E3 2023 is officially canceled, the Entertainment Software Association announced, but plenty of digital summer game showcases are still going ahead. The ESA made a statement late on March 30, 2023, and while the organization didn’t say what prompted the decision, it seems the show would have been rather empty had it gone ahead. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo weren’t attending, and despite initially promising to show up, Ubisoft canceled and announced its own showcase during the same period.
“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,” Kyle Marsden-Kish, ReedPop’s global vice president of gaming, said in a statement. The ESA had partnered with ReedPop to organize the event.
News on #E32023 from the source. pic.twitter.com/BK7TUlb8mZ
— E3 (@E3) March 30, 2023
“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.”
Meanwhile, Ubisoft’s event is set for June 12, 2023, and Xbox is hosting both a broader Xbox showcase and a Starfield deep dive on June 11, 2023. Sony and Nintendo haven’t announced their own showcases yet, but Summer Game Fest, Geoff Keighley’s week-long bonanza of trailers and spotlights from publishers big and small, kicks off on June 8, 2023.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
