In November of last year, Sony surprised us all by revealing thst they would not be attending this year's E3; making it the first time the company has skipped this event in the show's 24-year history.
The head-scratching decision made by Sony was not explained until recently, when Shawn Layden — former President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America — finally explained the reason behind this rather controversial decision.
In a recent interview with CNET, Layden revealed that things have vastly changed since the first E3 took place back in 1995, and the Internet has — in their opinion — rendered this yearly event somewhat obsolete.
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When we decided to take video games out of CES, back in 1995 during the PlayStation 1 era, E3 served two constituencies: retailers and journalists", explains Layden. "
Retailers would come in -- you'd see a guy come in, and he'd say, "I'm from Sears, and I handle Hot Wheels, Barbie, VHS and video games. So what are you about?" There was a huge educational component. Then you had journalists who had magazines and lead time and jockeying for position on the cover. And there was no internet to speak of. So a trade show at that time of year for this nascent industry was exactly what we needed to do."
Layden also reveals that, even though they will not be attending this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, they do have something planned for retailers and third-party partners to feast their eyes on.
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Now we have an event in February called Destination PlayStation, where we bring all retailers and third-party partners to come hear the story for the year. They're making purchasing discussions in February. June, now, is just too late to have a Christmas holiday discussion with retailers."
He does make a very valid point, especially since we all know the PlayStation 4 is almost at the end of its lifespan; meaning that Sony are already starting to make plans for their next platform and June may be a bit too late in the year to announce new software for the PlayStation 4.
"So retail has really dropped off. And journalists now, with the internet and the fact that 24/7 there is game news, it's lost its impact around that. So the trade show became a trade show without a lot of trade activity. The world has changed, but E3 hasn't necessarily changed with it."
"And with our decision to do fewer games -- bigger games -- over longer periods of time, we got to a point where June of 2019 was not a time for us to have a new thing to say. And we feel like if we ring the bell and people show up here in force, people have expectation 'Oh, they're going to tell us something.'"
Layden does think the E3 still has a place in video game players, but he also believes that the event should focus less on delivering exciting news and more on actually celebrating the video game industry as a whole.
"We are progressing the conversation about, how do we transform E3 to be more relevant? Can E3 transition more into a fan festival of gaming, where we don't gather there to drop the new bomb? Can't it just be a celebration of games and have panels where we bring game developers closer to fans?"
Layden is asked if E3 should be something more like Comic-Con, to which he replies with a resounding 'yes' — stating that "that's probably the trajectory it needs to go to maintain relevance."