SIE is laying off 900 people, London Studio closing down entirely

[Flightlessfancies]

A few things irk me about that press release.

A. The fact that they released a press release before actually notifying employees (at least in the US). I know this is a regular in business but it's just so nasty and definitely makes the "we really appreciated all your work" feels totally empty.

B. That they throw in the "to keep making the award winning games we're known for" line basically appealing to consumers that this is necessary for them to keep getting the games they want. Which is ironic because those games also seem to be causing their profit issues. It's the same sort of wording they used when they hiked the PS Plus prices.

Terrible all around and from the Insomniac hack we know that they've been sitting on these decisions for quite a bit and that it's going to have some pretty disastrous results for some of these studios as far as projects.

 

[PS2]

Look who visited the London studio last week. There is absolutely no chance that he didn’t know what was going to happen



Our output is weak, what should we do? Right let’s fire more developers so that our output remains weak.


Meanwhile at Nintendo:
-

That was not London Studio and their output this year is looking to be particularly good. These news are much more than that, and it just sounds like you want to start a pointless argument bringing on Nintendo.

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

They had layoffs earlier right? How many people are left at MM anyway?

They should still be over ~100 people.

 

[GaiusBaltar25]

This is awful news. I hope the developers who were laid off are able to find other jobs in the industry, though I know that's not particularly easy at the moment. This always appeared inevitable with Sony's GaaS approach. They even stated a year or so ago that not all 12 games would be successful, but that doesn't seem like a great way to run a business. Sony should have been more selective from the start, which means not asking VR and single-player-only developers to put so much resources in GaaS.

 

[duvjones]

I can just see it; untethered Cloud, native Classics, microSD card and OLED for $299.

The answer to what happens when a toy fails is to make a new toy....
Sony has been reluctant over the years to acknowledge that, most like out of pride but notably, that is how Nintendo conducts itself. A videogame toy company and the thing is, that is clearly working.
I honestly don't see SIE approaching the Portal like that, but it would not be a terrible way to do so.

That was their Studio Liverpool (the games developer) not their main office in the city, where among others XDEV and indie support is located.

Nice to know.

There are Japanese laws saying layoffs can't be done unless under certain circumstances (company files for bankruptcy etc.)

And they are rather strict about it, folks that run to the court will likely get a judgement in their favor.... which discourages businesses from testing that notion of layoffs unless things are really, really dire.
It also has a bit of an effect on hiring, when a company is looking for folks, they want people that will be their for a long time... through good and bad. It does mean that their is A LOT of job security once you get a position but their isn't churn of temporary workers that get hired for a project and expelled. Not bad, not great. Just is.

 

[enpleinjour]

The strategy to not be cutting edge this Gen unless the game actually can sell that budget off has been golden.

Making mostly AA with some AAA

I think it says more about labor laws than anything else, maybe also how obssessed certain companies are over their stock movements.

 

[Aostia82]

It's really bad to see such a successfull product leading to such a job-mess

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

It's really bad to see such a successfull product leading to such a job-mess

Yeah but it’s not the platforms fault it a studio isn’t profitable and unproductive, such as *checks notes*……Insomniac and Guerilla…..

We’re at parody levels of incompetence by execs.

 

[Person]

The human cost of these layoffs is lamentable, and it sucks that it's always employees that pay the price for executive mismanagement.

But also, this is all as expected. Between the leaks, the executive comments, and the objectively poor results that SIE has achieved despite massive revenue, something painful was going to be the end result.

 

[Drblitzk]

Yeah, all of this lay off sucks, and as hard it is to say, this will keep happening until the business model for AAA games changes, and I don't see that happening in the near future.

 

[allan-bh]

Yeah, all of this lay off sucks, and as hard it is to say, this will keep happening until the business model for AAA games changes, and I don't see that happening in the near future.

Microsoft and Sony are adapting by embracing multiplatform. Third parties are already there obviously, but with the evolution of technology, AAA games will start to be more prominent on smartphones.

 

[duvjones]

Third parties are already there obviously, but with the evolution of technology, AAA games will start to be more prominent on smartphones.

