Sony announced its decision to skip the annual three-day gaming festival in an update to a blog post published last week.
Sony Interactive Entertainment made the choice to cancel its participation at PAX East in Boston this year thanks to increasing concerns associated with COVID-19 (also referred to as ‘novel coronavirus’), the update reads.
We felt this was the safest option because the situation is changing daily.
We are disappointed to cancel our participation during this event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern.
Sony, which owns PlayStation, had planned on debuting a demo for the games The Last folks Part II, also as other interactive booths featuring game demos like Marvel’s Iron Man VR, Nioh 2, Doom Eternal, Spelunky 2, and more.
Sony is headquartered in Tokyo, where there are 74 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including one death.
The news comes every week after Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest telephone show in Barcelona, was canceled as a result of coronavirus fears.
Companies like LG, Samsung, and Huawei were expected to point out off their latest devices and innovative software at the event.
The tech and gaming industry has been especially suffering from the coronavirus thanks to its reliance on China for production and materials.
Nintendo announced that its production of the Nintendo Switch would be delayed for the Japanese market, and therefore the popular Oculus Quest VR headset is currently on back-order.
In total, there are quite 75,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide and 2014 confirmed deaths.
The virus it’s caused massive travel discrepancies, company closures, event cancellations, and more.
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