With more people forced to stay at home to stop the spread of a global pandemic, the video game industry is seeing spikes in their charts.
Today, people across the globe are adjusting to life indoors and are resorting to video games as a sort of escape to the COVID-19 threat. As a result, while other industries are facing their most difficult challenge yet, the gaming industry seems to be flourishing during the ongoing pandemic.
Verizon released a recent study that shows a 115% increase in gamers in the United States alone compared to a regular day before the pandemic. In the meantime, live-streaming apps and online gaming platforms continue to prosper throughout March and April.
New games delayed
Despite having great performances in sales, new games scheduled to be launched in the next few months are moved to later dates. Sony has stated last April 2 that The Last of Us Part 2 and Iron Man VR, two highly awaited games, have postponed its release until further notice.
This is the second time the company has postponed the release of the sequel of the extensively popular Last of Us game all because of the pandemic.
A message from us about the delay of The Last of Us Part II: pic.twitter.com/aGsSRfmJ8a
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) April 2, 2020
The sequels were supposed to be released last February but were then moved to May. To date, Sony Interactive Entertainment has not stated a new release date for these games. Further, Amazon Gaming Studios also announced the postponement of its MMORPG called New World from May to August.
On a positive note, Game cards and console accessory purchases were seen to rise to 12% last month. Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been leading all game sales for the entire month of March.
Other top-selling game titles include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Resident Evil 3 and NBA2k20.
New consoles on track
How about the new consoles that are announced to be released by the end of this year?
Microsoft has disclosed last December that their newest console, the Xbox Series X, is scheduled to be released at this year’s holiday season. Gamers are getting anxious that the release date will be postponed because of the COVID-19 threat.
However, Microsoft guarantees its supporters that everything will go according to their plans, at least for now. On the other side, Sony stated the Playstation 5 release will not be affected by the recent pandemic, which is scheduled to hit stores during the 2020 holiday season as well.
Featured image courtesy of JESHOOTS.com/Pexels
The post How COVID-19 is affecting the video game industry appeared first on Micky.