As I write this, I am in the middle of watching Gamescom coverage, tracking all of the huge announcements coming out of Germany this week. With the proliferation of live streaming video and the endless cycle of user-generated hype, major game publishers are beginning to realize that just focusing on one major event each year (E3) is a missed opportunity. Microsoft, in particular, has subscribed fully to this belief by saving some of its biggest 2016 titles, like Quantum Break and Scalebound, for Gamescom. This lets them keep the hype-train running months after E3’s momentum has died down, leading right into the holiday season.

For now, this seems like an excellent strategy. Microsoft’s Gamescom conference was packed wall-to-wall with great-looking game demos and exciting announcements, building up fan anticipation that should lead right into the holiday season. This year seems to be the sweet spot for this strategy; after all, Sony has to stay competitive. Xbox fans will be dominating the online conversation for some time, acting as an echo chamber, building on the hype that Microsoft generated earlier this week. Sony can’t stay away from that next year.

But with the biggest publishers and platforms in gaming all realizing that hype can be built all year around, do we start to see a problem with over-saturation? Even with one event per year, the amount of information and advertising that comes out of E3 alone is too much to really take in. When all is said and done, only a few titles emerge as the “victors.” This year’s E3 was fantastic for titles like Uncharted 4 and Fallout 4. But for less-hyped games like, say, EA’s Unravel, they get drowned out in a sea of hype.

With EVEN MORE conferences with EVEN MORE titles, does it give those smaller games a chance, or simply bolster the big dogs even more? Honestly, the former seems more likely than the latter. Again, Microsoft had an incredibly impressive show this week, detailing why their fans should be excited for games this year and what to expect in the year to come. But there’s simply too much to digest. Games like Homefront 2 and Just Cause 3 look interesting, for instance, but who’s talking about them? The Halo Wars 2 announcement, Crackdown 3’s destructible environments, the footage from Quantum Break, and the Xbox DVR functionality are driving the conversation.

If Sony jumps onboard the Gamescom hype-train, things will be even more muddled. Can the gaming world really handle multiple E3’s every year? Or will we blow a hype fuse, overwhelmed by the number of games we’re asked to be “stoked” about? Hell, is hype even GOOD? Shouldn’t we be excited about the games we have available now? It’s impossible to keep up with the number of great titles that have been released in the past year or so. Won’t the games we’re hyped about today suffer the same fate?

I don’t offer a solution to the problem, nor do I claim to be immune to it (seriously, Microsoft showed off some GREAT stuff). But maybe we should at least be aware of this phenomenon, because the publishers certainly aren’t going to back off anytime soon.