After Epic Games recently showed a promising demo of its Unreal Engine 5 engine running on PlayStation 5, there was a lot of anticipation around Sony’s next-gen gameplay showcase on Thursday, June 4. However, as the situation in the US has been escalating since the beginning of protests over George Floyd killing, yesterday Sony ultimately decided to delay its event.
“While we understand gamers worldwide are excited to see PS5 games, we do not feel that right now is a time for celebration and for now, we want to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard,” the company said yesterday. A couple of hours earlier, Sony joined many other big tech companies including competitor Microsoft announcing support for the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) June 1, 2020
While Sony deserves credit for postponing its event as all eyes are currently on the protests in the US, the company we don’t know yet when this PS5 showcase will actually happen. The Japanese company doesn’t really need to hurry, though: Microsoft already said that it wouldn’t show its first-party games including Halo: Infinite before the next Xbox 20/20 Update in July.
Video games have certainly been a great source of escapism during a dramatic worldwide pandemic, but it’s probably not the time for the video games industry to be self-centered. As a matter of fact, Activision also announced that it was postponing the launch of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Season 4 and Call of Duty: Mobile Season 7, emphasizing that “now is not the time.”
