NOTE: This article was released on February 2, 2023, and re-released on Thursday, February 27th 2024 with no additional changes.
NEW YORK, NY (THE WORLD TELEGRAM NEWS) — Three major video game companies: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, will be no-shows at this year’s E3 Convention, reports say.
IGN, a gaming publication, reports this change is due to “reported industry frustration over how the show is being handled.”
The company behind E3, the Entertainment Software Association, partnered with Reedpop, (a company who works on community events like New York Comic Con,) to help oversee E3’s 2023 convention. In a statement last September, Reedpop said that they were ready to quote, “reunite the industry” with the annual gaming event.
However, those ambitions may have been dashed. Here’s what’s changing this year:
- Nintendo rarely holds presentations or showcases at E3, but instead runs a booth at the convention yearly. This year however, that booth won’t be there either.
- Microsoft will skip their yearly E3 showcase, as it’s expected they will run it’s own summer convention for it’s XBOX consoles later this year.
- Sony has not participated in E3 since 2019, opting to run their own (behind-closed-doors) conference called the “Destination PlayStation” which would be subsequently discontinued in 2020. Sony didn’t go to E3 2020 either, instead running their own presentation in June, where they would unveil their next generation console, the PlayStation 5. Sony has not participated in either of the subsequent 2021, or 2022 conventions.
This marks a turning point for the convention, as for the first time, the expo will have participants only from third-party developers and publishers. With that said, the current list of participants has not been disclosed as of yet. E3 2023 is said to take place on Tuesday, June 13th.