The year's biggest video game development trade show just got 'postponed' due to concerns over the ongoing coronavirus outbreak

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• For the first time in over 30 years, the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California is "postponed" until this summer due to the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19. A new date was not announced.
• Several major companies pulled out of the conference ahead of the announcement: Sony's PlayStation group, Facebook, Microsoft's Xbox group, "Fortnite" maker Epic Games, and Unity.
• "After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we've made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March," the event organizers said.
• Nearly 30,000 people attended GDC 2019, and conference exhibitors are still planning to offer some of their GDC 2020 programming online.
• COVID-19 has infected more than 78,000 people in China and infections have spread to at least 40 countries. On Tuesday, US health officials warned that the coronavirus outbreak could soon reach the United States.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The annual Game Developers Conference, scheduled to take place in San Francisco from March 16 to 20, is "postponed" until "later in the summer" due to concerns related to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, the event's organizers said in a press release.

"After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we've made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March," the release said. It did not give an exact date for when the event will now be held.

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See Also:

• The company behind 'Fortnite' is skipping the biggest video game developer conference of the year because of the coronavirus outbreak
• Unity pulls out of Game Developers Conference over COVID-19 concerns, joining Facebook and Sony
• For people choosing between the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X next-gen consoles, the most important factor is price

SEE ALSO: Coronavirus concerns push Facebook and Sony to skip the year's biggest gathering for video game makers

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