E3’s future News RumourSaturday, 5th August 2023 by Mike

After snubbing E3, Nintendo, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Sega are all heading to this year’s gamescom — plus, “Switch 2” rumours abound

A row of purple flags sporting gamescom logos — It appears gamescom’s milkshake brings all the exhibitors to the yard, and they’re like, “it’s better than E3’s.”

It’s only been four months since E3 2023 was cancelled after Microsoft and Bethesda, Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Sega, and Tencent all either declined to appear, or pulled out at the last minute. And yet Microsoft and Bethesda, Nintendo, Ubisoft, and Sega are all confirmed to be attending this year’s gamescom expo in Cologne, Germany.

Amazon Games, Bandai Namco, Devolver Digital, The Lego Group, and Team17 are among the other publishers heading to the event, which will take place between Wednesday, 23rd and Sunday, 27th August.

It’ll be interesting to see what everyone shows off at the ‘con — so we can take part in some enjoyable speculation about whether their big E3 reveals just weren’t going to be ready in time, or they didn’t have anything big to reveal, or maybe they’ve just lost confidence in the whole concept of E3.

A fan-made concept of a future Nintendo Switch model. Picture: Olivier Raymond on Behance

Speaking of “big things to reveal”, the so-called-Nintendo Switch 2 rumours have bubbled up again, seemingly thanks to fellow UK-based gaming blog startmenu. They claim an industry source, who “is in regular contact with multiple studios and platform holders across the industry, told startmenu that Nintendo plans to announce a follow-up to the Switch ‘at Gamescom.'”

Meanwhile, VGC and Eurogamer are reporting Nintendo’s Switch successor will be landing in the latter half of 2024, will have an LCD screen to keep costs down, and will continue to use proprietary cartridges for physical game releases.