Following yesterdays shock news that there may not be an E3 next year, we can now confirm that the rumours were indeed true!

In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Doug Lowenstein, president of show organisers the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), said that E3 will be changing next year to become the E3 Media Festival. Instead of taking place in the LA Convention Center in May it will be held later in the year in July, and will be housed in two hotels, with press events and meetings taking place in hotel suites and conference rooms.

The later date is probably a good thing. For one thing it allows games which are targetted for an end of year release to be demoed in a more finished state. The May date also was rather close to Easter, which after Christmas is one of the busier times of the year for games releases.

One of the more interesting aspects of past E3’s has been the pre-show battles between Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, who generally have had huge press conferences held in the days leading up to E3 itself. One worry was that the lack of a “proper” E3 would put an end to this, but so long as there’s a focal date for the games industry to shout about itself, we can only hope that the big three will continue to try and outdo each other in a similar manner in the years to come.

E3 is dead. Long live E3!

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