Sony Interactive Entertainment said Tuesday it will cut about 900 jobs at its PlayStation division and close its London studio, as the video game industry struggles to recover from the post-pandemic downturn.
The layoffs, which will affect about 8% of the division’s staff in regions ranging from the Americas to Asia, come days after Sony lowered its annual sales forecast for its PlayStation 5 console.
“After careful consideration and many months of leadership discussions, we have made the following decisions to continue to grow the business and advance the company,” said Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, who is leaving Sony Interactive Entertainment. “It has become clear that changes need to be made,” wrote Jim Ryan, outgoing president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Send email to employees.
Sony said the layoffs will affect multiple PlayStation studios, including game maker Insomniac, the studio behind “Spider-Man.” Naughty Dog, the creator of “The Last of Us.” and Guerrilla, the studio behind “Horizon.” bloomberg Previously reported.
According to Bloomberg, the studios are among Sony’s three most successful subsidiaries.
All U.S. employees affected by the job cuts will be notified on Tuesday, but the Japanese company has not yet decided whether its British employees will also receive pink slips.
Representatives for Sony did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The global video game market grew just 0.6% last year to $184 billion, but that was better than the more than 5% decline in 2022, according to industry tracker Newzoo.
Other video game makers are also laying off employees, including Microsoft, which announced last month that it would lay off about 1,900 employees in its gaming division, at a cost of $69 billion. This was just weeks after the company completed its acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer distributed a memo to employees, saying the layoffs represent about 8% of the tech giant’s gaming division, including Xbox, ZeniMax, and Activision Blizzard. Staff were also notified that this would affect them.
Spencer wrote in the memo that he and his team have “identified areas of overlap” since the software giant absorbed Activision Blizzard and its approximately 13,000 employees last year.
Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Ybarra and Activision Chief Design Officer Allen Adham are also leaving as part of the restructuring.
More than a third of video game developers will be affected by layoffs in 2023, according to wiredciting data from the Game Developers Conference, the technology sector cut a total of 168,032 jobs that year, making it the highest number of layoffs across the industry.
Affected employees include 830 staffers from Fortnite franchise maker Epic Games, which was laid off in September, and 180 employees from Amazon’s gaming division, who were cut in November. It is.
