Sony laying off 900 PlayStation employees, London Studio to close in its entirety

eurogamer.net:

Sony is to lay off 900 people, equating to eight percent of its workforce. This reduction will see PlayStation Studios' London Studio close in its entirety, plus reductions made within Sony's Firesprite studio. There will also be reductions in various functions across SIE in the UK

In a post earlier today, Sony's Jim Ryan said the company's PlayStation community meant «everything to us», and therefore it felt compelled to share an update on the current situation.

«We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about eight percent or about 900 people, subject to local law and consultation processes. Employees across the globe, including our studios, are impacted,» Ryan wrote.

«These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success, and we are very grateful for their contributions. However, the industry has changed immensely, and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead. We need to deliver on expectations from developers and gamers and continue to propel future technology in gaming, so we took a step back to ensure we are set up to continue bringing the best gaming experiences to the community.

»We deeply appreciate support and understanding from the PlayStation community as these decisions are very difficult. Please rest assured that our plans for reorganising and streamlining are so we can continue to deliver the best gaming experiences possible."

Ryan shared an email sent to staff today included in his full statement, titled: Important Update Regarding Organisational Restructuring.

In this email, Ryan said the restructuring was an «incredibly difficult decision» for leadership to make, but it had become clear «changes [needed] to be made to continue to grow the business and develop the company».

The goal, Ryan said, is to