Sony lays off 900 PlayStation employees Closing a studio
Sony plans to lay off 900 PlayStation employees and close one of its game studios completely.
In the latest wave of layoffs in the tech and video game industry in 2024, Sony has announced that it will lay off 900 PlayStation employees, which equates to eight percent of all Sony Interactive Entertainment employees worldwide. This news was confirmed and announced by Jim Ryan , the head of PlayStation. The new PlayStation layoffs will affect several Sony game studios around the world.
As a result of these layoffs, the British studio Firesprite, the creator of virtual reality works such as The Persistence and Horizon Call of the Mountain, will be smaller, and the London studio, the developer of Blood & Truth, PlayStation VR Worlds, and SingStar Celebration will be completely closed. The game under development by this studio has also been canceled. Sony announced a few days ago that it plans to add support for the PlayStation VR2 virtual reality headset to the computer.
Along with these, some members of Naughty Dog, Gorilla Games and Insomniac Games studios have also lost their jobs. The layoffs come just days after Sony's earnings call, in which the company lowered its sales expectations for the PlayStation 5 console, sending Sony's stock down $10 billion. In addition, PlayStation's profit margin has decreased despite high revenues, which is due to the increase in the cost of making games.
Some time ago, Microsoft also fired 1,900 employees from its gaming division and Activision Blizzard. Unity recently fired 25% of its employees.