There is no substitute to a big Sony show.
Everything that will be worthy will be shown at Sony events. This doesn't mean that there won't be stuff at other events, but the god tier of gaming stuff from Naughty Dog, Santa Monica etc. will be at dedicated big Playstation events.
I'm with you that those shows were cool, and when Sony goes big, it's monumental even if you're not a PlayStation gamer. (MS can do that too, and Nintendo dropped the original megaton, but there does seem to always be a heavy buzz for Sony events in particular.)
Fact is, though, Sony is in the business of selling games, not of hosting showcase events.
The way to market product changed (and changed even further when COVID,) and Sony has learned where to put its efforts for the new era of product marketing. The way of blowing thing out in June and then not talking to customers again until December is just not how it's done for most companies. Some companies still tried to make a splash during of the E3 timeframe this year, and maybe the show will return next year in a healthier form with new ideas, but things had already been in total flux before COVID, (Sony had already pulled out of E3 the year before, and Nintendo had been doing its Direct streams for ages, with the games actually at E3 being just a party for a couple key titles,) and we're seeing a real incarnation of the new way, not just a lull in game announcements for a rather tame E3/summer event cycle.
So, the reality is rather straightforward. Sony have X amount of games in various states of production in their studios, they have a whole year to market each one of them if they need public exposure at this point (as opposed to before where a company would announce an entire year's worth of product at E3 or TGS,) and they're on a different marketing cycle than the get-big-quick approach MS has in building up Game Pass. They have no contracts for big shows (unless they actually throw PSX,) no obligations to have a big marketing moment, so when they're ready to make announcements, they can just turn on the PS Blog and make news within a week. Meanwhile, COVID pushed all of its products back 3-6 months (and that's a generous use of an excuse, given that some of the next-gen products would have slipped anyway, but you can go back and see the targets for Ratchet and Returnal and Horizon then look at where they landed and see how everything shifted on the game board,) so even their Holiday 2021 plans are unconfirmed (Horizon is racing to the finish line, otherwise all we know they'll have is Deathloop and some of the Director's Cuts, otherwise it would have also been GT7 and
supposedly God of War Ragnarok.) That's not a great place for them to be (if Horizon doesn't finish, PS might finish 2021 fairly dry against MS's two big titles, but then again MS spent the whole year dry so it's just more of the weirdest console cycle ever...), but the console is still moving just fine and there's still eager interest in the platform and they have remasters and several big names still on the radar. They have product, and it is moving. When they need to reinvigorate the market, they could see what's ready and start to generate some heat by putting a show together, but it's not like before where the actual development cycle of products was impacted by planning for E3; now, the game maker gets to set all the terms, and being only on video makes it easier to put together a bubblegum-and-ducttape demo of whatever's working without worrying about embarrassing the team with a code failure. If a project isn't ready for a play demo, see if you can cut together a new trailer, kids go nuts for every one of those. When Sony can daisy-chain a number of big games together for a big showcase, that can have an additive effect for all of those games (remember when Bugsnax had a moment?) as well as elevating desire for the console, so that's one strategy Sony can take, but it's no longer the only tactical approach.
As far as we know, Sony is running low on games to announce or showcase. As far as we know. They've got Horizon, they've got GT7, they've got God of War, and that's all we know for sure by name, then also the Deviation / Firewalk / Haven projects. Many of their studios either have recently released or will be releasing games soon, so unless they are like Insomniac with multiple projects all going at once (which would be unusual, even if rumors say many are multitasking,) it's unlikely we'll hear from them again so soon. Maybe they're spent? Maybe not? As far as we know, we don't know, and unless the business takes a downturn and they need to take some kind of action that would include marketing, it's in the company's better interest that consumers not know too much. We're a fickle and demanding bunch, and we take shit that's totally made up and hold it against the company when they actually do make a public appearance. (Nintendo would have been better off just releasing Switch OLED with no announcement and having consumers pick it up like an Apple product, instead they're getting flamed for months for "4K" and "DLSS" and other Pro Model ideas that didn't come from Nintendo.) As far as we know, there could be something in August, or there isn't, and there could be TLoU2 Factions/Bloodborne Remastered/Sunset Overdrive PS5/Spiderman 2/Pixelopus Spidey/Silent Hills/MGS Remake/Guerrilla Project #2 ready to be unveiled any day now, or there isn't
What is known is that Sony has at least four games to market going into the back half of the year: Deathloop, Horizon Forbidden West (unless tragedy strikes,) and the Director's Cut packages of Ghost of Tsushima & Death Stranding. Plus, they have to keep the console selling. That's job one. If they also market their 2022/202X slate, that's a bonus, but showing God of War in whatever state of development it's in won't stop Halo Infinite from selling a lot of copies and Xboxes, so better to show it when it will have the most impact for itself and the platform, and that goes for most Sony titles. Job one, first.