Sony lays off 900 people, with reductions at Spider-Man, The Last of Us, and Horizon studios
Sony is laying off 900 people, around 8% of its gaming workforce, outgoing president Jim Ryan has announced.
In a blog post earlier today, Ryan confirmed that Sony has "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." Redundancies will affect developers at studios all over the world.
Sony's presence in the UK seems to be particularly affected - PlayStation Studios London is being completely closed, and Horizon: Call of the Mountain developer Firesprite will see "reductions." Ryan also confirmed that "there will be reduction is various functions across [Sony Interactive Entertainment] in the UK."
Ryan said that the changes have been made in an attempt "to continue to grow the business and develop the company," focusing on "the long-term sustainability of the company." In a separate blog, Herman Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, confirmed layoffs at Marvel's Spider-Man developer Insomniac, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog, and Horizon Forbidden West studio Guerrilla Games.
These redundancies are just the latest in a huge string of similar downsizing efforts across the industry. Recently, Microsoft announced that it would be laying off 1,900 people, linked in part to its recent acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. Elsewhere in the industry, however, publishers and developers of all sizes started laying people off in late 2023, with the suggestion that for many studios, the aim is simply to survive 2024 unscathed.
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