I was waiting for this one, after the steam rolling effort that Microsoft is pulling through the last two years of E3 and Sony’s last dull episode of nothing, I don’t blame them on this one. I’ve said it before, I find E3 to be my favorite part of the year. Yeah, I don’t love every minute, and I don’t care when it is a press conference of boring people standing still telling me their quarterly report. If you’re going to stream your conference about games at a games conference, show me some games. Then if I want to know the details behind the scenes I’ll go looking for those. Let the games speak for you.

Yes, as reported by Gamesindustry.biz yesterday afternoon, the gaming giant has pulled out of the biggest show in gaming of the year for the second time in a row. With prospective changes coming to the trade convention shifting towards a fan event, akin to that of a PAX or other similar events, one could see why console selling monolith is stepping away. In the quote provided to Gamesindustry.biz, a spokesperson said: “After thorough evaluation SIE has decided not to participate in E3 2020. We have great respect for the ESA as an organization, but we do not feel the vision of E3 2020 is the right venue for what we are focused on this year.”

Following Sony’s break away from the former leading seller of games consoles, and why your nan calls them all “A Nintendo,” the company unveiled their consoles at E3. As the tale goes, Nintendo’s Hiroshi Yamauchi didn’t like the agreement when Sony would profit from the agreement more than his company. As a result of this failed partnership for Sony providing the CD drive for a Super Famicom/SNES-style console, we got Sony launching under the same name and history was made. Of course, making its big splash in gaming at the inaugural E3 in 1995 showed the west the new CD-based console months before releasing outside of Japan.

The spokesperson went on to say, “We will build upon our global events strategy in 2020 by participating in hundreds of consumer events across the globe. Our focus is on making sure fans feel part of the PlayStation family and have access to play their favorite content,” suggesting we’ll get more State of Plays in the future. They continued with, “We have a fantastic line up of titles coming to PlayStation 4, and with the upcoming launch of PlayStation 5, we are truly looking forward to a year of celebration with our fans.”

With many of the current console’s big hitters releasing this year, one might suspect there to be an announcement during a State of Play for the release of the PS5 around E3. With the company still going head to head with Microsoft, it could be seen as a standoff until both pull and fire both prices and looks of each console. Though according to some reports, Microsoft isn’t bringing hard-hitting exclusives out of the gate. One of the few things I said both need to do in this coming generation of consoles.

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