A few days ago, Sony announced that it would not hold a PlayStation Experience event for 2018 in North America, which will be the first time since the convention began in 2014. PSX is Sony’s annual event that showcases everything related to PlayStation including upcoming games and hardware.

Previously, Sony’s chairman Shawn Lyden explained the news on the latest PSBlogcast stating that there isn’t enough material on the company’s lineup to justify a big event this year. “Now that we have Spider-Man out the door, we’re looking down in 2019 to games like Dreams and Days Gone, but we wouldn’t have enough to bring people all together in some location in North America to have that event.”

Of course, Sony’s official reason for not holding an event this year is understandable given that two of its highly anticipated titles were already released, God of War last April, and most recently, Insomniac’s Spider-Man. Both games received critical acclaim, with Spider-Man taking over God of War as Sony’s fastest-selling game of all time.

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However, there might also be another reason why Sony has decided to skip the event this year. It is possible that the Sony is focusing most of its resources on the development of the PS5. Of course, it is worth remembering that the company has been extremely secretive about the PS5 and has not revealed or confirmed anything about the next-gen console. But, if one were to look at Sony’s history, the company has been consistent with the gaps in-between consoles, with an average of 6-7 years. If Sony plans to follow previous patterns with its hardware release, then it is expected that the PS5 will launch somewhere in between 2019-2020, given that the PS4 was released back in 2013.

Moreover, several game developers are already looking into developing titles for next-generation consoles. CD Projekt Red mentioned before that although its futuristic RPG Cyberpunk 2077 will be released for current-gen systems, the studio is also looking at the possibility of releasing the game for next-gen consoles.

Currently, everything about the PS5 is purely speculation at this point and must be taken with a grain of salt. Of course, it's somewhat disappointing that Sony won’t hold a PSX event for this year in North America, but at least we can expect a more exciting and packed lineup come 2019, which may or may not include a PS5 announcement. Who knows?