It was reported earlier this week that Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo had all decided they would not appear on the show floor at E3 2023. Xbox and PlayStation weren’t all that surprising — PlayStation has not attended the show in years, and Xbox has the Microsoft Theatre literally down the street it can use to house its festivities.
Nintendo was, in many ways, the lone holdout. Though it no longer holds an E3 press conference, Nintendo remained one of the show’s bigger supporters, dutifully setting up its splashy mega booth in the West Hall each year. Alas, for E3 2023, even Nintendo is out the door.
But why the change of heart? According to a new report from VGC, it could be because Nintendo doesn’t have that many games to show off this year. And, when we think about it, there aren’t all that many that leap to mind. Of the few major titles we know about — Metroid Prime 4, Pikmin 4, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — one of them will (knock wood) launch a month ahead of E3, and another has been MIA for nearly six years.
Covering the story, TheGamer felt that this could indicate the Switch’s arrival at a flashpoint. Idle rumours from early Janaury pointed to Tears of the Kingdom as the last truly major title for the Switch before Nintendo begins to sunset the device as we know it. Given the poor performance of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet on the device, and renewed calls for a hardware upgrade, the idea that Tears of the Kingdom is the end of the road makes a certain amount of sense. To bookend the beginning and end of the Switch’s working life with two defining titles in the Zelda series feels about right.
Digital Foundry reported information from its own sources that indicated Nintendo had ditched its plans for an upgraded Switch to funnel resources into its own next-gen hardware.
Gamesindustry.biz head Chris Dring reported suggestions from his own sources Nintendo did not have any significant games lined up after Zelda “for quite some time.”
This is not to suggest that Nintendo doesn’t have any new games coming to the Switch before next year. It almost certainly does, but they won’t be the tentpole announcements the company needs for an event like E3.
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