Nintendo and Microsoft confirm E3 attendance in wake of PlayStation no-show

Microsoft and Nintendo will both be at next year's E3, and they want you to know about it.

Both companies have moved to express their support of the games industry's annual extravaganza following Sony's unprecedented announcement last night PlayStation would skip the show for the first time in E3's 24-year history.

Writing on Twitter as word of PlayStation's decision reverberated around the internet, Xbox chief Phil Spencer said Microsoft would have "a lot to share" at the event next year:

Xbox's social media also made it clear the company would attend:

Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime was similarly positive about his company's presence there next year.

"E3 is an outstanding opportunity for us to share new games and experiences with fans and business partners from across the globe," Fils-Aime boomed in a statement issued by E3 itself. "Every year, we discuss what will be the best way for us to take advantage of the next E3 show in order to bring smiles to people's faces."

While Nintendo no longer holds traditional press conferences at E3, it still times its biggest announcements of the year for an E3 Nintendo Direct broadcast. You could already have a good guess at what games it may bring to E3 2019 - the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4, upcoming Animal Crossing game and next year's Pokémon all being fair bets.

Microsoft has already - at E3 this year, in fact - begun talking in a small way about what is next for Xbox. It has new Xbox consoles - plural - on the way and more recently revealed an ambitious game-streaming service in the pipeline.

PlayStation obviously has new console hardware in the works too but is being quieter about it. Perhaps it wants to keep its cards closer to its chest, perhaps it knows both it and Microsoft are still a way off actually releasing this new hardware, and it would be wiser to talk about it nearer the time.

But PlayStation is also working off a backlog of long-announced games it has promoted for several E3s in a row but still has yet to release. If PlayStation had decided to turn up to E3 next year, you could guess it would show new trailers for Death Stranding and Last of Us 2 as it has done for the past several years already. The question is - when Sony does have new things to discuss, will it return?