The list of companies in attendance at this year’s gamescom in Germany has been released, and once again Sony remains absent. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, given the company also skipped out last year, instead favoring Paris Games Week in October. Normally, this wouldn’t be too concerning, but we’re all waiting on the PlayStation Neo release date, and it’s not coming soon enough.
We knew ahead of time we would not be getting an E3 reveal from Sony about the latest update to the PS4. After E3, we even heard that Sony didn’t know when it wanted to make the official announcement. In an interview with Gamereactor, Jim Ryan, head of global sales and marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment. was asked several questions regarding Sony’s plans moving forward post-E3.. When questioned about the Neo announcement, Ryan replied with “Honestly, we haven’t decided yet.”
With gamescom out, the major press conferences remaining in the year are the Tokyo Game Show in September and Paris Games Week in October. Both seem way too close to the rumored October release date, so maybe plans have changed at Sony, perhaps due to Microsoft’s Xbox One S and Xbox Scorpio announcements.
That being said, Sony is a large enough company to host it’s own event for the PlayStation Neo, or it could be holding off until the PlayStation Experience at the start of December. Making a new console announcement in a room filled with hundreds of die-hard Sony fans is a pretty smart move anyway.
With no announcement on the horizon, it looks like the Xbox One S will release uncontested on store shelves. This may seem like a huge advantage for Microsoft, but really this will mostly just narrow the gap Microsoft has fallen into in terms of units sold. It seems the real competition will be between the Xbox Scorpio and the PlayStation Neo.
So what do you think? Are you surprised to see Sony skipping gamescom this year? Do you think the PlayStation Neo is getting reworked based on the Xbox Scorpio announcement? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
