PlayStation to axe 900 jobs and shut London Studio

Sony has introduced it would lay off 8% of PlayStation workers globally, amounting to roughly 900 folks.

In addition to cuts within the US and Japan, the gaming large mentioned this might imply closing PlayStation’s London Studio totally.

In a weblog publish sharing an e-mail despatched to workers, boss Jim Ryan known as the transfer “sad news” and mentioned it was “a difficult day at our company”.

“We have concluded that tough decisions have become inevitable,” he mentioned.

“The leadership team and I made the incredibly difficult decision to restructure operations, which regrettably includes a reduction in our workforce impacting very talented individuals who have contributed to our success.”

Mr Ryan beforehand introduced he would step down in March 2024 after nearly 30 years with the corporate, that means this can be one of many final vital actions he takes as CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE).

The cuts come a month after rival Microsoft revealed plans to put off 1,900 folks in its gaming division, which included these at recently-acquired Activision-Blizzard.

Sony’s London Studio was based in 2002 on account of the merging of two different London-based studios underneath the PlayStation model.

Over the previous twenty years, it created a number of collection together with karaoke sport SingStar and 2000s soccer title This Is Football.

More lately, it made digital actuality (VR) video games unique to Sony’s headset, together with VR Worlds and the well-received shooter Blood & Truth.

According to LinkedIn, the studio has between 51 and 200 workers, and it was engaged on “an unannounced online co-op combat game” set in London earlier than the announcement.

Sony’s PlayStation 5 has bought greater than 50 million items worldwide, greater than double Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/S gross sales.

But one other gaming rival, Nintendo, which launched its Switch console three years earlier, has bought nearly 140 million items worldwide.

And Sony mentioned in its earnings report in February that it now anticipated to promote 4 million fewer consoles than anticipated by the top of March.

Despite PlayStation’s income being up by 16% in comparison with the identical interval one yr earlier, its working revenue had fallen by 1 / 4.