Microsoft changes its E3 2018 venue, promises larger presence

By Steven Petite Published March 14, 2018

Image used with permission by copyright holder

While announcing its E3 2018 press conference date and change of venue, Microsoft has promised that the company’s E3 presence will be greater than ever before.

The Xbox E3 briefing will air June 10 at 1 p.m. PT. This year the show will be held in the Microsoft Theater, a separate venue located across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center. In addition to the press conference, Xbox FanFest events, hands-on demonstrations, and playable demos will take place in the Microsoft Theater throughout E3.

The announcement comes a month after the head of Xbox Phil Spencer teased changes to Microsoft’s showing on Major Nelson’s podcast. “I don’t think we’ve talked about [it] yet, but I think will be some positive changes at E3. Could be fun for us; it’ll be a nice change,” Spencer said at the time. The relocation to the Microsoft Theater is almost undoubtedly the big change Spencer alluded to.

Typically, most of the E3 action has been found in the Los Angeles Convention Center, the official home of E3. In recent years, though, publishers and developers have become more individualized. Electronic Arts debuted EA Play in 2016, a fan-centric event that will enter its third year at the Hollywood Palladium this year. And Nintendo has ditched the traditional press conference altogether, choosing to stream its announcements as basically a beefy Nintendo Direct.

As Microsoft becomes the latest major player to ditch the E3 mold, it will be interesting to see if other studios follow suit in the years to come. Microsoft will still be present at the convention center with a Mixer booth that will hold play and streaming sessions throughout E3.

E3 2018 officially runs from June 12 to 14 (publisher press briefings occur before the official start date). For the second year in a row, the annual gaming expo will be open to the public. Tickets went on sale in February. Although early bird ticket specials are no longer available, you can still get a three-day pass for $250.

If you’re as eager for E3 as we are, check out our running list of every game we know, expect, and hope to see at this year’s show.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…

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Ubisoft will not attend E3 2023, but it will still host a summer live stream

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Ubisoft will no longer be attending E3 2023, even though it said it would participate in February. Instead, the game publisher behind Assassin's Creed and Far Cry plans to hold its own Ubisoft Forward Live event in Los Angeles this June.
Ubisoft confirmed its change in plans to Video Games Chronicle today, with a spokesperson saying that while Ubisoft "initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we've made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction." This is a change in messaging from just over a month ago when Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said, "If E3 happens, we will be there, and we will have a lot of things to show."
What caused this change of heart in Ubisoft is unclear. However, it seems like the company found that it could still successfully promote its game lineup without being attached to the Entertainment Software Association's event. We don't know much about the Ubisoft Forward Live event other than it'll take place on June 12 in Los Angeles, but Ubisoft tells VGC that "we look forward to sharing more details with our players very soon."
This puts E3 2023 in a weird overall spot, as we currently know more about the companies that won't be at the event -- like Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Nintendo -- than we do about the publishers that will actually be there. After being canceled in 2020 and 2022 and being digital-only in 2021, E3 2023 was supposed to be the annual gaming trade show's grand return. Right now, though, the relevance and viability of E3 2023 are questionable.
ReedPop has not yet commented on the fact that Ubisoft is no longer attending E3 2023.

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Nintendo confirms that it won’t be part of E3 2023

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Nintendo has confirmed reports that it won't be participating in E3 2023, meaning the gaming trade show will be missing one of its key vendors when it returns in-person this June.
"We approach our involvement in any event on a case-by-case basis and are always considering various ways to engage with our fans," a Nintendo spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. "Since this year’s E3 show didn’t fit into our plans, we have made the decision to not participate. However, we have been and continue to be a strong supporter of the ESA [Entertainment Software Association] and E3."
After taking 2020 and 2022 off and being digital-only in 2021, this year was supposed to mark the grand return of E3, which was once a dominant game industry trade show that attracted every big video game company. Although Sony hasn't participated since 2019, it still came as a shock in January when IGN reported that both Nintendo and Microsoft would not be attending E3 this year as well. It appears that the report is true, as Microsoft has not confirmed any E3-related events outside of its independently run Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase.
Nintendo skipping E3 2023 not only takes away a vendor that dominated the show floor in previous years, but also raises questions about whether or not the company will hold an exciting Nintendo Direct around then. While Nintendo typically holds a big showcase with lots of first-party game announcements around June every year, in 2022 it only held a third-party driven Partner Showcase in June. Now that we know it won't be at E3 2023, we're left to wonder when exactly then next big Nintendo Direct will be.
E3 2023 will take place between June 13 and June 16, but don't expect Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft to have a big presence there.

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Here’s what E3 2023 could look like without Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft

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Let's start with the good news: E3 2023 will be held in its in-person format once again after three long years of digital events necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this time with ReedPop at the helm. The bad news is that Sony, Xbox, and Nintendo -- gaming's "Big 3" -- may not show up at the industry’s biggest convention this summer.

This is according to a report from IGN citing multiple sources, who claimed the companies won’t be a part of the show or make appearances on the floor at the Los Angeles Convention Center in any way. Their absence from this year’s E3, especially Nintendo’s, may come as a shock to the gaming community, but it's not such a surprise when looking at the past few iterations of E3. Even before the pandemic locked everyone down in 2020, Sony and Xbox had been hosting their own E3-style livestreams, so it was more likely they would do it again this year anyway. Nintendo, on the other hand, managed to show off its upcoming games via Nintendo Direct streams and at its booth, console kiosks and all.