Game News PlayStation lays off 900 people and closes a studio. The creators of The Last of Us and Spider-Man 2 affected
Publié le 27/02/2024 à 18:01
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Layoffs across the industry continue. After Microsoft | Supermassive Games is PlayStation which is toast: 900 employees are affected, a studio will close its doors.
We learned today… PlayStation is shedding around 8% of its global workforce, which represents around 900 employees. It was Jim Ryan, boss of Sony's video games division until next month, who announced the news in a press release on February 27, 2024. Employees in all regions of Sony Interactive Entertainment are affected, including several internal studios. The group includes Insomniac Games (Marvel's Spider-Man), Naughty Dog (The Last of Us) and Guerrilla Games (Horizon), reports Bloomberg, referring to the “three most successful subsidiaries” of PlayStation. Among the creators of Horizon Zero Dawn, we are talking about 40 people being made redundant, or 10% of the team.
Above all, this reorganization marks the closure of London Studio, a Sony team specializing in virtual reality (VR Worlds | Blood & Truth). Last we heard, the company was working on an online multiplayer game “set in a modern fantasy London”. This still unknown project is therefore canceled along with several other games in development – also notes Bloomberg. On this point, the Firesprite company, which is also the subject of layoffs, is concerned. She was working on a Twisted Metal service game, the famous racing and “demolition derby” franchise.
“Difficult decisions have become inevitable”
“Through discussions (…) about the evolving economic landscape, changes to how we develop, distribute, launch products, and to ensure that our group is ready for the future in this industry rapidly evolving, we have concluded that difficult decisions have become inevitable,” says Jim Ryan in a message sent to employees.
The PlayStation boss also specifies that in Japan, a “career support program” will be set up, and that in other countries, discussions with people affected or “at risk” will be organized… This is not , somewhere, that the logical sequence of things. A few days ago, Sony lowered the PS5 sales targets for the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year. According to several analysts, the margin of the company's games is not in good shape either, due to ever-increasing production costs. PlayStation has been looking to invest in the game-as-a-service genre for years. For the moment, this strategy has not yet borne fruit. Note that Sony is clearly not the only one to have announced layoffs. Recently, Microsoft and Supermassive Games (Until Dawn) did the same.
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