I actually think the Internet made it more so.

More and more people watch it each year, and the media attention is higher than ever.

That to me means its more relevant, not less.

But E3 is still relevant, so of course it's not surprising that they would have.

You can judge how little they care by how few games will be there this year and how few press conferences/DEs they are having. One and none.

Last year was my first year to watch because of that playstation app on the ps4. It seems pretty relevant to me.

No, YOU can judge how little they care based on that. I judge on them being there or not.

Its not like they are showing up with one WiiU and one copy of the game in some corner...

EA bowed out

in favour of having their own thing just over the street from E3, in the same time period as E3. It's effectively an E3 event.

You can't judge something as vague as relevancy on such binary terms. It's not black or white, dude. It's grey. They are showing up with only one game for only one platform when last year they showed like a dozen with a Digital Event for multiple systems. You have to be covering your ears and eyes to pretend that those two situations account for the exact same, or an even remotely comparable, level of apathy.

Yes, because it's the main event of the industry. Press coverage, big announcements, all the industry hold their big announcements for E3.

Nintendo isn't there anymore because they're leaving the industry, I mean, Nintendo sells its own thing. They made their exclusive decision to not compete with PS/Xbox and so E3 is irrelevant only for themselves.

effectively - actually but not officially or explicitely.

AKA "not."

Effectively = not.

It's not an E3 event. It's their own thing. Doesn't matter the details, because at the end of the day, it's entirely independant of E3.

They had more games last year, so what? They are still there with just as big of a booth. This time it will be a huge Zelda themed one. Instead of just white. They will have showings of the game. Both staged and by the Treehouse. It might just be for one game, but what other game has ever gotten THAT much attention at E3?

I think the time frame and the name matter. But if you think a closed off event only accessible to the press is what should be happening in 2016, then I would say those individuals are ignorant to the possibilities of what E3 COULD be.

Why can't demos of games that are currently ONLY available to the people who attend E3 be accessibly to everyone for that week? It can be done. There have been numerous occasions (such as P.T. on PS4, or Splatoon on Wii U) where demos were only available for a certain period of time. I think the treehouses with developers, or digital events where we can see a video of ALL the developers of a certain game can come out and talk about how a game was made and what the game meant to them is FAR better than seeing whoever from a development studio could attend has to say in the small amount of time they are given.

E3 as a live event in front of the press is extremely outdated, and the sooner it dies the better.