Microsoft confirmed today that it won't be attending this year's Game Developers Conference due to Coronavirus concerns.
On its Game Stack Blog, the company confirmed that it has decided not to attend GDC 2020 following "a close review of guidance by global health authorities and out of an abundance of caution".
Surprisingly, most of the scheduled panels will still take place in a livestreamed format, including those focusing on the Xbox Series X hardware and ProjectX Cloud. All the streams will be shown on the Game Stack website from March 16th until March 18th.
In light of this, we plan to move our presence to a digital-only event March 16-18th held on www.microsoft.com/gamestack. This event will feature the majority of our planned game developer sessions and experiences, which will be streamed live and available on demand.
Here’s what you can expect to see:
- Join us to learn about the latest in cloud and game development technologies through our technical talks and developer demos
- Tune into panel discussions with industry leaders about the evolution of game development, intentionally inclusive game design, the increasing role of online services, next gen hardware, and the future of game streaming.
- Get a behind-the-scenes look into design and development decisions made by the creators of Minecraft and Gears of War, and hear from Xbox Game Studios teams Double Fine, inXile, Compulsion, Rare, Obsidian, and Undead Labs
The growing concern regarding the Coronavirus situation is impacting GDC 2020 considerably. Sony and Oculus announced last week that they will not attend this year's edition of the event, with Kojima Production canceling its appearance this week.
Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to novel coronavirus.
Although much-anticipated, unfortunately this cancellation also includes Hideo Kojima’s session on the 19th and Eric Johnson’s session on the 16th.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
