Sony changes its E3 2018 conference format and focuses on four PS4 exclusives

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Sony’s conference at E3 2018 would not follow the company’s traditional model. The one who said so was Shawn Layden, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, on episode 292 of the PlayStation Blogcast, the brand’s official podcast.

Instead of a rapid sequence of trailers, Sony promised to go deep on four PS4 exclusives: Ghost of Tsushima, by Sucker Punch; The Last of Us Part II, by Naughty Dog; Death Stranding, by Kojima Productions; and Marvel’s Spider-Man, by Insomniac Games. Layden also guaranteed there would be room for third-party partners and indies, and made clear there would be no hardware announcement. The presentation was scheduled for Monday, June 11, at 6 PM Pacific time, 10 PM in Brasília.

It was a clear bet. In 2018, Sony was living the peak of the PS4, and its studios were the console’s big selling point. Showing fewer games, but with more gameplay time, said a lot about the company’s confidence in that catalog. The question I asked at the time was whether that confidence would survive the event.

What came next

It survived. The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding and Spider-Man were the four games in focus, with longer presentations. In between came surprises from partners, such as the presentation of the Resident Evil 2 remake, already dated for January 2019, the announcement of Nioh 2, from Team Ninja, and the reveal of Control, from Remedy.

The four games came out in the following years: Spider-Man on September 7, 2018, Death Stranding on November 8, 2019, The Last of Us Part II on June 19, 2020 and Ghost of Tsushima on July 17, 2020. E3 2018 turned out to be Sony’s last conference at the show: Sony announced it would not take part in E3 2019, the first time it stayed away from the event.