Sony, No 2019 E3 Showing

[Shifty Geezer]

But when everyone's looking at the larger events, they are only looking at the big, popular attractions. If I go browsing the PSN store, there are loads of games I've never even heard of. All I hear about from E3 are the big titles, and maybe whatever the platform holders put in a show-reel. These events only work for the indies for local footfall, because the local crowds are the only one's looking and trying these small titles. Probably to fill in the time between 2 hour queues for the big games they've turned up to see.

Am I wrong? Does the non-gaming press cover a wealth of indie titles when reporting on E3? Do do they just talk about the press conferences and major announcements from big players on the whole?

 

[BRiT]

In the future they would have Virtual E3, where no one ever attends physically, where the press conferences are nothing but glorified curated playlists of experiences.

That would work well for the Adult Video Industry too. Expect them to embrace it first.

 

[mrcorbo]

A data point. Take it as you will.

Participation in event threads on this board:

MS Gamescom 2018 - 11 replies, 660 views
Annual E3 General discussion thread 2018 - 47 replies, 1,348 views
Giant Bomb E3 Phil Spencer interview thread 2018 - 31 replies, 1,053 views
MS E3 Press Conference 2018 - 213 replies, 4,906 views
Sony E3 Press Conference 2018 - 111 replies, 3,132 views

(going to stop linking here, it's getting annoying to do and you can find the threads with search)

Nintendo E3 2018 - 12 R, 438 V
Bethesda E3 2018 - 33R, 843 V
Ubisoft E3 2018 - 17R, 428 V
EA E3 2018 - 23R, 731 V
Square-Enix E3 2018 - 5R, 251 V
Pre E3 Hype thread - 130R, 4,512 V (!)
Devolver Digital E3 2018 - 0R, 149 V
Video Game Awards 2017 - 29R, 1,066 V
Playstation Experience 2017 - 10R, 618 V
Sony Playstation Paris Games Week 2017 - 62R, 3,946 V
MS Gamescom 2017 - 61R, 3,914 V
Sony E3 2017 - 200R, 10,647 V
Microsoft E3 2017 461R, 21,691 V
Nintendo E3 2017 30R, 1,646 V

Again search to find the rest of the 2017 threads if you want.

My simple conclusion? Being at E3 gets attention. Showing stuff gets attention. Showing stuff at E3 gets the most attention.

 

[mrcorbo]

But when everyone's looking at the larger events, they are only looking at the big, popular attractions. If I go browsing the PSN store, there are loads of games I've never even heard of. All I hear about from E3 are the big titles, and maybe whatever the platform holders put in a show-reel. These events only work for the indies for local footfall, because the local crowds are the only one's looking and trying these small titles. Probably to fill in the time between 2 hour queues for the big games they've turned up to see.

Am I wrong? Does the non-gaming press cover a wealth of indie titles when reporting on E3? Do do they just talk about the press conferences and major announcements from big players on the whole?

Again, you're ignoring the in-between. The people that will go to a gaming website to get gaming news, but just don't as part of their daily lives. During E3, they do.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Again, you're ignoring the in-between. The people that will go to a gaming website to get gaming news, but just don't as part of their daily lives. During E3, they do.

But they don't get to hear about the indies anywhere because no-one talks about them. They go to the gaming websites during E3 and read about the big conferences and the big players.

 

[mrcorbo]

But they don't get to hear about the indies anywhere because no-one talks about them. They go to the gaming websites during E3 and read about the big conferences and the big players.

Have you visited a gaming website during E3 recently?

 

[BRiT]

Have you visited a gaming website during E3 recently?

What's recently? Before or after the removal of Booth Babes?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Have you visited a gaming website during E3 recently?

To be fair, I only visit EG so may be completely off base. The discussions thrown up on this board as a result of E3 don't include much by way of indies except when they feature in a major player showreel.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

For me, this debate is, did Sony leave E3 2019 by design. Or did they blunder somehow and just need to skip it 2019 and return 2020 and beyond. I think it’s the latter. If it’s the former I don’t see any evidence that this was the plan for some time.

Why do you think this? The only kind of blunder to prevent Sony from going would be failing to book a venue, which would be stupid indeed, but they doesn't prevent them having a press conference either with an audience or just releasing a video conference as Nintendo have begun doing.

