E3 2023 returns in June with separate business and consumer days

By Joseph Yaden Published September 26, 2022

E3 2023 will return as an in-person event from June 13 to June 16, 2023, as announced by ReedPop today.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) already revealed that E3 will return in 2023, but now we know exactly when the event will take place, along with several other key details. E3 will once again take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center after a four-year hiatus, but will incorporate separate days for industry professionals and general consumers.

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Business Days will occur from June 13 to June 15, giving access to separate halls and spaces specifically only for industry professionals. This includes media, publishers, distributors, developers, and others working in the field. Then, from June 15 to June 16, the event will open to the general public, with “spectacular” booths and other attractions available to the public at large.

Just like previous E3 events, a number of digital showcases and events will occur prior to the convention itself, starting on June 11. It’s currently unclear what the lineup of showcases will entail, but expect multiple publishers and developers to participate.

The last in-person version of E3 occurred in 2019. Then, in 2020, it was canceled due to the pandemic, but returned as an all-digital event in 2021. The ESA canceled E3 2022, as publishers hosted their own digital events alongside Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest this year.

Since the pandemic and the rise of digital showcases, the need for E3 has diminished. Many companies that used to host in-person key notes in front of live audiences shifted to an all-digital format in recent years, so it’ll be interesting to see which developers and publishers decide to participate in E3 2023 next year.

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Joseph Yaden is a freelance journalist who covers Nintendo, shooters, and horror games. He mostly covers game guides for…

Gaming

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

Basim showing off his hidden blade in front of the Bagdad cityscape.

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.

Gaming

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

Pikmin and Bulborb in Pikmin 4.

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.

Gaming

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

Playstation character wall at E3 2018

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.