PlayStation Is Laying Off 900 Workers, Shutting Down London Studio Entirely
PlayStation is laying off 900 workers. As part of this, it will shut down its London Studio entirely, likely cancelling its announced new IP. There will also be layoffs at other Sony-owned studios in the UK, including Firesprite studio, which it acquired in 2021.
Shortly after this announcement, Sony revealed that its US-based studios will be affected too. Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog will also be affected, having just shipped Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered respectively.
"The PlayStation community means everything to us, so I felt it was important to update you on a difficult day at our company," reads a blog post from Sony CEO Jim Ryan. "We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people."
Explaining why the cuts are being made, Ryan says that the industry "has changed immensely". In an email to workers, Ryan also says that the layoffs are being made in order to "continue to grow the business and develop the company".
Incidentally, Firesprite was made up of developers from another studio that Sony shut down in 2012. While Firesprite will at least stay open, unlike London Studio, it's being named in the list of workplaces included in today's layoffs, although it remains to be seen how many staff will be affected.
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