Kaylyn Hohn 
It seems E3’s lineup will be a little lighter next year. Sony Interactive Entertainment announced on Thursday that the company has no plans to attend the expo in 2019.
“As the industry evolves, Sony Interactive Entertainment continues to look for inventive opportunities to engage the community. PlayStation fans mean the world to us and we always want to innovate, think differently and experiment with new ways to delight gamers. As a result, we have decided not to participate in E3 in 2019. We are exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community in 2019 and can’t wait to share our plans with you,” said Sony, in a statement.
This isn’t the first major publisher to not attend the video game trade show in Los Angeles, according to TechRadar. In the past, Sony had taken up a big portion of E3’s convention center. In the last few years, Microsoft and Electronic Arts have moved their conferences off site, and Nintendo hasn’t held a traditional press conference in the last five years, instead choosing to use pre-recorded videos to show what the company is working on.
There is speculation that Sony pulling out of E3 next year could potentially lead to a big announcement from the company in 2020, possibly even news of PlayStation 5. Sources told Kotaku that 2020 release is possible for the PS5, but nothing before then, and Sony did not comment.
In a similar facet, there hasn’t been any news on Microsoft’s next generation console, either. Xbox did respond to the news of Sony not attending E3 with a tweet: “We can’t wait to see you all at @E3 2019 #XboxAtE3 #Xbox”, announcing that the company will be in attendance, despite Sony’s absence.
Sony’s presence at this year’s E3 convention was smaller, featuring only four games: Death Stranding, Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part 2, and Ghost of Tsushima, all of which have release dates, the latest being late 2019.
