To meet its sky-high sales forecasts for the PlayStation 5 this year, Sony Group Corp. will look for help from a superhero.
03.10.2023 - 16:51 / gamedeveloper.com / Jim Ryan / Sony Interactive / Lays Off
Layoffs have reportedly hit the staff over at Naughty Dog. A new report from Kotaku alleges the Last of Us developer has cut at least 25 contractor jobs.
A pair of sources told the outlet the affected contractors are expected to work through the month of October. While the art and production departments were affected, the majority of reductions reportedly hit the QA team.
In a layoff-heavy year, this is the biggest first-party PlayStation developer to get caught up in the proceedings. It's further alleged no severance is being offered, and contractors (both those impacted and the ones remaining) have been told to keep quiet on the matter.
Kotaku also claimed the upcoming Last of Us multiplayer spinoff (previously dubbed Factions) is "on ice," but not fully cancelled. Earlier in the year, a Bloomberg report revealed Factions development was troubled and its resources had been diverted to other (presumably single-player) projects at the studio.
Following that Bloomberg report, Naughty Dog stated its team would keep on the project alongside a separate single-player offering. In recent months, the company has repeatedly insisted ahead of livestreams and celebrations of the Last of Us franchise that it wouldn't be revealing a new project during those events.
Factions has been previously touted as a big live-service offering, one of many that ex-Sony Interactive head Jim Ryan touted in recent years. One other such project is a multiplayer spinoff for Guerrilla's Horizon series, which appears to still be in development.
To meet its sky-high sales forecasts for the PlayStation 5 this year, Sony Group Corp. will look for help from a superhero.
We have a new rumor about the state of The Last Of Us multiplayer from a new source. The game is reportedly cancelled, but the devil is in the details.
PlayStation Plus' Premium subscribers will get access to cloud streaming by the end of October.
Nearly three years after the initial launch of the PlayStation 5, Sony has revealed a slimmer redesign. Both the disc drive model and the digital model will be updated, but these two models aren't as different as they used to be: you will now be able to purchase a disc drive separately, allowing you to upgrade a digital model to a disc-compatible version. Both versions will be available this November, and will eventually replace the current model of PS5 altogether.
First we give our initial impressions of Forza Motorsport and Assassin's Creed Mirage now that the review embargoes on them have lifted, and then we spend the bulk of the episode giving our top-5 rankings of Xbox's internal game studios (including Bethesda/Zenimax) while also contemplating Phil Spencer's Xbox legacy to date as PlayStation boss Jim Ryan finalizes his ahead of his retirement.
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The surprising revelation that Jim Ryan will retire as Sony Interactive Entertainment’s President and CEO at the end of March 2024 has been, perhaps predictably, met with glee from most corners of the wider video game world. In addition to courting controversy on a number of occasions, the British executive’s tenure has largely been marred by a change in corporate goals: an emphasis on games as a service which has yet to really bear fruit, a lack of engagement with enthusiasts, and a blank slate of upcoming first-party releases.
With Sony announcing that PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan will be retiring in April of next year, this kind of message from Phil Spencer was inevitable. The Xbox boss has taken to Twitter in order to praise 63-year-old Ryan's impact on the industry, as you'd expect.
After almost 30 years at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), not to mention being president and CEO since 2019, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has announced his retirement. He will hand over the reins of corporate power to Sony Group Corporation president and COO Hiroki Totoki on 1st April 2024, who will take on the role of Interim CEO of SIE until a suitable successor can be found. In addition, Totoki will become chairman of SIE as soon as next month, ahead of Ryan's departure.
Jim Ryan, President of Sony Interactive Entertainment, has announced that he will retire in March 2024, bringing to a close an almost thirty year career with the PlayStation business, in which he has held a variety of senior positions at the company.