Reaction: Sony's Decision to Skip Its Annual Gamescom Stage Show Is Sound

Seal the bunker: Sony's skipping Gamescom 2015. Well, not really – the organisation will still almost certainly occupy a spot on the Cologne show floor, but it'll be holding its annual European media briefing on 27th October at Paris Games Week instead. The misconception here – from what we've read around the web – is that the Japanese giant won't be hosting a media briefing at all, but it'll just be taking place a few months later in the year.

And, honestly, it makes sense. For some reason, E3 2015 is happening much later than usual, running from 16th June through 18th June. Meanwhile, due to German holiday date changes, Gamescom will be occurring from 5th August to 9th August. While it may sound like there's a sizeable gap between the two, it's actually just seven weeks, which is clearly not enough time for the platform holder to prepare for a meaningful slate of announcements all over again.

This doesn't mean that the manufacturer has less to reveal, as we've seen hypothesised by various armchair analysts around the web; it merely thinks that a bit of breathing space between the two events will benefit both it and the industry as a whole. And this is hard to argue with: there's always a lull after a show as sizeable and demanding as E3, and so it would be really challenging for everyone involved to have to hit the ground running again almost straight away.

Sony thinks that a bit of breathing space will benefit both it and the industry as a whole

This is, of course, bad news for the Cologne-based convention, which will almost certainly be resigned to regurgitated content coming out of Los Angeles this time. But even though it's technically the biggest gaming show in Europe – and the world – on attendance figures alone, Paris Games Week wasn't too far behind in 2014. In other words: Sony certainly isn't shooting itself in the foot by skipping its Gamescom presser.

There may be a more tactical game at play here, too. We already know that the Japanese giant aims to increase PlayStation 4 sales this year, and it'll likely achieve that with a price drop. However, reducing the cost of its system in early August would have less impact when the holidays finally roll around a few months later; waiting until late October, though, would ensure that the announcement hits much harder – and gives the machine more momentum moving into Christmas.

Perhaps the biggest loser could end up being PlayStation Experience, which hasn't been officially confirmed for this year yet, but seems likely. With last year's show occurring in early December, there'd only be a month between it and Paris Games Week should 2015's rendition occur around the same time – but if both SCEA and SCEE can share the reveals around, we're sure that that won't matter too much.

Either way, we reckon that the organisation's using sound logic by skipping its Gamescom press conference and holding a similar event later in the year. This should, in theory, maximise the impact of both briefings – and it'll still have ample opportunity to make plenty of big reveals. We're sure that someone will try to twist this into a negative – but it's really not. Sony's decision here makes total sense to us.

Do you think that Sony's missing a trick by skipping its Gamescom presser, or has it made the right move here? Scream and shout in the comments section below.