Sony to Cut 900 Jobs at PlayStation, Shut London Studio; Naughty Dog, Insomniac Hit With Layoffs

Sony has reportedly temporarily halted all production of the PlayStation VR2. The company's purported decision to hit pause on PS VR2 manufacturing is said to be a result of the headset's lackluster sales, which caused an inventory buildup.

Sony has secured the complete Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy as a console exclusive.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced a PC version of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut.

It sounds like all is not well at Sony studio Firesprite, which the platform holder acquired in 2021. Despite moving into expensive new digs in its home city of Liverpool, a Eurogamer report paints an extremely grim picture of the outfit, which is allegedly bleeding staff and lost its managing director Graeme Ankers suddenly last May.

Sony has today confirmed around 900 PlayStation employees — or around eight per cent of its workforce — are being laid off in order to «future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead». As a result of the downsizing, PlayStation's own London Studio is being closed completely and Firesprite will be reduced in size. The staff reductions will also hit Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, and Guerrilla Games. Some unannounced games have been cancelled.

In case you missed the big news last week, PlayStation joined the rest of the industry in cutting hundreds of jobs across its business. What's more, the platform holder is closing one of its longest-standing developers, London Studio — but it seems another UK team may have been at risk, too.

A PlayStation executive has revealed in a new interview with Game File that the handheld PS Portal device is proving a lot more popular than the company expected. Hiromi Wakai, the VP of production management, explained «demand has continued to exceed our expectations» and so Sony is now focusing its efforts on «shipping more units consistently».

Despite mixed receptions to its reveal and niche usage, Sony’s PlayStation Portal has done pretty well, selling out in the UK and United States within two days of launch. If you thought demand had slowed over the months, PlayStation vice president of product management Hiromi Wakai confirmed the opposite.

They say you don’t know what’ll work until you try it out, and that’s been a staple of the gaming industry for decades! Between arcades, consoles, handhelds, and everything in between, publishers and developers have tried anything and everything to get people to come to their systems and try out their stuff. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes, you get a revolution, and that can lead to big things on the horizon. Last year, Sony unveiled the PlayStation Portal feature, which would give fans a mobile way to play their PS5 games in a more mobile capacity. At first, it seemed like a “weird peripheral” to have. However, the heads of Sony have been blown away by what it’s doing.

Another day, another videogame company jettisoning a large number of people "who have contributed to our success" so as to position themselves for growth in the face of "challenging times". Today it's Sony's turn with the axe: the PlayStation publisher have announced plans to reduce their global workforce by about 8% or 900 people, so as "to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead", in the words of outgoing president and CEO Jim Ryan.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced today that the corporation will cut around 8% of its workforce, or more than 900 jobs. Also, in the announcement, they stated that PlayStation Studios London will be closing.

Sony has announced mass layoffs across PlayStation Studios with 8% or around 900 people set to be made redundant across their worldwide studios. This will include the complete shutdown of London Studio, while Naughty Dog, Insomniac and other studios are affected as well.