Sony, the Japanese tech titan, announced on Tuesday that it is closing a factory in London and laying off around 900 employees, according to Reuters.
Days after Sony cut its estimated annual sales target for the PlayStation 5, the corporation is laying off approximately 8% of its personnel in Asia and America.
Jim Ryan, the head of Sony’s games division, stated, “We have concluded that tough decisions have become inevitable,” in reference to changes in how the video game industry creates, releases, and advertises its products. Ryan is planning to retire in March.
By taking this decision, Sony joins firms like Microsoft, opens a new tab, and Riot Games, owned by Tencent, which has just let off thousands of employees because of the gaming market’s sluggish recovery.
Sony PlayStation’s logo is on display at the Tokyo Game Show 2019 in Chiba.
Despite being better than a 5% loss in 2022, the global video game industry grew by only 0.6% to $184 billion last year, according to industry tracker Newzoo.
The layoffs will also effect other Sony studios, including Insomniac Games in the United States, which worked on titles such as “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2,” and Naughty Dog, the developer behind “The Last of Us.”
Earlier this month, Sony announced that it has no plans to release any major franchise games in the coming fiscal year and that it expects the PlayStation 5 unit price to reduce steadily beginning in the following fiscal year.
Since its introduction in the late 2020s, the device has sold 50 million units globally. For the first few years, the entertainment conglomerate slowed down its manufacturing due to shortage of supplies during the pandemic.
