Sony, XBox And Nintendo Are All Skipping E3

Is E3 coming back this year? That depends on who you ask. If you ask the event organizers, they’ll say “YEAH baby, it’ll be a blast!” If you ask the largest video game companies in the world, they’ll say “meh, not really.”

IGN has broken the news that neither Microsoft, Nintendo or Sony have plans to show anything on the floor of E3. This was a gradual decay, not a sudden one — Microsoft was the last holdout. Nintendo’s last booth presence at E3 was in 2019, and we can’t remember the last time Sony was actually at an E3.

Some kind of event organizing company called ReedPop is handling E3 now (they also organize PAX and Star Wars Celebration, among others). They’re quoted as saying “E3 2023 will be recognizably epic—a return to form that honors what’s always worked—while reshaping what didn’t and setting a new benchmark for video game expos in 2023 and beyond.” This quote was before the Big Three news went down.

What’s left? Third parties like EA, Ubisoft….and Activision, assuming the FTC can keep their merger with Microsoft from taking place before then. And it’s not like the big boys will be doing NOTHING in June — XBox officials say they’ll have E3-adjacent attractions and announcements happening, just not within E3 itself. And Nintendo usually holds a big Direct video in June whether they’re officially at the Expo or not.

But it’s anyone’s guess at this point how long E3 can last as an institution.