There have been more than few rumblings of late that due to the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the releases of the Xbox Series X and the PS5 – currently scheduled to launch this Holiday – might be getting delayed. Owing to the fact that the bulk of manufacturing for both will take place in China – the place that has been hit the hardest by the virus – many are predicting manufacturing pipelines to be unable to hit the intended launch dates for both consoles.
However, it seems Microsoft are still feeling confident that they’ll be able to release the console by the end of this year. Yesterday saw Microsoft releasing a deluge of new information on their next-gen console, talking about its specs, some of the more granular details of its tech, its backward compatibility, its new controller, and a lot more.
Something else that was repeated throughout all this new info and all the marketing that went along with it in multiple articles was the fact that the console is still scheduled to come out Holiday 2020.
Like all of us, Microsoft are probably hoping that the coronavirus situation will de-escalate in the coming weeks and months. It’s also worth noting that the situation in China is currently relatively more stable, especially when compared to what it was like a month or so ago. That said, this is something that’s constantly (and very rapidly) changing, so there’s no guarantees of anything either way. Here’s hoping for the best.