Planned E3 2020 reveals reportedly coming earlier following event cancellation

Reveals and announcements that were scheduled for E3 2020 are now expected to occur outside of the week of June 9th, when the event was originally planned to take place.

Niko Partners senior analyst and video games industry insider Daniel Ahmad tweeted (via Gematsu) yesterday that, following E3’s cancellation, “a lot of the planned reveals/announcements have been moved out of that single week” and that the “first proper next gen console/games showcase is much earlier too.”

However, Ahmad added a caveat to that final point, saying that “external factors such as COVID-19 could actually change plans right at the last minute.”

While E3 2020’s cancellation was sure to have shifted some of the games industry’s scheduled announcements, publishers still seemed intent on keeping with tradition while socially distancing. Both Microsoft and Ubisoft announced that they planned on hosting digital events in lieu of hosting E3 press briefings, though neither specified when these events will take place. E3’s parent company the Entertainment Software Association had said that it was looking to hold some sort of digital event in June, but that’s starting to look less and less likely as publishers opt for hosting their own events.

Even prior to COVID-19 wreaking havoc on the industry, Microsoft already broke with tradition by revealing the Xbox Series X during the 2019 Game Awards, as well as announcing Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II as a launch title. Its rival, Sony, announced a month later that it was skipping E3 2020 in favor of hosting its own event, then gave fans a technical rundown of the PlayStation 5’s technical specs in March and revealed the console’s DualSense controller in April.