Sony announced on Tuesday, February 27, the layoff of 8% of its payroll, or 900 people. The manufacturer of the PlayStation 5 and owner of renowned studios such as Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games made this known in a press release published online and signed by Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), its video games division.
The latter puts forward the prospect of restructuring to face “developments” in the sector. “The industry has changed immensely, and we need to prepare for the future in order to prepare the company for what lies ahead,” said the man who is due to leave his position at the end of March. This sharp cut in SIE's workforce affects all regions in which the video game specialist is established: the United States, Japan, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.
Branches located in the United Kingdom are particularly affected. Sony's London studio, which was working on an unannounced project and had developed virtual reality games for the two PSVR headsets, will be closed and the teams at the Firesprite studio in Liverpool (Horizon: Call of the Mountain) will suffer " reductions,” details the press release.
Sony also told the American news agency Bloomberg that the layoffs would affect three of its studios behind successful games: Naughty Dog, Guerrilla and Insomniac Games. They are responsible for The Last of Us I and II, Horizon: Forbidden West, and the Spider-Man trilogy, respectively. Spider-Man 2, released on October 20, was a dazzling success and sold five million copies in around ten days.
Sony's latest generation console, the PlayStation 5 (PS5), has sold more than 50 million copies since its launch in November 2020, the company announced in December.
Since 2023, employees of video game studios and publishers have been affected by serial layoffs. More than 10,000 people were thanked last year, according to a count from the Game Industry Layoffs website. The situation accelerated in 2024. In January, Microsoft announced the elimination of 1,900 positions at Activision Blizzard, Unity that of 1,800 positions, Riot Games (League of Legends) that of 500 positions.
On February 26, the day before the announcement of layoffs at Sony, the Supermassive Games studio already announced the departure of 90 people. Including Sony's announcements, 7,000 people working in the video game sector have already lost their jobs during the first two months of the year, according to the Game Industry Layoffs count.
