Ever since E3 2019, Sony has been skipping the trade show and will showcase its own stuff through special digital events. Given that Sony had planned on skipping E3 2020 even before coronavirus concerns, this raised various questions surrounding the company. As of recent, a former PlayStation VP has stepped forward to explain why Sony no longer wants to attend E3-like events.
Adam Boyes was a former VP of third-party relations at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). If you don’t know, he appeared at E3 2015 to announce Final Fantasy VII Remake and Shenmue 3. As of now, he serves as the CEO of Iron Galaxy Studios (the ones that helped Blizzard with Overwatch, Killer Instinct 2013, and Extinction)
Nevertheless, publication site pushsquare.com caught up with the former VP of third-party relations at SIE and asked him about Sony, E3, and why the company is chasing the digital scene through its new program State of Play.
Boyes’ response lies below:
“I think, in general, you look at the cadence and lifecycle of platforms and I think you only have a certain amount of time, you want to make it super impactful, and unfortunately I think you sometimes have to make hard decisions about what creative content can go where. Some of it was put in the pre-show, some of it was post-show, and some of it was during show announcements.”
Boyes continues and notes that one of the reasons why Sony is going the route of streamlined trailers instead of trade shows boils down to gamers and fans having a “TikTok” mentality in wanting things delivered to them quickly:
“I think stylistically if we look at most content now, whether it’s PlayStation’s State of Play or Nintendo Directs and even Microsoft’s Series X reveal, it looks like we’re migrating more towards that compilation-based approach. Where people just get to see content, content, content and then with the Xbox Series X, they go a little deeper after the presentation. It feels like that’s where we’re going a little bit more, and I think because we’re in a faster ‘give it to me now’ TikTok era, people just want to see new stuff. Whereas I think, if we look at 2013, 2014, and 2015 of E3, now when you look at it, it feels a little bit dated in a way.”
Boyes also feels like gamers and fans don’t care about the spokesperson anymore. He feels that fans want stuff or content “right here, right now.” He attributes this mentality to the current fast era of “give it to me now” since others are doing it like America’s Funniest Home Videos:
“And even when I look at some of the scripts I was using, it was very much ‘look at me, I’m enjoying myself but I’m also going to talk about a fun game,’ whereas people nowadays don’t care about the spokesperson. ‘Show me the stuff’. If we look at America’s Funniest Home Videos, right now it’s just fail compilations. I don’t need a host talking me through it, show me all the stuff. And I think that’s sort of what happens with these kind of shows, which in my opinion makes them less of a theatrical experience and more of a trailer compilation. But from what I understand, that’s more of what the fans want. Show me what you got.”
As of now, Sony is gearing up to release the successor to the PS4 later this year, which is better known as the PS5. As for a reveal, talk has it that Sony is prepping for a summer reveal for its next-gen console.