You honestly think that this will be the thing that solves the industries issues, even as it is clear that Apple Arcade isn't providing for it's developers, and most of Mobile hasn't been doing well?

 

[allan-bh]

You honestly think that this will be the thing that solves the industries issues, even as it is clear that Apple Arcade isn't providing for it's developers, and most of Mobile hasn't been doing well?

Mobile is a huge market but it's a venue where AAA games have a very weak presence, meaning a big opportunity for growth.

 

[Remolino]

Mobile is a huge market but it's a venue where AAA games have a very weak presence, meaning a big opportunity for growth.

Well, maybe for Mihoyo, while Square Enix are discontinuing their service for their smartphone games year after year.

I don't see how Sony has any expertise there if GaaS is already causing them problems.

 

[duvjones]

Mobile is a huge market but it's a venue where AAA games have a very weak presence, meaning a big opportunity for growth.

It is large market that is already chummed with sharks.... Their is a "very weak presence" of AAA games because their is simply no space for them to sustain itself. AAA games are simply to large to do so and the expense of such simple doesn't work with the economies of mobile. Not without a massive whale hunt and even then is it difficult.

From my perspective, no good comes of that.

 

[Remember_spinal]

I’m still not sure why people are acting like AAA publishers and studios are the only ones suffering. There’s been 7000 game dev layoffs in just 2024 and multiple studios shuttering, I’d say a majority of them aren’t making big budget games.

Deck 9 just announced layoffs and i wouldn’t call anything they make “AAA”

 

[Drblitzk]

I’m still not sure why people are acting like AAA publishers and studios are the only ones suffering. There’s been 7000 game dev layoffs in just 2024 and multiple studios shuttering, I’d say a majority of them aren’t making big budget games.

Because the biggest percentage of this layoffs are happening at AAA studios.

38 Days Into 2024 And 6,400+ Video Game Layoffs Have Been Announced

Sega, Visual Concepts, Hidden Path, and Microsoft are the latest companies to announce cuts

kotaku.com

 

[kazuyamishima]

10% cut at Guerilla Games according to VGC.

 

[awng782]

Canceling the Twisted Metal game after the Twisted Metal show is crazy, I thought for sure it was going to lead to a major IP revival on PS5.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

I’ve seen Deck Nine and Phil Spencer both bring up the fact that they aren’t the only ones laying people off.

I do wonder if there’s a domino effect, are they seeing layoffs and feeling emboldened because they know they won’t be singled out.

 

[Remember_spinal]

I’ve seen Deck Nine and Phil Spencer both bring up the fact that they aren’t the only ones laying people off.

I do wonder if there’s a domino effect, are they seeing layoffs and feeling emboldened because they know they won’t be singled out.

I’m pretty sure these companies are doing layoffs because they really have no other feasible way to improve short term profit margins. I also hate to point this out again, but it’s not just gaming that is suffering. Which makes the “AAA” boogie man even more head scratching.

“Survive 2024" has been the key theme of my convos with publishers and retailers so far this year as well.Industry spend CAGR has been basically flat since the pandemic, no significant upside room for player/hours growth, costs keep rising. Market's gotta get to GTA6 and hope.

 

[Terrell]

Well, to be fair I don't think Nintendo is hiring that much at all + most of the workforce in Japan with ... kinda different working culture.

They’re building a whole new building for employees, so hiring will happen, but it just won’t be in massive clumps to be purged later.

And to grow margins in gaming, you need to invest first, and is gonna take years to show result due to the nature of game development. I can see the sense of cancel Twisteed Metal, considering after 2-3 years the game still didnt get greenlight, but cant see how cutting in studios like Inmsomniac or Guerrilla is gonna end up with SIE making more money.

The issue is that they’ve been making investments for the past 5+ years at a steady clip and the output of that investment after more than 5 years is profits shrinking.
Everyone is generally happy when the industry expands its workforce, but it comes with the asterisk that it’s usually not to do important things like resolve crunch, end contract work precarity or make a more solid and efficient workforce, but to pursue misguided profit generating techniques, that make such employees expendable at a moment’s notice when the dream dies (see: GaaS expansion) or when executives ignore prior talent investments to focus attention of their shiny new ones and leave them to die on the vine (see: Japan Studio).

