PlayStation Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden spoke on a recent PS Blogcast and gave the word, there will not be a PlayStation Experience held this year. If you’d like to listen to the blogcast for the news yourself, it comes up at around the ~10:20 mark.
The reasons Layden gave for this is that Sony simply doesn’t have enough for them to put on a show.
We have a lot of progress in our games, and now that we have Spider-Man out the door, we’re looking down into 2019 to games like Dreams and Days Gone, but we wouldn’t have enough to bring people altogether in some location in North America to have that event. We don’t want to set really expectations high and not deliver on it. It was a hard decision, but we have determined that this year we will not hold PlayStation Experience.
It would make sense that PlayStation would choose to not hold the event rather than have an event and it not be what fans were looking for, especially after what PSX was 2017. The slower pace, more dev-talk focused show wasn’t bad, but it simply wasn’t what fans expected from PlayStation Experience. If Some decides that it would be better not to have an event at all until they have more to show, I can understand that.
No PSX this year could also mean there won’t be any kind of PSN name change feature coming this year. Last year Shawn Layden, when asked by Greg Miller of Kinda Funny when (if ever) PSN IDs will be changeable, hinted that the feature may be happening sometime in 2018, stating “hopefully you won’t have to ask me that question again next year.” With no PSX happening this year, he may have pulled out of that little non-committal promise.
On a less cynical note, it is sad to see PlayStation Experience won’t be happening this year, but the reasons they’ve cited for it are understandable. This year’s E3 heavily featured 4 larger games, alongside a few smaller announcements or reveals. Having another smaller-scale PSX akin to PSX 2017, would likely not go over well with fans.
It should also be noted that with so little in the pipeline, it does in a way hint at the possibility of PlayStation 5. We all know it’s coming at some point, and with fewer games to really talk about, it looks like Sony is keeping their hand close to their chest until they’re ready to reveal the new console. The only question is when? Of course this is all speculation s take what I say with a few bags of salt.
