Capcom, Square Enix Change PAX East Plans After Sony Pulls Out
As we reported on Feb. 19, Sony pulled out of PAX East completely, citing concerns over the coronavirus. Since then both Capcom and Square Enix have scaled back their participation in the Boston-based gaming convention happening Feb. 27-March 1 — later this week.
While neither Capcom nor Square Enix have completely cancelled on Boston this weekend, both game companies announced that team members from Japan would not be making the trip to Boston for the event. Capcom USA actually made the announcement about the Monster Hunter dev team back on Feb. 20 on its Twitter account. The tweet said:
An update on MH Festa: Boston 2020: Unfortunately, our guests from the MH dev team will no longer be able to attend the event. We will no longer have an autograph session but are still planning to share #Iceborne news. Our sincere apologies for inconvenience!
Capcom didn’t have a booth on the showroom floor, and its only PAX East participation was supposed to be an autograph session by the dev team behind Monster Hunter. Capcom is still holding its Monster Hunter Festa: Boston 2020 tournament event Feb. 29 at Royale, a nightclub in Boston’s theater district.
Square Enix also announced in a blog post four days ago on the North American website that a dev team from Final Fantasy XIV Online would not be coming to PAX East from Japan. From the post:
Taking into consideration the current situation within [East Asia], sadly SQUARE ENIX has decided to cancel the PAX East attendance of staff who would be travelling from the Japan offices. This difficult decision was based on our desire to prevent any potential spread of the virus and to prioritize the health and safety of our team and our fans.
While Square Enix will still have a large booth on the showroom floor, all three of its panels have been cancelled. The panel “The Artwork of FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Look Behind the Screen” has been replaced with a livestream on the FFXIV Twitch channel, scheduled for 8 p.m. ET Feb. 29. The other two panels have been cancelled outright.
For its part, Sony made the announcement in an update to a post on its Playstation blog. The short statement is as follows:
Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment made the decision to cancel its participation at PAX East in Boston this year due to increasing concerns related to COVID-19 (also known as “novel coronavirus”). We felt this was the safest option as the situation is changing daily. We are disappointed to cancel our participation in this event, but the health and safety of our global workforce is our highest concern.
Nerd Caliber will be at PAX East this coming weekend, taking cosplay photos, filming cosplay videos and interviewing game devs.
If you like our work and want to show your appreciation, feel free to tip us at Ko-fi or become a patron on Patreon.
