Sony Interactive Entertainment has today announced that it’ll be the latest big name in the gaming industry to trim its workforce, communicating the intent to lay off around 900 staff around the globe.
In separate announcements posted by outgoing president Jim Ryan and PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst, job cuts amounting to 8% of SIE’s global workforce of approximately 12,000 staff were revealed, affecting all branches of SIE’s business — including PlayStation Studios itself.
It’s a move that comes off the back of a more muted forecast for PlayStation 5 sales off the back of Q3 2023 (October-December) results. This was actually a record quarter for the PS5, at 8.2m units sold-through, and sets the console up for a record year, but Sony has trimmed projections from 25m to 21m for the 2023-2024 financial year.
That’s also led SIE to re-evaluate its operations, with Ryan commenting in a letter to staff that “discussions over the past few months about the evolving economic landscape, changes in the way we develop, distribute, and launch products, and ensuring our organization is future ready in this rapidly changing industry, we have concluded that tough decisions have become inevitable”.
The most significant cut of all comes in the UK as the famous London Studio is set to be closed entirely. Formed from a merger of the Camden Studio of Psygnosis — the creator of Lemmings — and The Getaway developer Team Soho, London Studio was probably best-known for creating PlayStation Home, as well as a number of SingStar titles and games for both EyeToy and PlayStation VR.
Another UK studio affected is Firesprite, a developer set up from the ashes of Sony’s own Studio Liverpool — another former Psygnosis site — which was closed in 2012. SIE had acquired Firesprite in 2021, and the developer worked with Guerrilla Games to create the PlayStation VR2 title Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Guerrilla too will see staff reductions, along with “reductions in various functions across SIE in the UK”.
In the USA there’ll be job losses at Insomniac Games (Ratchet & Clank, Marvel’s Spider-Man) and Naughty Dog (The Last of Us, Uncharted), and unspecified cuts at the “Technology, Creative, and Support teams”.
Further cuts at other teams around the world are described as “smaller” but includes Japan. As PlayStation Studios only operates two developers in Japan — Team Asobi (Astro’s Playroom) and Polyphony Digital — this could have an effect on Gran Turismo 7’s ongoing support and development of the next game in the series too.
Hulst’s version of the announcement also includes a note that the publisher has evaluated projects that are currently in development and terminated some. That will of course include the work at London Studio, but may also affect several other titles across the company. Given the sales success of GT7, it seems likely that any sequel will be insulated.
