Sony has announced that PlayStation will not be appearing at the upcoming CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2027. The event is slated to take place from January 6th to the 9th, and this will mark the first time in decades that the company is skipping it. In its statement to Bloomberg, Sony said that it wants to shift PlayStation’s overall focus to entertainment, IP, and technology that can support creators.
“We continuously and strategically evaluate our approach to events and communications based on the needs and priorities of our diverse business.”
Sony has traditionally kept a big presence at CES shows ever since it showed up to the 1967 event. PlayStation has also used CES as an important part of its marketing cycle. Most recently, we have seen Sony unveil the PS5’s name, its online game streaming service, and even the hardware that would go on to be an important part of the original PlayStation all the way back in 1991.
Sony’s move indicates that it is serious about its larger ambitions, especially when it comes to its entertainment-centric divisions like PlayStation, music, and its film division. With this in mind, the lack of a focus on the more technological side of its company’s offerings makes the decision to skip CES a sound one. It is also worth noting that the company had collaborated with Honda for a booth at CES 2026, rather than running its own booth.
The company, however, still remains a major powerhouse when it comes to technical offerings. However, outside of PlayStation and other consumer electronics like TVs, Sony’s offerings largely tend to focus on its business-to-business dealings with things like camera sensors.
The fact that Sony likely doesn’t have any major announcement to make in early 2027 might also have played a role in its decision to skip CES. While rumors have indicated that the company is on track to launch its next-generation console in late 2027 or early 2028, its marketing plans might involve officially unveiling the PS6 and the rumored handheld closer to the middle of the year. There is also a chance that Sony wants to unveil these products at its own showcase events where it might have more control over its message. This would put Sony’s moves in the same line as what Nintendo does, with the latter choosing to reveal details about the Nintendo Switch 2 through its own Direct showcases.
The decision to skip CES 2027 also plays into what CEO Hiroki Totoki recently said about the company not needing to invest too much in marketing for the PS5 anymore. Earlier this month, Totoki noted that “We are in the latter half of the life cycle for a PlayStation console. That means that we do not need to ‘aggressively sell’ the console today. And rather than that, we’re focusing on recurring revenue from the recurrent user base. And already, PlayStation Plus has more than 125 million monthly active users today, and how to monetize from those users is quite important for us.”
In the meantime, Sony has been at the center of a major controversy regarding the company’s decision to stop producing PlayStation discs for new games by January 2028.
