Gabriel Stanford-ReisingerXbox is promising to support iicon, the new event set up by the Entertainment Software Association following the culling of E3. Now, though, this event is reserved for “visionaries, thought leaders and innovators across industries that intersect with interactive entertainment.”
Xbox president Sarah Bond expressed on the ESA website that Microsoft will support the convention, which appears a lot more for industry professionals than the mishmash that E3 turned into as time progressed.
“At Xbox, our mission is to bring the joy of gaming to players anywhere they want, while creating opportunities for the amazing creators behind them,
We appreciate the ESA establishing iicon as a platform to deepen connections among executives and thought leaders from within gaming, and from a wide range of partner industries. Together, we will collaborate, invent and create – and together we will all grow.”
In 2023, E3 was officially killed off, in large part due to a bit of an identity crisis of appealing to industry pros and gaming fans, and the whole 2020 lockdown situation, leaving many in-person events to either cancel or scramble to find a way to make their event remote-friendly. In the end, E3 just wasn’t worth it and the ESA canned future events.
The first iicon will take place on April 27, 2026 and will run through April 30.