There are Japanese laws saying layoffs can't be done unless under certain circumstances (company files for bankruptcy etc.)

https://www.employmentlawworldview.com/three-ways-to-dismiss-employees-in-japan/

And really, no publisher is interested in letting employees go when they (a) make more than they spend by a wide margin as most Japanese publishers do, and (b) are actually having serious problems hiring talent as it is, even when they feel they need the workforce expansion to alleviate current employee workloads.

 

[BoktaiFan]

I’m pretty sure these companies are doing layoffs because they really have no other feasible way to improve short term profit margins. I also hate to point this out again, but it’s not just gaming that is suffering. Which makes the “AAA” boogie man even more head scratching.

I don't think the bloated budgets have helped but it seems to be a combination of Covid over hiring, higher interest rates, industry consolidation, and macro/business cycle.

I think the combination of a lot of these factors are contributing to the current situation.

 

[duvjones]

I’m pretty sure these companies are doing layoffs because they really have no other feasible way to improve short term profit margins.

Their is the issue, instead of long term stability.... the constant concern is what make that dosh in the next 6 months.
That is not how a brand keeps going, that is how it falls.

I also hate to point this out again, but it’s not just gaming that is suffering. Which makes the “AAA” boogie man even more head scratching.

Not really, the budgets being out of control has been something that has been a staple of AAA development for years now. That and the Insomniac leak was rather telling that this wasn't scale of development wasn't cutting it. It is going to come to a head at some point, and this might be that.
That said, I suspect that they will be more cuts.

"Market's gotta get to GTA6 and hope."

The degree to which this is not a plan is frightening.

I don't think the bloated budgets have helped but it seems to be a combination of Covid over hiring, higher interest rates, industry consolidation, and macro/business cycle.

I think the combination of a lot of these factors are contributing to the current situation.

I don't think that you are wrong.... but it a matter of what does SIE have control of that can stop the bleeding first. They seem to want to tackle the over-hiring. Personally, reigning in scope needs to happen at some point.

 

[Dakota Joestar]

There needs to be ways to shorten these long development cycles. Going half a decade or even an entire console generation without a new game release is just baffling. Like work on Spider-Man 2 began before Spider-Man Far From Home released and yet Far From Home's sequel only took two years to make, where Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 took 5 years to make. Guess which projected had the far bigger budget?

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

There needs to be ways to shorten these long development cycles. Going half a decade or even an entire console generation without a new game release is just baffling. Like work on Spider-Man 2 began before Spider-Man Far From Home released and yet Far From Home's sequel only took two years to make, where Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 took 5 years to make. Guess which projected had the far bigger budget?

I agree with your overall point but Insomniac did make DLC for Spiderman, A PS5 port, Miles Morales, and Ratchet between Spider-Man 1 and 2.

 

[Godzilla]

A lot of companies outside gaming also wanted a piece of the pie, and while there was a huge surge in playerbase, that number was finite and a lot of them just play a few games and a lot of F2P games.

Uncharted territory because nowadays the most popular games are the massive online ones like CS2, Dota, LoL, Valorant, Warzone, Fortnite, Roblox, etc... And they keep being popular so not only you need to battle vs the standard $70 games but also vs those F2P/GAAS games that take away a lot of attention from players.

 

[Fularu]

I think a lot of people in the industry need to look at how Nintendo operates because they almost never lay off. They will take leadership salary cuts before laying off anyone within their workforce.

They have to be doing something right that the others aren’t.

 

[Mekanos]

I think a lot of people in the industry need to look at how Nintendo operates because they almost never lay off. They will take leadership salary cuts before laying off anyone within their workforce.

They have to be doing something right that the others aren’t.

Again, this has less to do with Nintendo being a great company that treats its employees well and more about Japanese laws regarding layoffs. Nintendo has high employee retention but so do some other Japanese developers.

 

[Baki]

Totoki fingerprints all over this. The man has no vision and this is what happens when you puts bean counter in charge. PS challenges are result of “safe” product moves that come from an upper management that does not provide space for big swings and a weak release calendar due to under investment. This cowardly leadership is why Sony trades at a sub 10 P/E ratio.

