excited about e3 it was a different time. It took 2 hours to download a 4 minute video and it was low quality. Now I don't have any problem watching a 4k video without it even needing to buffer. They don't need to wait to enclose a bunch of journalists in a big room to get the word out. They can just release a video on Youtube and there will be 4000 commentary/reaction videos a minute later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr21yytlGCc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu3Xdo1Azrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SsT2ldXF90
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzPFzN0_uE4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVu3RrfPSo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlpqdmJI5wo

Hands-on impressions from media outlets on unfinished games.  I always thought it'd be cool once E3 became less relevant if devs would more often offer the E3 demo direct to consumers, but I could see non-press being a lot less forgiving about glitches and technical issues on unfinished games.

[nickmitch]

What's the point of e3 now that decent video streaming exists now?

Sony won't be at e3, but they'll probably have a youtube video telling us all about it when e3 happens. Why rent a giant hallway when you don't need to?

Back when I used to get all excited about e3 it was a different time. It took 2 hours to download a 4 minute video and it was low quality. Now I don't have any problem watching a 4k video without it even needing to buffer. They don't need to wait to enclose a bunch of journalists in a big room to get the word out. They can just release a video on Youtube and there will be 4000 commentary/reaction videos a minute later.

Hands-on impressions from media outlets on unfinished games.  I always thought it'd be cool once E3 became less relevant if devs would more often offer the E3 demo direct to consumers, but I could see non-press being a lot less forgiving about glitches and technical issues on unfinished games.

I think this is the major point of E3.  With new hardware, you want it in people's hands so they can try it out.  Granted, Sony can do their own thing and people will come, but it's a lot easier on people to go to one big event, where everyone will be, than several small events.

In a non-console release year, I'd get it.  You can just do a video presentation (it's all the same for people at home and you can send to journalists in advance so that stories can go up once it's out) and then just put demos in your online shop.

[broodwars]

I find the argument about developers not wanting the public to have access to unfinished & buggy games increasingly tiresome.

For one, they release games like that all the time & spend the next 6-12 months patching them to completion.  How is playing a game actively in development all that different these days?

Second, early access games commonly exist now.

Last, these same companies take their unfinished trash to shows like PAX and GamesCom, which are public shows. Even E3 allows the public these days.

Given all that, I don't see why public downloadable E3 demos could do that much harm. Code them right, and even the data miners won't be able to hurt you.

[lolmonade]

I find the argument about developers not wanting the public to have access to unfinished & buggy games increasingly tiresome.

For one, they release games like that all the time & spend the next 6-12 months patching them to completion.  How is playing a game actively in development all that different these days?

Second, early access games commonly exist now.

Last, these same companies take their unfinished trash to shows like PAX and GamesCom, which are public shows. Even E3 allows the public these days.

Given all that, I don't see why public downloadable E3 demos could do that much harm. Code them right, and even the data miners won't be able to hurt you.

Well, I don't have a strong opinion on this one way or another really.  But I've heard stories on the NWR podcasts as well as others about games outright crashing and devs needing to restart the demo over for them, so I would think maybe if you don't have a developer rep guiding the experience itself to you that maybe the slice of game they're demonstrating might not show as well as they'd like.  I doubt developers are going to needlessly set themselves up for bad impressions from gamers - which is the same reason why I think you don't see demos being as prevalent as they used to be on some platforms.

Early access is also a different beast - in theory you're buying-in at the ground floor with the promise that the developer will continue to support and improve upon the game and when at full release will bump up the retail price.  When you send a demo out you're not getting revenue in at all, and potentially opening yourself up to people being turned-off by the (incomplete) game you're working on and could turn-away people that could possibly be interested in a finished product.

[broodwars]

I find the argument about developers not wanting the public to have access to unfinished & buggy games increasingly tiresome.

For one, they release games like that all the time & spend the next 6-12 months patching them to completion.  How is playing a game actively in development all that different these days?

Second, early access games commonly exist now.

Last, these same companies take their unfinished trash to shows like PAX and GamesCom, which are public shows. Even E3 allows the public these days.

Given all that, I don't see why public downloadable E3 demos could do that much harm. Code them right, and even the data miners won't be able to hurt you.

Well, I don't have a strong opinion on this one way or another really.  But I've heard stories on the NWR podcasts as well as others about games outright crashing and devs needing to restart the demo over for them, so I would think maybe if you don't have a developer rep guiding the experience itself to you that maybe the slice of game they're demonstrating might not show as well as they'd like.  I doubt developers are going to needlessly set themselves up for bad impressions from gamers - which is the same reason why I think you don't see demos being as prevalent as they used to be on some platforms.

Early access is also a different beast - in theory you're buying-in at the ground floor with the promise that the developer will continue to support and improve upon the game and when at full release will bump up the retail price.  When you send a demo out you're not getting revenue in at all, and potentially opening yourself up to people being turned-off by the (incomplete) game you're working on and could turn-away people that could possibly be interested in a finished product.

I know, and I get the argument. That being said, Anthem hard-locked PS4s on release. I see crashes to my PS4 dashboard all the time across a variety of allegedly completed games. With the state that games ship in these days, I don't think that technical concerns are altogether valid when it comes to the issues surrounding downloadable conference demos. For better or worse, we've come to expect games to be nigh-unplayable at launch.

Hell, IIRC there were a bunch of PC demos that went up during The Game Awards, so that tells me the larger hurdle is with the platform holders.

[Adrock]

I know, and I get the argument. That being said, Anthem hard-locked PS4s on release. I see crashes to my PS4 dashboard all the time across a variety of allegedly completed games. With the state that games ship in these days, I don't think that technical concerns are altogether valid when it comes to the issues surrounding downloadable conference demos. For better or worse, we've come to expect games to be nigh-unplayable at launch.

If anything, we should be discouraging this practice, not welcoming more of it because it’s already here.

[broodwars]

It's an open secret right now on Twitter as various people in the know have hinted at it (including Devolver Digital), but apparently E3 2020 has been cancelled.

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1237545500343029766

[ShyGuy]

E3 is skipping Sony.

[ShyGuy]

2020 is probably skipping Sony.