Update: The Entertainment Software Association and ReedPop have confirmed that plans for E3 2023 have been canceled.
Original: This year’s E3 event has been canceled, a new report has claimed. According to IGN, the Entertainment Software Association has confirmed internally that E3 2023 will not be happening. This event was supposed to take place in June just as past year’s E3 events did (when they took place, that is), with this year’s gaming convention scheduled to get started on June 13th. This supposed cancelation has not yet been confirmed by the ESA, but the report does follow numerous other rumors and confirmations about different industry leaders like PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Ubisoft, and more either pulling out of the event or not committing to an appearance.
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In its report, IGN cited unnamed sources with the info about E3 2023’s cancelation. Those sources have supposedly provided proof of an email sent internally to investors, an email which said the iteration of the show planned for this year “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.”
Last year, the ESA confirmed its plans to bring E3 back in 2023 with a hybrid event combining in-person attractions with digital attractions for those who wouldn’t be traveling to Los Angeles to attend. ReedPop, the production company known for organizing PAX events, was confirmed to be assisting with setting up this year’s E3, too. The dates for the event were set not long after that, and the organizers said things were moving “full speed ahead.”
This year, however, E3 2023 suffered its first blow when Nintendo confirmed it had no plans to attend the event. Reports of PlayStation and Xbox skipping the show surfaced, too, though those weren’t confirmed at the time. Ubisoft exited next followed by Sega and Tencent. Those last two were the most recent publishers to bow out, though they continued a downward trend that likely would’ve been followed by others afterwards.
Summer Game Fest, the summer event that loosely connects presentations from different publishers and offers at-home viewers opportunities to play games via demos, gets started on June 8th and will be the event people look to for info now if E3 2023 is indeed canceled.
The ESA has not yet commented on the matter, but we expect that the organization will issue a statement one way or another soon following this report.
