A major layoff is being made in Sony's PlayStation division. According to the official announcement, it was decided to lay off 900 people worldwide on the PlayStation side.
Sony's PlayStation division has also kept up with the layoff trend in the video game industry. In 2024 alone, more than 7,000 layoffs have already been reported in the video game industry, with 900 more people from the PlayStation division joining them. Detailed information about the layoffs has been shared by Sony.
900 PlayStation employees are being laid off
Sony has announced that it will lay off around 900 employees in its PlayStation division, a reduction of around 8 per cent in its workforce globally. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said PlayStation employees around the world, including studios, would be affected. In addition to the layoffs, the London game studio responsible for the development of PlayStation VR games is also being closed. While Sony's Firesprite studio is also experiencing layoffs, in general, employees in the US, EMEA, Japan and APAC regions will be affected.
The layoffs made by Sony are happening after the company lowered its PS5 sales targets a while ago. Sony announced that the console will gradually decline in the next fiscal year and that the console has now entered the second phase of the console's life cycle, while lowering the PS5's sales target from 25 million to 21 million. Before Sony's PlayStation decision, its main rival Microsoft also announced that it would cut 1900 jobs from Xbox and Activision Blizzard. While 6500 people were laid off in the video game industry in 2022, this number reached 10500 in 2023. On the 58th day of 2024, this number has reached approximately 7350.