The gaming industry will feel the impact of coronavirus in 2021

Coronavirus, or COVID-19, is negatively impacting various industries around the globe but for now, it looks like the gaming industry is facing the opposite situation. Unfortunately, we will also start to feel side effects, and according to Phil Spencer from Xbox, the hardest period will hit in early 2021.

For now, unlike tourism or gastronomy, which for obvious reasons have suffered the most, both developers and video game publishers are raking in the cash. Unlike other industries, we are able to work remotely, so organization is not a problem for us, new titles sell great and break all records (Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the best selling Switch game ever in Japan and Call of Duty: Warzone has surpassed 60 million players, as people who have not had time before are now sitting at home and devoting more to their hobby), the number of purchased hardware is also increasing, although this is already beginning to be problematic, as the production of consoles and components has been suspended for many companies.

In an interview with Business Insider, Xbox lead Phil Spencer said that a year from now, games may be delayed. According to Spencer, the production of the next-generation consoles is on track for its planned release date, but it's the production of games for the systems that's up in the air, something we wrote about at the beginning of the month. Now the Spencer explained in detail what he meant, indicating that motion capture sessions isn't a thing anymore, making it difficult to animate models in games. As he notes:

"If you had all your animation captured and you're doing touch up in more individual art production and in areas like textures and other things, you're in a better position. If you're waiting for a lot of either large audio work — when it's with symphonies and other things — or mocap, you're held up right now and you're making progress in areas that you are."

We'll find out in a few months. The most important thing is for developers to be able to preserve both mental and physical health so that they can deliver other amazing games in the future.