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E3 2018: Sony sticks to games, stays silent on VR, streaming

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E3 2018: Sony sticks to games, stays silent on VR, streaming

Sony Corp. once again decided to go its own route with the PlayStation E3 2018 briefing, skipping standard press conference chatter from executives and game developers in favor of back-to-back trailers for forthcoming games for the PS4.

Sony Interactive Entertainment's Shawn Layden said at the annual video game industry conference that instead of a "bombardment of new creative," the PlayStation briefing's focus would be on providing deeper looks into four key PS4 titles that the company has already announced over the past few years.

SNL ImageSony E3 2018 briefing
Source: S&P Global

The briefing began with a gameplay demo of "The Last of Us Part II," the sequel to one of Sony's most critically acclaimed games. The trailer was played in a giant tent made to look like a makeshift church from within the game. Once it ended, the audience was ushered into a larger, more traditional auditorium, replete with an enormous curved screen that showed all of the other trailers.

Most of the focus was on "Marvel's Spider-Man," as it is the only exclusive from the group that is actually set to launch this year on Sept. 7. "Death Stranding," a cinematic psychological horror, and "Ghost of Tsushima," a feudal Japan-based action game, were also highlighted at the briefing.

Surprisingly, the third-party games that Sony managed to squeeze between its four exclusives did not include two major tentpole releases set for this fall Activision Blizzard Inc.'s "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4" and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.'s "Red Dead Redemption II." Both of the highly anticipated games already have multiple trailers that have millions of views online.

Also missing from the briefing were titles for the PlayStation VR. Although Sony announced a few titles for the virtual reality headset both prior to and following the briefing, the fact that no time was allocated to the device's games on the main stage spoke volumes about the state of the tech, according to Strategy Analytics analyst Michael Goodman.

"The HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are already switching most of their focus to enterprise applications instead of games," Goodman said in an interview at the event. "Couple that with Sony not using the big E3 stage to highlight its own dedicated VR device and you've got trouble."

Also noticeably absent from the PlayStation briefing was any mention of Sony's PlayStation Now game streaming subscription service and the PlayStation Vue over-the-top TV service. While the latter service's absence may have been part of the effort to keep the focus on games, the PlayStation Now omission came as a surprise to those who were expecting Sony to ramp up the service as Electronic Arts Inc. and Microsoft Corp. continue to expand with video game streaming.

Additional E3 2018 coverage:

Microsoft boosts gaming with new acquisitions, streaming initiatives

Microsoft pushes game streaming service to the forefront

Nintendo's new Switch titles draw massive crowds