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Sony, Bushiroad Cancel Event Attendance Due to COVID-19 Coronavirus Concerns
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The official U.S. PlayStation blog updated an earlier post on Wednesday to reveal that Sony Interactive Entertainment will no longer participate in this year's PAX East convention due to concerns about the COVID-19 coronavirus. The company was scheduled to showcase a number of upcoming games for the PlayStation 4 at the event in Boston from February 27 to March 1.
In addition, entertainment production company Bushiroad will not attend this year's AnimeJapan 2020 trade show due to similar concerns. The company was slated to operate booths for the Assault Lily, BanG Dream!, Argonavis from BanG Dream!, and Rebirth for you franchises at the Tokyo event from March 21 to March 22.
Bushiroad had already canceled or delayed many of its scheduled events until March 19, with updates on their status pending on March 20 or later. In addition to the above mentioned franchises, the previous delays affected events from the company's women's professional wrestling organization World Wonder Ring Stardom, the D4DJ game and anime project, Future Card Buddyfight game, Revue Starlight project, Voice Actor Card Collection, and Monthly Bushroad manga magazine.
In a separate development, the Tokyo Game Show 2020 event announced on Thursday that its scheduled press conference on Friday has been postponed for the same reason.
The Taipei Game Show also announced on Thursday that the event has been rescheduled to June 25 to 28. The event was originally slated to take place on February 6 to 9, but was postponed to summer due to concerns about the spread of the virus.
The Animax Musix organizers announced that they are canceling the February 22 Animax Musix Nextage event in Tokyo due to COVID-19. Osaka's Nippombashi Street Festa, billed as "Japan's biggest cosplay event," will not be held on March 15 due to the outbreak.
The first reported cases of the COVD-19 coronavirus occurred in Wuhan, China in December, and then began to spread in varying rates and intensities across many parts of the globe through incubation in human hosts. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a world health emergency on January 30. As of Wednesday, the WHO reported that there are 75,204 infected individuals worldwide, with 74,280 in them in China and 73 official cases in Japan proper. (The Diamond Princess, a cruise ship docked in Yokohama, has an additional 542 infected individuals, but they are under quarantine aboard the ship.) 2,006 individuals have died from the disease in China. The WHO had reported only one death in Japan on Wednesday, but as of Thursday morning, two individuals who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship have died in Japanese hospitals, bringing the total to three.
The WHO reports 15 confirmed cases in the United States, with no deaths.
Source: Official U.S. PlayStation blog via Siliconera, Anime! Anime! Biz (Jirō Miyazaki), Press release, Taipei Game Show website via Siliconera
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