The outbreak of the Coronavirus presence on the gaming industry is now very evident, is been affecting both Nintendo and Sony, and a decimated workforce in the manufacturing process might be a real problem for the next gen consoles.
Today Square Enix announced that considering the current situation within the region, the best decision is to cancel the PAX East attendance of staff who would be traveling from the Japan offices.
Since our team will not be in attendance, we are planning to scale down on our planned activities for FINAL FANTASY XIV:
“As the community may be aware, COVID-19 (also known as ‘novel coronavirus’) is spreading within the East Asia region,” the company said on the official Final Fantasy 14 website.
Square Enix will still host the FINAL FANTASY XIV booth on the show floor (#15010), and we hope you’ll take part and enjoy the Ruby Weapon battle challenge, the New Player Experience, and photo opportunities.
This difficult decision was based on our desire to prevent any potential spread of the virus and to prioritize the health and safety of our team and our fans.”
Sony had confirmed on February 13th that PlayStation would be present at PAX East,a few days later they announced that attending wouldn’t be the best decision, the concern for the Coronavirus has unfortunately affected GDC 2020 who will miss Sony and Facebook and PAX East who won’t have a Square Enix and Sony presentation.
Nintendo was the first gaming company to talk about the possibilities of the virus seriously affecting the gaming industry. Two weeks ago, Nintendo of Japan President, Shuntaro Furukawa talked about how the deadly virus is already affecting the production of Nintendo Switch and its Lite version.
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