 

[rockets]

Very shitty. Cancelling TM too is a giant kick in the nuts. A new game with the TV show makes so much sense. These corporations once again show very little long term vision.

There needs to be ways to shorten these long development cycles. Going half a decade or even an entire console generation without a new game release is just baffling. Like work on Spider-Man 2 began before Spider-Man Far From Home released and yet Far From Home's sequel only took two years to make, where Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 took 5 years to make. Guess which projected had the far bigger budget?

I think regardless, they would have done layoffs. This is more companies hopping off the backs of each other to justify reducing operating costs rather than an actual long term business requirement to become sustainable.

 

[Ray00101]

Again, this has less to do with Nintendo being a great company that treats its employees well and more about Japanese laws regarding layoffs. Nintendo has high employee retention but so do some other Japanese developers.

Nintendo is an international company with employees the world over that could be subject to layoffs.

They don’t because they’re a great company that treats it’s employees well.

Reads like weird Era cope that tries to paint all three in the same light when they aren’t.

 

[awng782]

Again, this has less to do with Nintendo being a great company that treats its employees well and more about Japanese laws regarding layoffs. Nintendo has high employee retention but so do some other Japanese developers.

This would apply to NCL, but not NOA, NOE or the myriad of other Nintendo subsidiaries.

 

[Pancracio17]

Again, this has less to do with Nintendo being a great company that treats its employees well and more about Japanese laws regarding layoffs. Nintendo has high employee retention but so do some other Japanese developers.

Nah, give credit where credit is due, even other japanese companies dont have the history of a CEO taking a pay cut to avoid layoffs. There is clearly some internal policy about employee retention at the company.

 

[Mekanos]

This would apply to NCL, but not NOA, NOE or the myriad of other Nintendo su subsidiaries.

Nintendo is an international company with employees the world over that could be subject to layoffs.

They don’t because they’re a great company that treats it’s employees well.

Reads like weird Era cope that tries to paint all three in the same light when they aren’t.

Not sure about NOA, but NOE has had layoffs in the past.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

Nintendo being a great company to work for doesn't really override that it's not the primary reason why layoffs are rare there.

Nah, give credit where credit is due, even other japanese companies dont have the history of a CEO taking a pay cut to avoid layoffs. There is clearly some internal policy about employee retention at the company.

I don't really disagree, but I think people have a tendency to valorize Iwata for that decision rather than ignore the myriad of reasons why it happened that way. There's more to the story than "good guy Nintendo" is all.

 

[Pancracio17]

I’m pretty sure these companies are doing layoffs because they really have no other feasible way to improve short term profit margins. I also hate to point this out again, but it’s not just gaming that is suffering. Which makes the “AAA” boogie man even more head scratching.

Man, with the whole issue of 'black hole games' taking up so much of players time, im not sure GTA6 will be the shot in the arm the industry as a whole needs. Sony, Take Two and MS will be happy, but for everyone else its probably bad news.

 

[Remember_spinal]

Man, with the whole issue of 'black hole games' taking up so much of players time, im not sure GTA6 will be the shot in the arm the industry as a whole needs. Sony, Take Two and MS will be happy, but for everyone else its probably bad news.

It will be a band aid. The long term bets are probably in AI which won’t be good for workers

 

[Pancracio17]

It will be a band aid. The long term bets are probably in AI which won’t be good for workers

But its just a band aid for those three companies, isnt it? Like, for SE its actually bad news that GTA6 is coming out. It will only increase the size of the black hole games and raise standards for AAA animation/scale/graphics.

 

[Remember_spinal]

But its just a band aid for those three companies, isnt it? Like, for SE its actually bad news that GTA6 is coming out. It will only increase the size of the black hole games and raise standards for AAA animation/scale/graphics.

