Sega have announced the content that would have been shown at the Sonic the Hedgehog panel at the now cancelled SXSW, will be delayed.

The message comes via the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account.

“Hi everyone – we know delays are way past not cool. But with the world in its current state, and to keep our teams safe, we need to wait to show you our SXSW content until things have settled.

Thanks for your patience, and we’ll let you know as soon as we have a date to share!”

The account had previously stated despite SXSW cancellation, the Sonic Panel would be hosted in April. SiliconEra reports that the event was originally slated for March 20th, before the cancellation.

It is likely the event would have revealed the next Sonic the Hedgehog game or other projects. The most recent titles have been Sonic Mania, Sonic Forces (both 2017), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, and Team Sonic Racing (both 2019).

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic (also known as COVID-19 officially, or Chinese Flu to others) has affected many worldwide, from businesses to public gatherings and events. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. This includes the postponement of GDC, and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, along with the cancellation of E3 2020 (including digital events), and Comiket 98.

We also recently reported on voice actor Rick May (Soldier in Team Fortress 2, Peppy Hare and Andross in Star Fox 64) passing away due to the virus. The German government has banned major events until August 31st due to the pandemic, putting doubt on whether Gamescom 2020 will run.

The Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering are mapping the virus’ spread [1, 2]. As of this time of writing, there have been over 2 million total confirmed cases worldwide, and over 1.371 million active cases. There have been over 128,000 deaths, however over 501,000 people have made a “total recovery.”

Image: YouTube