The world’s biggest video game event will be missing one of its major exhibitors next year. Sony will not be attending the show for the first time in the event’s 23-year history.

The company has traditionally held a major PlayStation press conference on the Monday before the event, and has occupied acres of space in the LA Convention centre, where the show takes place every June. Considered the Cannes of the gaming world, E3 is the centre of the gaming calendar, attracting more than 65,000 visitors, with millions more watching live broadcasts of the show. E3 is where big publishers and console manufacturers reveal major new titles and where next-generation hardware is shown for the first time.

“As the industry evolves, Sony Interactive Entertainment continues to look for inventive opportunities to engage the community,” the company said in a statement. “PlayStation fans mean the world to us, and we always want to innovate, think differently and experiment with new ways to delight gamers. As a result, we have decided not to participate in E3 in 2019. We are exploring new and familiar ways to engage our community in 2019.”

Sony drew controversy at this year’s E3 when it abandoned its traditional press conference in favour of a bizarre theatrical experience revolving around only four key titles. The company’s lineup of exhibitable games for 2019 is similar to this year’s: the 2018 titles Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part II are still unreleased, months after the event. Sony likely decided that without major new announcements for June, an expensive E3 presence is not required. E3 press conferences usually take place in giant venues around Los Angeles, such as the Galen Center and the Memorial Sports Arena, which costs millions to rent – as do elaborate stands on the show floor.

Sony is not the first major company to pull out of the annual event. Last year, Microsoft held most of its game presentations at the nearby LA Live theatre, while Electronic Arts and Devolver Digital hold its own events in buildings (and parking lots) around the convention centre.

The nature of games industry marketing and publicity has changed over the past five years, moving away from benchmark physical events designed to attract traditional press coverage and toward dedicated fan events or online broadcasts, aimed directly at consumers and YouTube influencers. Exhibitors and E3 organiser ESA have also expressed frustration with the LA Convention Centre, which some think needs to be modernised and upgraded.

It is expected that Sony will soon announce a successor to its PlayStation 4 console which is now five years old. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida stated, “At this point, what I can say is it’s necessary to have a next-generation hardware.”