According to Ubisoft it will benefit everyone,

GTA 6 Launch Will Also be 'Positive' for Ubisoft, CEO Says - IGN

No one knows exactly when Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch outside of Take-Two and Rockstar, but some people are in better positions to take guesses than others. One of those better-equipped guessers is Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, and at the moment, Guillemot is expecting a GTA 6 release sometime...

www.ign.com

What we've seen in the past is that each time there's a big release like GTA, there are more and more people coming back to the industry, and that helps other games to sell as well. We see it for sure. We look at this and we are really organizing things around the launch of that game, which we do not know exactly when it is going to happen. We consider it will be closer to our financial year '26 than our financial year '25. But what we've seen is that generally it's actually positive for the market, and we did a good launch with the launch of GTA 5 first launch and GTA 5 online game, each time we were able to generate really good revenue and profit on the games we launched.

 

[duvjones]

I don't really disagree, but I think people have a tendency to valorize Iwata for that decision rather than ignore the myriad of reasons why it happened that way. There's more to the story than "good guy Nintendo" is all.

Fair enough. That I do agree with.

It will only increase the size of the black hole games and raise standards for AAA animation/scale/graphics.

I think that would happen with or without GTA6. Their has always been this constant pressure from a collective thinking among consumers that gaming is more about technological excellence than providing entertainment. Consumers have expectations when you give them something with a fair amount of consistency, and SIE has feed this notion when it suited it.... now you have consumers demanding AAA titles that are pricey to produce and hard to market but have those "AAA animation/scale/graphics."
The question that SIE has to ask is: Was it worth it?

According to Ubisoft it will benefit everyone,

Why does that seem suspect?

 

[Pancracio17]

According to Ubisoft it will benefit everyone,

GTA 6 Launch Will Also be 'Positive' for Ubisoft, CEO Says - IGN

No one knows exactly when Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch outside of Take-Two and Rockstar, but some people are in better positions to take guesses than others. One of those better-equipped guessers is Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, and at the moment, Guillemot is expecting a GTA 6 release sometime...

www.ign.com

Ah I see. GTA basically sells so many consoles that it ends up creating a positive wave. But yeah its just a band-aid. Long term it does just continue the AAA trend of bigger and bigger budgets.

 

[Old sorta fan]

It’s been said many times before. AAA gaming is unsustainable. This lays at the feet of all the video game companies who chose to increase production values and costs rather than come up with new gameplay and control costs. This slow motion industry crash is the result of increasing costs to the point where every publisher is one flop away from a cash crunch.

I feel bad for all the laid off employees. It’s not their fault that management is incapable of cost effective project management.

SIE is especially at fault here. They are the ones who have been chasing production values over all else since 2006 (2004 if you are counting the PSP). Xbox came in and made it worse. They are also at fault for letting Naughty Dog spend $200 million for The Last of Us 2. Someone had to be an adult and streamline costs and impose constraints. Rather than making some studios make modest hits on a modest budget they let Naughty Dog have an infinite budget and then try to make up the profits with GAAS’s. Then they close/destroy via layoffs the few remaking studios that had the capacity to make AA hits.

The sad thing is that nobody wins here. Everyone just loses.

 

[Remember_spinal]

Costs are rising exponentially for Japanese game designers also,

Development costs are now 10 times more expensive than in the 90's and more than double or nearly triple the cost of Tekken 7. Even the Fight Lounge servers are costly to maintain. In the past there weren't so many specs and there wasn't online. Plus they didn't have such high resolution and high definition. Now, So many people want the game to run and be supported for a long time. It costs money to continually update the game for that reason. However, he probably only keeps good memories of the old games he experienced as a boy and does not pay attention to these changing times and increasing costs. The economic situation and everything else is changing. If we simply do nothing as he suggests, the game will simply stop running in a few months. I think that is what he wants. So there is no point in talking to him about these realities. He wants us to stop economic activity and stop updating and supporting the game.

Every game is going to have to increase in price or sell more copies not just the Spider-Man. Game prices are just not keeping up with inflation and all the new associated development costs

 

[duvjones]

Every game is going to have to increase in price or sell more copies not just the Spider-Man. Game prices are just not keeping up with inflation and all the new associated development costs

The publisher that walks down that road first better be willing to accept that their might not be a pot of gold at the end of the path.
I am not so sure how much the market will stand for that given that Steam/AppStore's exist, with it's near constant discounting of games. I will be blunt, that isn't sustainable either.

