E3 2023 has been cancelled

thesixthaxis.com:

The Entertainment Software Association has cancelled this year’s E3 show as it “simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry.”

Kyle Marsden-Kish, Global VP of Gaming at E3 organisers ReedPop has this to say:

This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what’s right for the industry and what’s right for E3. We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn’t have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn’t overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we’re sorry we can’t put on the showcase you deserve and that you’ve come to expect from ReedPop’s event experiences.

The cancellation follows reports of Ubisoft, Sega, Tencent and others withdrawing from the show. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo has chosen to do their own thing for a few years now leaving E3 without the three biggest names in gaming.

A Ubisoft spokesperson said to VGC, “While we initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we’ve made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction, and will be holding a Ubisoft Forward Live event on 12th June in Los Angeles. We look forward to sharing more details with our players very soon.”

E3 2023 was meant to be the first in-person E3 event since the Covid pandemic but the industry changed so much during those years.  Every publishers had to move their promotion online and many set up regular showcases such as the Nintendo Direct and Sony’s State of Play. The need for all the industry to get together in one big hall has vanished, and budgets for such