Microsoft & Ubisoft looking to provide a digital experience after cancellation of E3 2020

It has been made official, ESA has called off E3 2020 due to the rising threat of coronavirus in the United States which means there will be no convention in Los Angeles for the video game industry come June. As most fans know that leading up into the event itself there are a load of press conferences and digital presentations from Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Bethesda, and EA.

Now that E3 2020 has been cancelled this means that there will not be any press conferences from Ubisoft & Microsoft. Today, Phil Spencer had this to say:

“Given this decision, this year we’ll celebrate the next generation of gaming with the Xbox community and all who love to play via an Xbox digital event. Details on timing and more in the coming weeks”

For the first time it looks like we will see our very first digital E3 presentation from Xbox instead of their annual press conference which was previously held at the Microsoft Theater at the Xbox Plaza. We have seen them do Inside Xbox in the past, but we assume this will be very different as we expect many big showcases such as the next generation Xbox in the Series X and to see more First-Party games like Halo Infinite and the Forza Motorsport franchise.

Ubisoft on the other hand have also announced that they will be exploring options to provide fans with a digital experience of their planned press conference. Stating that the health and well-being of teams, players and partners are their top priority.

Here is the full statement below:

We have yet to hear from Bethesda who also are known to hold conferences during E3 as of the past few years. Another company would be Electronic Arts who backed away from E3 in 2016 and have hosted EA Play with their own physical presentations. It’s probably safe to predict that all companies will be doing a digital experience one way or another.

What are your thoughts on these moves?

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