 

[AruanaRiva]

That low 5% SIE margin is truly shocking the top dog of Sony it seems. And as usual. For head honcho. Firing/Lay offs as many employees is the easiest way to ensure more money for the company.

I will not be surprised if Media Molecule may shutdown after this because this kind of layoff is not stopping anytime soon. It will keep going.

 

[Terrell]

Not sure about NOA, but NOE has had layoffs in the past.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

Nintendo being a great company to work for doesn't really override that it's not the primary reason why layoffs are rare there.

I don't really disagree, but I think people have a tendency to valorize Iwata for that decision rather than ignore the myriad of reasons why it happened that way. There's more to the story than "good guy Nintendo" is all.

Also, if we're talking layoffs within Nintendo's organization generally, Nintendo of Korea had its workforce slashed by 80% (50 of its 60 employees) in 2016, but after 4 consecutive years of significant losses (it WAS during the 3DS/Wii U era, so... probably). Given their market recovery and surpassing past sales records in South Korea since then, I imagine that staffing has increased back up, though.

The distinction between Nintendo and others seems to be how their development talent is rarely ever touched by layoffs, even those that exist outside of Japan. I think the last time it happened, it was NST during the Wii era following the cancellation of Project HAMMER? But that being said, outside of Japan, Japanese labour practices no longer are applicable and do not factor into the equation; if Nintendo is not seeing layoffs at the same rate as other businesses in its foreign subsidiaries, that comes down to company culture, not the norms of Japanese labour law.

And even when factoring in the layoffs that have happened, historically Nintendo indeed has one of the best employee retention rates in the entire industry across its entire organization.

Costs are rising exponentially for Japanese game designers also,

Every game is going to have to increase in price or sell more copies not just the Spider-Man. Game prices are just not keeping up with inflation and all the new associated development costs

This is referencing a suggestion by someone else. The context of that post he's responding to would be handy.

Also, it hides a few important points.
He used Tekken as an example, so... Tekken went from selling ~2mil worldwide to selling 11.8mil with Tekken 7. And when you consider DLC revenue (that didn't used to exist) overtop standard sales, y'know, pretty sure revenue has kept great pace with costs, the issue is when you're trying to spend that kind of money on something you don't know will be a sales success, the room for failure has shrunk.

And let's be clear, without knowing how that 10x budget increase is being actively spent, whether or not that extra expense is something the audience actually cares about is open for debate. When I look at what devs prioritize, like the logic and animations around realistic horse defecation and testicular shrinkage based on weather conditions, reminds me of this particular meme:

As such, what is true for Harada isn't necessarily true universally, as it absolutely matters what development priorities there are with a project and budget increases do not scale in a universally linear fashion.

 

[Fularu]

Not sure about NOA, but NOE has had layoffs in the past.

Nintendo lays off 320 workers in Europe, despite speaking against the practice last year

320 individuals, including 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees and 190 who worked for the localization department through a leasing agency, will be laid off effective August 31. "As...

www.polygon.com

Nintendo being a great company to work for doesn't really override that it's not the primary reason why layoffs are rare there.

I don't really disagree, but I think people have a tendency to valorize Iwata for that decision rather than ignore the myriad of reasons why it happened that way. There's more to the story than "good guy Nintendo" is all.

Calling contractors "people that were laid off" is a huge stretch. Many companies will stop contracts before it ends for various reasons (cost cutting is just one of them, I've terminated contracts for different reasons before, performance beeing among them, or the corresponding projects beeing canceled/shelved/postponed).

The interesting part about this is that we had to look 10 years back to find Nintendo laying off 130 people in Europe, which is a tear drop compared to the rest of the industry and barely, if ever, touches development studios or R&D, which is their bread and butter.

 

[Hartmann]

In Japan, when a company reduces its employees, it encourages employees to voluntarily resign.
In recent years, Fujitsu and Omron have restructured thousands of employees in this way.
According to a Japanese article, SIE Japan is using the same method.

