The Three Gaming Giants are Reportedly Skipping E3 2023

Picture: Pocket-lint

Techspace - Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are all skipping the revitalized E3 2023 convention in June, according to a new report from IGN. E3 will be back as an in-person conference in Los Angeles after not happening at all in 2022, and game journalists are hopeful that the big three console makers would be at the show when it takes place from June 13th through 16th to help make it feel like the big event of years past. But according to IGN’s reporting, that’s not the case.

That said, it’s not entirely unexpected. Sony first skipped E3 in 2019 and hasn’t been part of the convention since. Microsoft said last week that it would be doing a showcase in LA this summer but didn’t outright say the words E3. Nintendo has proven time and time again that it can drive huge news cycles with its can’t-miss Direct video presentations, so it may not feel the need to share the E3 spotlight. And since the show will be taking place about a month after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo may want to keep the attention of its fans on what could be one of the biggest games of the year.

While Microsoft won’t be at any official E3 events, boss Phil Spencer says that, as they’ve done the last few years, Xbox will in 2023 be doing stuff alongside E3 so that any press and industry folks in town for that show will be around for theirs as well. It’s not known what Nintendo and Sony will be doing in E3's stead if anything, though Geoff Keighley’s rival Summer Games Fest will be taking place at roughly the same time.

Other Gaming Events are Gaining More Popularity Than E3

Picture: The Loadout

As E3 has grown smaller, other digital stages have sprung up for game publishers to make their big announcements, most prominently, The Game Awards and the Summer Game Fest, both hosted by Geoff Keighley. He spoke to The Verge in 2022 about where E3 does or maybe doesn’t fit into the gaming landscape. Incidentally, the Summer Game Fest account just tweeted that it will also be returning on June 8th, just a few days before E3.

While this is a definitive final straw for E3, this has been coming for a while. Nintendo stopped holding big E3 press conferences ten years ago (though the company had a showroom floor presence at the last live show in 2019), and Microsoft and Bethesda recently pivoted to holding their own showcases alongside the E3 festivities. Sony also began passing on E3 stuff a few years back.

Although the big three may not return (once again) to the once grandiose showcase of the game industry, event specialists Reedpop promised last year that this year’s E3 would “..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.”

How they’re going to be “recognizably epic” without any major platform holder in attendance is anyone’s guess, though ReedPop did say in a statement to IGN that they have taken various feedbacks into account to plan this year's E3. Additionally, he boasted that a tremendous amount of interest and verbal commitments from many biggest players in the industry will reassure that this year E3 would be worth the trip for consumers and journalists alike.

As of the writing of this article, there have been no confirmed lineups of which game developers would attend the show, so it remains to be seen whether the event would be able to deliver its promise of an ‘epic event’.