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Kojima Productions Cancels GDC Attendance Due to COVID-19 Coronavirus Concerns
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Kojima Productions announced on Monday that it has canceled its appearance at this year's Game Developer's Conference (GDC) due to COVID-19 coronavirus concerns. The company's full statement reads:
Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to novel coronavirus. Although much-anticipated, unfortunately this cancellation also includes Hideo Kojima's session on the 19th and Eric Johnson's session on the 16th.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and Facebook Gaming also revealed last Thursday that they will no longer attend GDC due to concerns about the global COVID-19 outbreak.
GDC will take place in San Francisco from March 16 to 20.
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 Monday, the WHO reported that there are 79,331 infected individuals worldwide, with 77,262 of them in China and 144 official cases in Japan proper. (The Diamond Princess, a cruise ship docked in Yokohama, has an additional 695 infected individuals.) 2,595 individuals have died from the disease in China. The WHO had reported only one death in Japan on Wednesday, but as of Sunday, a third passenger of the Diamond Princess cruise ship died in a Japanese hospital.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday 35 confirmed cases in the U.S.
Source: Kojima Productions via Gematsu
Update: WHO's numbers updated.
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