This is an interesting video to watch in hindsight, now that Sony has announced it won’t be attending E3 2019 at all. Kyle Bosman from Easy Allies was the first to bring it up, but it’s since been shared around the web, and it does foreshadow more recent news. The clip is taken from last year’s PlayStation Experience, and you get the sense that Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden is very frustrated with the convention and what it’s become.

In the video, Kinda Funny co-founder Greg Miller touches upon the changes to Sony’s E3 format, and how recent press conferences have effectively been trailer montages. Layden explains that there are better opportunities for the suits to speak, but he also hints that he’s not entirely sure what E3 is anymore; he suggests that by straddling the line between the public and trade the show is “in the middle of the highway and it’s going to get hit by cars on both sides”.

It’s fascinating watching this video with the benefit of hindsight as you can see there’s some pent-up frustration from Layden. The fact that he talks about the company wanting to build “experiences” around its demos probably goes some way towards explaining E3 2018’s presentation, where the manufacturer moved the press between “themed” rooms based on its blockbuster games like The Last of Us: Part II.

It also lends credence to the idea that Sony’s going to do something completely different instead of E3 next year. Our guess is that it’s probably going to run a series of fan events, and speak directly to its players rather than the press or trade. It could go one of two ways: vacating that all-important E3 period is risky, but it’s perfectly plausible that it may stumble upon something that’s even more engaging for all of us.

[source youtube.com]