I think you're grasping at literally nothing here.

I strongly disagree that if the industry giants drop out of E3 it will give the rest of the industry greater exposure.

Let's agree to disagree.

To be fair, I only visit EG so may be completely off base.

mrcorbo asked if you visited a website during E3.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yeah, I visit EG during E3. They only cover the big stories. I also follow links from this board to stories of interest over E3.

 

[iroboto]

Why do you think this? The only kind of blunder to prevent Sony from going would be failing to book a venue, which would be stupid indeed, but they doesn't prevent them having a press conference either with an audience or just releasing a video conference as Nintendo have begun doing.

I think you're grasping at literally nothing here.

I wrote about what I think are the strategic reasons for a company like Sony to be at E3 over here: #77

In the blog post: Why E3 Still Matters
Jason writes the following:

What a lot of people don’t realize is that E3 is extremely important for people behind the scenes. As all the sizzle and glamour of the show floor and press conference is going on, which is what we all see from home, while that’s all happening, developers and publishers are taking all sorts of meetings behind closed doors. Developers might pitch their games to publishers, publishers might meet with retailers to show off their new games and say, ‘Hey, Walmart, this is why you should stack Fallout 76 in front of your store this year.’ And then EA might come and say, ‘No, you should put Battlefield V in front of your store.’

So there are all kinds of meetings like that that happen at E3. It’s also the only time when a lot of international people might be in town, publishers and developers and executives, so they’ll be taking plenty of meetings. There’s a lot going on that we don’t see—the shadow side of E3.

As for the actual parts we see, the press conferences and demos and trailers, I think it’s still pretty important. I think it still gives the video game industry this feeling of this annual Mecca, even though things have changed over the years and nowadays there’a stream of announcements all year long, there’s still something essential about it. If you’re a small developer and you get picked to show your game in a sizzle reel at Sony’s conference, that’s the biggest deal in the world—that will get you so many eyeballs.

Or if you make a big splash at E3, that might change the course of your game forever.

So there's that. There's a portion of E3 that is largely business related, the side in which everyone comments on, the press conferences, are still pretty critical, perhaps not as critical as before, but as the data points suggest from McCorbo's posts, it's still the most relevant among all the threads we see.

There's no doubt in my mind that yes, a company like Sony could ignore E3 and have their own events. Yes I agree with this. But they could easily just come out and say it; E3 isn't a big deal anymore, we've got our own stuff that is going to blow you away. They could, honestly, if it was by design I'd expect this messaging to come out in some format.

E3 continues to be strategically positioned to help hype products for the Fall/Christmas Season. And other conferences are too late to start the hype cycle, PSX is way too close to be effective for a majority of publishers looking to have a 6 month hype campaign pushing pre-orders to help give them an understanding of what their sales could look like.

I think Sony's blunder was the miss on 2019 launch. They would have held something in Feb of 2019, and hyped it all the way through E3 to launch. They missed their window and now it's 2020. They had to cancel E3 because of that blunder.

I don't think I'm grasping at straws here, there's no significant reason for Sony to be missing out on E3. It's not like they need to save money, they are the world leader by a landslide.

Every move they've done since E3 2018 which was a rehash, then cancelling PSX 2018, and now E3 2019 -- these are all moves I would expect from a losing company who was struggling to get their shit together. Most certainly if this was MS doing exactly that, everyone would be claiming today that they are exiting the business.

 

[djskribbles]

because they release one entry every two years, it's a lot.

GT3 was groundbreaking and released on PS2 that ended up selling 150 millions units while other platforms were extremely limited in their offering (The first Forza released 4 years later)

PS4 is on the same trajectory but GT Sport is crap

The actual quality of the content in GT Sport is definitely not crap. It is a cut down version for sure, but their focus shifted to online racing, and it is considered to be one of the best in that regard by many. And they have provided updates like every month adding new (free) content.

That said, PD definitely needs to speed things up. The fact that this is all they released this gen is not acceptable.

In regards to sales, it's not entirely tied to the quality of the games they've released. As mentioned, the sim racing sub-genre in particular has seen a decline. But also, there is far more competition. During the PS2 days, there was basically only GT on console. Now there's Assetto Corsa, Project Cars and Forza etc. Not to mention PC exclusive sims like Raceroom, iRacing etc... the genre is more diluted.

