Anticipation for this year’s The Game Awards is as high as ever, with the excitement for next-gen consoles at a peak and the potential for new game announcements highly likely. Yet The Game Awards 2020 won’t be the same as previous years, as the COVID-19 pandemic has led the event to drop a live audience. A great example of how The Game Awards 2020 will be different is a recently announced panel confirmed for the pre-show. Headlining the panel will be Xbox boss Phil Spencer.
Host Geoff Keighley will lead the panel, along with three guests. Spencer will be joined by two other major industry figures, including AMD CEO Dr. Lisu Su and Electronic Arts Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele. Whereas in previous years the group would gather in-person, this year’s panel will be held entirely virtual. Geoff Keighley will sit down in a studio set and have a conversation with each of the panelists via digital conferencing.
It’s still bound to be a great panel, regardless of whether it’s virtual or in-person, of course. The topic of the conversation is going to be “The Next Gen of Gaming,” which all three panelists can offer plenty of interesting perspective on. AMD is providing a lot of the hardware that’s gone into both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, Xbox has just launched its next-gen consoles, and Electronic Arts is hard at work on next-gen software.
The whole of The Game Awards 2020 isn’t going virtual, to be clear. Keighley has confirmed that it will be recorded live from three locations in Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo. The production team will be using “strict safety protocols” to ensure all participants’ safety. And again, there will be no live audience. It’ll just be the production crew and various guests who have agreed to attend. The different locations allow international partners to participate without requiring international travel.
Given the members of the panel, as well as the topic of conversation, no one should probably expect any announcements in this part of the pre-show. It seems to have much more of a professional focus. However, fans can perhaps read into the panelists being a part of The Game Awards at all. Perhaps they, or their companies, will be involved in a different capacity later in the Game Awards 2020. There will definitely be announcements during The Game Awards 2020 itself.
For those interested in watching The Game Awards pre-show, it’s scheduled to go live at 3:00 PM PT/ 6:00 PM ET on December 10. The Game Awards 2020 will follow after an hour. All The Game Awards 2020 broadcasts will be streamed for free on major platforms including Facebook, Twitch, and Youtube.
