Monacelli explained that during PAX East one year, Sony assembled the Worldwide Studios community team. They made their own living room-style space at the show, and invited fans to stop by and speak directly with developers. The team was energized by the response, which ultimately led to the formation of PlayStation Experience, a grander extension of that original PAX East get-together.

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Eric Monacelli said:

That whole concept spiraled into a bigger event," he said. "We were like, 'We have this really awesome fan base and these really wonderful people that we get to hear from ... and how can we talk with them in the most authentic and real way possible?'

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December is historically a quiet month for announcements and conventions, so why is PlayStation Experience taking place now? Video games are a year-round business, so why should community events slow down at the tail-end of the year, Monacelli said.

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Eric Monacelli said:

We're trained historically that E3, all the big news comes out around that. Or if you're in Europe, all the big news comes out around Gamescom," Monacelli said. "Hopefully we can create this event in the December time-frame, maybe it'll move, we don't really know yet, but for now it's one of those things where we want to plant our stake in the ground and say, 'We have great content coming out all the time.' And we want to be able to have a dialogue with our community, with our fans, year-round.

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Eric Monacelli said:

We have a bunch of announcements coming, some pretty exciting stuff from across Worldwide Studios teams," Monacelli said. "One of the biggest elements, like you've seen at other cons like BlizzCon is sort of the surprise effect. Like Overwatch, right? That sort of came out of nowhere and it was really cool to see. So I think we want to keep those close to the vest until the day comes. We'll definitely get it out there. We have a ton of great panels, a ton of great games you can play, and some really cool swag and collectible stuff.

Traditionally, there a few cons that broadcast everything, which is cool. But we want to keep some surprises and keep some stuff that, if you're at the event, you hear about it first," he added. "Or you hear about it, and you can go talk about it and share it and sort of be the mouthpiece for it. It's a good gauge for what people are excited about. And that's what we want. We want real, authentic conversations to start. We don't want to force anything down people's throats; we want people to talk about what they're excited about.

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