As it makes its big comeback in physical edition for the first time since 2020, E3 could well be done without the three biggest players in the video game world.
[Mis à jour le 31 janvier 2023 à 15h25] This is news that hits the biggest video game fair in history hard. While 2023 was to mark the return to great fanfare of E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, after four editions canceled or strictly broadcast online, it seems to be snubbed by Xbox, Sony and Nintendo. Information that we owe to the editorial staff of IGN whose sources confirm a huge blow for the historic show. Because the E3 2023 should, if this information was confirmed, manage without the three biggest players in the video game world.
To begin these few lines, you should know that this information has in no way been confirmed by the three main interested parties, nor by the E3 show itself, but it seems that Nintendo, Sony and Xbox have decided to avoid the E3 2023 show. The three video game behemoths would have opted for the organization of their own events, in the form of broadcast evenings exclusively reserved for their products. We already know that Xbox and Bethesda have planned their own event and that it will probably be included in the program of Summer Game Fest 2023, the direct competitor of E3 2023.
Despite a few words of reassurance from Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, saying that his company would do “everything to make E3 a success” as a member of the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) and loyal supporter of the show, the presence of the green giant at the Los Angeles Convention Center seems compromised. It must be said that the Microsoft firm recently laid off en masse after denying all the rumors of layoffs that were circulating on the web, and is posing as a champion of the ultimately erroneous assertions.
If this rumor is confirmed, however, E3 could take a hit from which it would be difficult to recover. The event suffered particularly from organizational problems during the coronavirus pandemic, and experienced many changes of organizer. Add to that the rise of the Summer Game Fest, which directly competes with the show on the exclusivity of certain revelations, and you will have a commercial, organizational and competitive cocktail that will perhaps get the better of the legendary three-E show.
E3 2023 is scheduled for June 13-16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The good news is that E3 has confirmed they want to re-associate with “publishers, developers, journalists, content creators, manufacturers, buyers and license ownersto organize next year’s edition. So we will see the return of this legendary conference to the Los Angeles Convention Center, although such an exhibition without Xbox, Nintendo or Sony would have a particularly strange taste.
For the moment, we do not yet know the exact program of E3 2023. Although Sony, Xbox and Nintendo seem to be moving away from the show for their summer video game season, there are still a number of exhibitors who should take advantage of the absence of the three giants to take center stage at E3. We can think of Square Enix and its Final Fantasy 16 scheduled for this summer, and other exhibitors such as Ubisoft, Rockstar and Electronic Arts, although the latter traditionally prefers to organize its own event.