PlayStation kicks off industry's Not-E3 season in muted style | Opinion
The start of June in the games business feels increasingly like one of those archaeological sites where nothing remains of the original structure, but researchers can piece its shape together from the gaps it has left behind.
E3 is gone, but we are left with all the various events and showcases that grew up around the show through its various incarnations and endless identity crises – and so, for the next two weeks, we'll be treated to a trade show's worth of announcements and updates on upcoming games, just without the trade show that was once sat in the middle of it all.
Even without E3 itself, it remains arguably the best time of year to take the industry's temperature and to gain an understanding of where we're headed in the next 12 months.
This year, Sony kicked off the Not-E3 season with a State of Play presentation showcasing upcoming PS5, PSVR2, and PC games on the company's slate. It's fitting that Sony should go first, establishing the bar that others need to try to exceed; this year has cemented the PS5's market leadership in a big way, after all.
That doesn't mean Sony had nothing to prove, though. There's a sense of disquiet evident in a lot of the conversations and commentary around PlayStation this year.
After turning out a reliable stream of major hits for years, 2023 is a strangely fallow period for the company's release schedule, and while the unexpected breakout success of Helldivers 2 has given it a reprieve from accusations of an empty year, it hasn't helped alleviate suspicions that Sony's new fascination with live-service games has been to the detriment of its ability to focus on the high-quality single-player titles upon which it built its first-party reputation.
If you're in the camp that fears that Sony is outright pivoting to live service, the State of Play presentation this week will have done nothing to allay your concerns. Almost a third of the running time of the event was given over to Concord, a live-service PVP hero shooter developed by
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
