Games releasing in 2021 will be most impacted by COVID-19
It’s no real surprise that everything is being affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Movies have been delayed alongside video games, and upcoming concerts and events are looking like a distant memory as each day passes. Even so, according to Phil Spencer, looks like games releasing in 2021 will be getting the short end of the stick.
Spencer, the head of Xbox, told Business Insider about what he thinks of the future for video games, particularly those releasing in 2021.
“Through the summer, early fall? I feel pretty good about those games,” Spencer continued. “Games that were targeting a year from now or beyond? There’ll be some impact, but they’ll be able to react.”
Video games are not easy to make, and the most crucial aspects of it, such as voice-acting and mocap (motion capture) are highly dependent on being inside a studio to perform. With COVID-19 still raging throughout the world, it makes the completion of these tasks next to impossible to do safely. In Spencer’s own words, “Mocap is just something that’s basically stopped.”
That said, Spencer does believe is that the industry, for the moment, will be fine.
“I’m pretty confident in the industry’s ability to continue a steady flow of games coming out.” He said. “There’s just a lot of games in production across the industry right now, and I think we’re going to be — as an industry — we’re going to be fine. I’m bullish on what this means in the long run for games, even if there’s a certain impact to a certain launch window for certain titles that we might see.”
What video game title are you most excited to see in 2021?
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