PlayStation won't be attending Gamescom, but we can guess why

techradar.com:

Gamescom is back in Germany in two months but if you're hoping to see any big PlayStation reveals, we've got bad news.

Despite being its first in-person show since the Covid-19 pandemic began, Sony has announced it won't be attending Gamescom 2022 this August. That's according to German publication Games Wirtschaft(opens in new tab), who confirmed the company's non-attendance. As such, don't expect any major reveals for PlayStation VR 2 or God of War Ragnarok.

Gamescom's organizers have claimed 250 companies are appearing this year and while we don't have the full list yet, Sony's not alone in this non-attendance. Activision Blizzard, Take-Two Interactive, and Nintendo have all previously confirmed they won't be appearing. However, we can expect to see THQ Nordic, Koch Media, and Bandai Namco.

Gamescom 2022 takes place between August 24-28 in Cologne, but this isn't an entirely in-person event. Similar to last year, proceedings kick off on August 23 with the Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase, hosted by Summer Game Fest creator Geoff Keighley. So we may still see updates on Modern Warfare 2, Marvel's Spider-man 2, and, who knows (probably not, though) GTA 6. 

Sony backing out of Gamescom 2022 shouldn't be entirely surprising to PlayStation fans. The publisher's been marching at its own pace since exiting E3 2019 and since then, it's focused on its own online presentations, like State of Play and last year's PlayStation Showcase. 

Usually, big announcements are reserved for such presentations. Take the most recent State of Play showcase, for example, which mainly focused on third-party publishers. Alongside the first PlayStation VR 2 gameplay, Resident Evil 4 Remake was confirmed, and we got our first real look at Street