This is definitely an interesting point worth bringing up; sometimes solidifying a niche to its absolute peak can pay off. You'd think Sony's strategy, ahead of going with live-service GaaS games, would've been to capitalize on the Marvel stuff. Which we're seeing partially with Spiderman 2 and Wolverine, but what if they went even further with say a Doctor Strange game from Naughty Dog, or an X-Men game from Guerrilla Games with some futuristic Savage Lands arc crossover with Horizon universe. Pretty sure stuff like that could do Spiderman numbers quite easily.
But I guess it's a twofold issue there. The first is budgets, meaning for any of those kind of games it might mean we don't get a new Uncharted, or maybe even another God of War, at least for a while. The other is tying themselves too deep with licensed IP they wouldn't technically own, which could make them too vulnerable down the road.
If there were a way Sony could get the budgets for these AAA single-player story-centric blockbusters, we'd see them pushing a lot further in that direction. Unfortunately I don't know if there is an easy way to do that, therefore them doing more live-service GaaS titles, that have way cheaper budgets and potentially as much if not more revenue/profit margins, seems like the immediate answer they have to try managing increasing budgets for the Horizons, GoWs, TLOUs, GoTs, Spidermans etc.
For me the failure of SGF really just shows why we still need E3. SGF this year felt like a regression, I don't get how that happens. More power to Geoff to make it a big thing but they still have a ways to go.
But yeah, I also just miss everyone being under one roof. In a way I think that helped cut down on the fanboy/fangirl toxicity since for at least one point in the year, at the biggest event, you had all kinds of gamers mingling together just trying out all the hot new games, or watching all the conferences. You still get that in parts but it's not enough to offset the insular echo chamber bubbles you can find online in places like Twitter.
Another thing, maybe it's just me seeing it this way but stuff like E3 I think also drove companies to bring their A game each and every time. No "holding stuff back", no lack of urgency: you had E3 and then maybe TGS, and that was basically it for the big boy shows. Two times the whole year to get your message out there. It forced everyone, especially platform holders, to put on some damn good shows.
And, yeah, it was also good for the memes. I loved the embarrassing moments and companies pwning other companies. "This is how you share games.", Konami's infamous E3 fail, the Wii Music one with the drummer, "Riiiiiidge Racccccerrrrrrr!!", "Giant enemy crabs", "$299", etc. Epic moments where you know ALL eyes were on them gaming-wise and even from non-gaming outlets. It just doesn't have the same punch with the way things are being done now, I kinda feel bad for the younger Gen Z gamers just coming into teenager/young adult years in a post-E3 world. They'll never know what they missed out on.
If anything like the previous years they'll likely (hopefully) have a big Showcase in September where they can show off Ragnarok, possibly show off some gameplay of Spiderman 2 (if it's coming 2023), maybe some expansion content for GT7, some gameplay for Factions, etc. and that's just WRT 1P content.
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