Sony PlayStation Won't Attend E3 2019

Sony has confirmed that it won’t be attending E3 2019 next year. This means that Sony will not have its own booth nor will it have a special press conference during the video game trade show.

“As the industry evolves, Sony Interactive Entertainment continues to look for inventive opportunities to engage the community,” Sony said in a statement sent to Game Informer. “PlayStation fans mean the world to us and we always want to innovate, think differently and experiment with new ways to delight gamers. As a result, we have decided not to participate in E3 in 2019. We are exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community in 2019 and can’t wait to share our plans with you.”

The announcement was a huge surprise to many since Sony has been attending E3 since the very first trade show in 1995. The very first E3 event was when Sony introduced the original PlayStation to the world. When asked if Sony will hold a presentation of any kind outside of E3, a PlayStation representative confirmed to Polygon that the company will not have any programming while E3 is on-going.

This isn’t the first time that Sony skipped an annual event. This year, Sony decided not to hold its annual PlayStation Experience conference, which has been happening every December since 2014. Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios head Shawn Layden explained that they decided to skip PlayStation Experience this year because they “wouldn’t have enough to bring people all together in some location in North America to have an event.”

Although Sony PlayStation won’t have any presence whatsoever at E3 2019, the gaming expo will still feature a lot of other video game companies. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the group that runs E3, published a press release yesterday, confirming that Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo, Activision, Bethesda, Capcom, Epic games, Konami, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive Ubisoft and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will be in attendance at E3 2019. Xbox boss Phil Spencer also teased on Twitter that they have a lot to share with fans at the upcoming event.

“E3 2018 broke records, and we sold out of both exhibit space and attendee badges,” interim CEO of the ESA Stanley Pierre-Louis said. “We are confident that, through the continued creative innovations delivered by our participating member companies, E3 2019 will deliver the same kind of excitement and energy.”

E3 2019 will run from June 11-13 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.