GTS' sales are not up to par with previous entries, but it is still selling well in its own right. GT will probably never be the system mover it once was, though.. regardless of how good of a product PD releases. More crowded genre + a loss of interest outside of Europe... the sub-genre is simply not what it used to be.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

My simple conclusion? Being at E3 gets attention. Showing stuff gets attention. Showing stuff at E3 gets the most attention.

Sony did confirm they won't be making a stage presentation at E3, but have they confirmed they wont' be doing anything during E3?

How did Nintendo fare when they skipped E3 and started doing their own Direct streams?

To be honest, I'm not sure what to think of this, other than they're very probably not showing a PS5 this year meaning a 2020 release.

 

[iroboto]

Sony did confirm they won't be making a stage presentation at E3, but have they confirmed they wont' be doing anything during E3?

How did Nintendo fare when they skipped E3 and started doing their own Direct streams?

To be honest, I'm not sure what to think of this, other than they're very probably not showing a PS5 this year meaning a 2020 release.

In Polygon’s article: PlayStation is skipping E3 2019

Next year, the company will not hold its traditional Monday evening press briefing, nor will it have a booth on the show floor at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Asked if Sony will move its E3 presence offsite, like Electronic Arts has done in the past three years with EA Play, a PlayStation representative said no — it’s passing up the opportunity entirely.

The response to Polygon was the following:

“We will not be programming around E3,” the spokesperson told Polygon.

Nintendo has a special E3 Direct in place of a traditional press conference and continue to have presence on the show floor.

 

[MrFox]

The actual quality of the content in GT Sport is definitely not crap. It is a cut down version for sure, but their focus shifted to online racing, and it is considered to be one of the best in that regard by many. And they have provided updates like every month adding new (free) content.

That said, PD definitely needs to speed things up. The fact that this is all they released this gen is not acceptable.

In regards to sales, it's not entirely tied to the quality of the games they've released. As mentioned, the sim racing sub-genre in particular has seen a decline. But also, there is far more competition. During the PS2 days, there was basically only GT on console. Now there's Assetto Corsa, Project Cars and Forza etc. Not to mention PC exclusive sims like Raceroom, iRacing etc... the genre is more diluted.

GTS' sales are not up to par with previous entries, but it is still selling well in its own right. GT will probably never be the system mover it once was, though.. regardless of how good of a product PD releases. More crowded genre + a loss of interest outside of Europe... the sub-genre is simply not what it used to be.

With all the single player additions since launch, GT Sports is now amazing from pretty much any angle. The single player content have become better than any previous GT. The FIA championships are also showing how much they nailed the competitive rules which other console racing games completely crapped.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Was this mentioned in this thread?

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FPS4%252Fcomments%252F9x2r4f%252F

A redditor made a thread in r/PS4 saying Sony wouldn't appear in E3 2019, 1 day before Sony's official confirmation.
Here's what he claims to be the motive:

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FPS4%252Fcomments%252F9x2r4f%252Fsony_is_not_going_to_appear_in_e3_next_year%252Fe9rxp68

There's a whole lot of other info in that thread:

- PS5 announced mid-2019 (maybe something at the end of E3?) with most specifics being laid out at PSX 2019
- PS5 is a "monster", targetting 4K + 60 FPS
- Anthem is a mess, going to be delayed
- Most devs have PS5 devkits right now
- Sony hasn't decided if it will be March or November 2020.
- 8-core Zen
- Fully embedded hardware for PSVR2 (no breakout box)
- $500
- Camera included in the console for headset tracking, new PS Move controllers and gloves for PSVR.
- TLOU2, Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding seem to be cross-gen.

Some of this info should be in other threads. I'll try to post the relevant info on those.

 

[iroboto]

Was this mentioned in this thread?

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FPS4%252Fcomments%252F9x2r4f%252F

A redditor made a thread in r/PS4 saying Sony wouldn't appear in E3 2019, 1 day before Sony's official confirmation.
Here's what he claims to be the motive:

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252FPS4%252Fcomments%252F9x2r4f%252Fsony_is_not_going_to_appear_in_e3_next_year%252Fe9rxp68

There's a whole lot of other info in that thread:

- PS5 announced mid-2019 (maybe something at the end of E3?) with most specifics being laid out at PSX 2019
- PS5 is a "monster", targetting 4K + 60 FPS
- Anthem is a mess, going to be delayed
- Most devs have PS5 devkits right now
- Sony hasn't decided if it will be March or November 2020.
- 8-core Zen
- Fully embedded hardware for PSVR2 (no breakout box)
- $500
- Camera included in the console for headset tracking, new PS Move controllers and gloves for PSVR.
- TLOU2, Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding seem to be cross-gen.

