Xbox head Phil Spencer believes that the coronavirus pandemic will mostly cause delays for games coming in 2021.
We’ve already seen a ton of upheaval thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, and some of that upheaval even struck the games industry. Most, if not all studios have transitioned to working from home by now, and while that’s fine for games that are due out this year, games that were still in the early parts of production will likely suffer.
That’s according to Microsoft’s head of Xbox Games Phil Spencer, who told Business Insider his thoughts on how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the games industry.
“Through the summer, early fall? I feel pretty good about those games,” he said. “Games that were targeting a year from now or beyond? There’ll be some impact, but they’ll be able to react.”
Spencer specifically mentioned certain aspects of game development that usually happen in the early stages, things like motion capture (mocap) and voice actors recording lines in studios. With everyone working at home, those things are just impossible to do right now.
“Mocap is just something that’s basically stopped. We’re not going into mocap studios,” Spencer said. “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.”
“There’s just a lot of games in production across the industry right now, and I think [as an industry] we’re going to be fine.”
Source: Business Insider
