Sony doesn’t operate like it used to.
We’ve had years to get used to this new era of PlayStation, which only speaks to consumers when it has something to say – and somehow still manages to underdeliver on the rare occasion it does.
It’s no surprise to learn there’s unlikely to be any kind of PS5 presentation this summer, then. While the platform holder has yet to comment either way, speculation about an impending livestream has been non-existent – these things tend to leak weeks in advance.
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Now, the company could still drop an announcement out of nowhere, but it’s looking increasingly like it’s going to ride the next few months out, and let the releases of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Ghost of Yotei do the talking for it.
So how much does this matter?
Well, it’s worth mentioning that if the company does have something to show during the not-E3 period next month, it doesn’t necessarily need to hold its own showcase. Last year, the firm revealed Naughty Dog’s next game Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet at The Game Awards, so it’s happy to let host Geoff Keighley shoulder the responsibility for its big announcements.
Summer Game Fest could be a perfectly viable destination for any trailers it may want to share, then – and the broadcast will be filled with third-party PS5 announcements anyway.
Historically there was always a battle between PlayStation and Xbox over “who won E3”, but curiously this will be the first year where Microsoft’s presentation will be relevant to PS5 owners, as the Redmond firm has gone multiformat and confirmed it’ll be transparent about which games are releasing where.
So, while we’ve always had a close eye on Xbox’s broadcasts purely because of third-party interest in the past, this year we’ll be closely following the first-party announcements as well. It’s alarming how much the industry has changed compared to PlayStation’s legendary E3 presentation in 2015.
Here’s what we think: Sony shouldn’t do a presentation if it doesn’t have meaningful content to share. The reality is it’s got a couple of massive first-party games on the horizon, and while Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine wait in the wings, there’s really no point in showing them until they’re almost ready to go.
We’ve covered enough PlayStation presentations now to know the reception to a bad broadcast is worse than not doing one at all. Across Summer Game Fest and Xbox we’re going to see dozens upon dozens of PS5 games shown off anyway, so Sony may as well wait until it has something more meaningful to show.
We are a long, long way from the golden era of PlayStation presentations, when E3, Gamescom, and Tokyo Game Show would all bring brilliant live shows back-to-back-to-back. But the games industry has changed, too: software is being revealed closer to release now and takes longer than ever to make.