Sony has announced that it will lay off approximately 8% of its PlayStation division. These layoffs will affect various PlayStation studios, including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games and Firesprite.
Sony laying off 900 PlayStation employees
The closure of the London Studio, one of Sony’s PlayStation studios, was also announced as part of the layoffs. This studio was known as the developer of PlayStation VR games.
Ayrıca, PlayStation VR’ın Horizon Call of the Mountain oyununun arkasındaki İngiltere stüdyosu olan Firesprite’ı da etkileyecek işten çıkarmalar olacak. Geçen hafta Sony, PC için PSVR 2 desteği üzerinde çalıştığını açıklamıştı.
Hermen Hulst, president of PlayStation Studios, stated that US-based studios will be affected, as well as studios such as the Netherlands-based Guerrilla studio. In general, employees in the Americas, Japan and the EMEA and APAC regions will be affected.
In an email to PlayStation employees, Jim Ryan said, “After several months of careful consideration and many leadership conversations, it is clear that changes need to be made. We have decided that we need to move forward with a focus on the long-term sustainability of the company and the best experiences we can offer our community.”
These layoffs, which occurred after Sony missed its PS5 sales target, caused the company’s share price to fall by 10 billion dollars.
Sony President Hiroki Totoki mentioned the opportunity to publish PlayStation games on PC earlier this month, and it looks like Sony will be putting more resources into its PC and mobile efforts. “Delivering social and online experiences – allowing players to explore our worlds in different ways – but also bringing games to additional devices like PC and Mobile requires a different approach and different resources,” Hulst said.
The gaming industry has recently faced a wave of layoffs, and 2023’s games have been marred by a wave of layoffs. Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees a few months ago, about 8% of the entire Microsoft Gaming division. Unity also laid off 25% of its employees a month ago, and Discord laid off 17% of its employees.
