How is the new Coronavirus affecting the gaming industry?

Chris Berrow - Leigh has been looking at the impact Covid-19 has had so far on the gaming industry…

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Leigh - E3 2020 has been cancelled… the Electronic Entertainment Expo was due to take place later this year in June… but because of fears surrounding the coronavirus pandemic… it has been called off.

It’s a big hit for games companies to take, they often reveal their biggest and best new games there… but many will host their own events online instead… streaming live content... so there should still be lots to look out for.

One event... The VIVE Ecosystem Conference... was held entirely in virtual reality... through VR Headsets. Fine if you’ve got one! But I bet they’ll be playing the new Half Life: Alyx at the after party!

HALF LIFE ALYX TRAILER

口袋妖怪去时是巨大的,每个人都是trying to catch ‘em all… and normally the best way to play is walking outside holding your phone and visiting different landmarks…
But with social distancing becoming the new norm, Niantic, the developers behind the game, have taken steps to make Pokémon Go playable indoors… including items that attract Pokémon to you, making eggs easier to hatch… and PokéStops refresh faster so you can stay in one place for longer.

The manufacture of consoles like the Nintendo Switch has been affected by factory shutdowns… and with school closures, mandatory work-from-home policies and lockdowns taking place around the world - more people are gaming than ever…

Steam on PC… drew a record 20,313,451 concurrent users recently… that’s a lot of gamers…

Online gaming services have collapsed under the strain though, including Xbox Live and Nintendo Online, which have both suffered outages.

Finally, midnight launch events have been cancelled for Animal Crossing New Horizons and Doom.

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Chris - The only thing that pleases me is that there could be kids at home for a fortnight playing Fortnite… but a difficult situation for everyone, stay safe out there.