ソニーのゲーム子会社、世界で900人削減　日本は希望退職募集 | 毎日新聞

　ソニーグループ傘下で、家庭用ゲーム機「プレイステーション（PS）5」を手がけるソニー・インタラクティブエンタテインメント（SIE）は27日、世界で約900人の人員を削減すると発表した。経営合理化の一環で、人件費を削減し収益の改善を目指す。日本での削減人数は決まっておらず、希望退職者を募る。

mainichi.jp

ソニーグループ傘下で、家庭用ゲーム機「プレイステーション（PS）5」を手がけるソニー・インタラクティブエンタテインメント（SIE）は27日、世界で約900人の人員を削減すると発表した。経営合理化の一環で、人件費を削減し収益の改善を目指す。日本での削減人数は決まっておらず、希望退職者を募る。
SIEが展開する日本、欧米、アジアなどの社員が対象となり、現在の人員全体の約8％に当たる。日本では約1900人（昨年3月末時点）がおり、退職する社員に対し、新しいキャリアに向けた転職を支援する。

Sony Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Sony Group that produces the PlayStation 5 home video game console, announced on Feb. 27 that it will cut approximately 900 employees worldwide. The reduction is part of the company's management rationalization efforts to cut personnel costs and improve profitability. The number of employees to be reduced in Japan has not been determined, and voluntary retirement will be sought.
Employees in Japan, Europe, the U.S., Asia, and other regions where SIE operates will be targeted, accounting for about 8% of the current workforce. In Japan, there are approximately 1,900 employees (as of the end of March last year), and SIE will provide assistance to those employees who are retiring to help them change jobs to pursue new careers.

 

[Kye]

People want to cry "capitalism this", "record profits and greed that", and yeah, while there's some of that to go around, they're mostly just nauseating platitudes that add nothing to the overall conversation.

The tech/entertainment intersection has been bloating itself with overwrought budgets via things like staffing increases, title inflation, and scope inflation since before the pandemic and Covid put things into hyperdrive. For some time these industries have been hiring kids to make widgets and GUI buttons and calling them "Senior Programmers" because if you're staffing up, it looks good to shareholders and that gets reflected in share prices.

Obviously, layoffs suck. But in the same way it's silly to think that a share price can rise forever - it's silly to think a firm can corporeally increase without limit as well. This course correction was inevitable, and when faced with this modern reality, not laying people off makes zero sense, even with record profits. This part is not about greed, it's literally a practical necessity. If you don't have work for people to do, because you're reigning in the scope and quantity of your projects, you can't just pay people to come to your building and spin around in their swivel chair from 9-5 (especially when Title Inflation is already doing this to some degree).

Surely, people don't feel anyone is entitled to make a living that way.

You can, of course, make the argument that all of these people shouldn't have been hired in the first place, but Covid screwed everyone's brains, everywhere, and publishers/firms thought those conditions would hold.

Until they didn't.

Ideally, most of the laid off would be getting good severance packages at the very least, though.

 

[Dakota Joestar]

It will be a band aid. The long term bets are probably in AI which won’t be good for workers

I honestly don't see an outcome that doesn't screw over workers somewhat. Reducing scope and budget of AAA would just kill jobs as well. Like one of my ideas to help reduce costs, being utilizing voice acting less like we see in most Japanese games, will end up resulting in less work for voice actors overall.

 

[Remember_spinal]

I honestly don't see an outcome that doesn't screw over workers somewhat. Reducing scope and budget of AAA would just kill jobs as well. Like one of my ideas to help reduce costs, being utilizing voice acting less like we see in most Japanese games, will end up resulting in less work for voice actors overall.

yeah, which is ironic because voice actors are already losing jobs to AI voices

The Finals uses AI text-to-speech because it can produce lines 'in just a matter of hours rather than months', baffles actual voice actors

"Why the f**k do AI voice people act like hiring voice actors is some kind of arcane ritual."

www.pcgamer.com

Video Game Voice Actors Criticize SAG-AFTRA Over Agreement With AI Company

The actors’ union said the deal will allow game developers to use a “digital replica” of an actor’s voice with the performer’s consent.

www.forbes.com