Some of this info should be in other threads. I'll try to post the relevant info on those.

We have a link to it in be next gen thread. But not as summarized or as broken out as you posted here. May be worthwhile to copy there and continue the thread there.

My opinion, user wasn’t wrong about E3 cancellation. But not sure if second post is just trolling. Just because the first post is real doesn’t imply second post is also real. I’m sure there is some “named” fallacy of falling for that type of ruse.

 

[Shortbread]

- PS5 announced mid-2019 (maybe something at the end of E3?) with most specifics being laid out at PSX 2019
- PS5 is a "monster", targeting 4K + 60 FPS
- Anthem is a mess, going to be delayed
- Most devs have PS5 devkits right now
- Sony hasn't decided if it will be March or November 2020.
- 8-core Zen
- Fully embedded hardware for PSVR2 (no breakout box)
- $500
- Camera included in the console for headset tracking, new PS Move controllers and gloves for PSVR.
- TLOU2, Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding seem to be cross-gen.

- Possible.
- Targeting, sure. Pulling it off, that's a whole other story. More than likely 4K/60fps PS4 backwards capability gaming.
- Other than some poor framerate issues within certain areas, nothing that would suggest it's a 'mess.'
- Sure.
- Ok.
- Maybe, maybe not.
- Possible.
- $499 price tag, that I 100% believe.
- Sounds like a bad idea, and more than likely it's bullshit. The console would have to be placed in optimal position on tracking the headset. So for those who love to place their console systems on the floor or lower shelving, that integration makes no sense at all. A standalone camera makes more sense, and generates more product revenue.
- If backwards compatibility is a thing, sure...

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think Sony's blunder was the miss on 2019 launch. They would have held something in Feb of 2019, and hyped it all the way through E3 to launch. They missed their window and now it's 2020. They had to cancel E3 because of that blunder.

You are ignoring that Sony haven't announced hardware at E3 since PS3 in 2005 thirteen years ago. PS Vita was at the 'PlayStation Meeting' in January 2011, PS4 at a PlayStation Press Conference in February 2013, PSVR was at GDC in March 2014, PS4 Pro and PS4 Slim at a PlayStation Press Conference in September 2016 - just three months after E3. This seems to be working for them.

Sony could have just shown where they are on games, which is pretty much every Sony E3 Press Conference for the last twelve years.

In the blog post: Why E3 Still Matters Jason writes the following:

He's a journalist, not a console manufacturer. Something of a different perspective there.

Every move they've done since E3 2018 which was a rehash, then cancelling PSX 2018, and now E3 2019 -- these are all moves I would expect from a losing company who was struggling to get their shit together.

A North American PSX for 2018 was not scheduled, it was not cancelled. PSX has never been particularly predictable. The first PSX took place in London in August 2002 with the second also being in London in August 2003. It was then dormant until the third event in Las Vegas in December 2014, the fourth event was San Francisco in December 2015, Anaheim in December 2016, the next one was in Kuala Lumpar in August 2017 and the last one was in Bangkok back in August (2018).

Feel free to smell disaster but I subscribe to the line that Sony gave which was they just don't have much to show at this time. Like Ubisoft and some other companies, Sony have been criticised for showing games too early (Uncharted 4, Spider-Man, The Last of Us 2) then showing it year-in-year-out. If they have listened and learned that's fine by me, Sony - I appreciate you not wasting my time when you have nothing new to show.

 

[vipa899]

Calling it a monster targetting 4k 60fps, while top GPU's now do double that, thats 2018 hardware. 500 dollar price tag wouldnt be so smart, and i doubt its true anyway.
Sony's last E3 got dwarfed by MS's E3, Sony didnt really have much to show. With nothing new to last E3 on the horizon, perhaps they think its better to skip E3 2019 alltogether.

Nothing in that reddit seems official, just rumours like all others, i wouldnt take that negative information as if it were true.