Sony Games Division May Avoid Incoming Layoffs

Game Rant

By GR Staff

Published Apr 23, 2012

Sony cutbacks are on the horizon, but if one report proves true, the video games division within the consumer electronics company may be keeping their jobs due to the company refocusing efforts towards gaming.

It wouldn't have been surprising to see employees of Sony scrambling to update their resumes and figuring out how to use LinkedIn two weeks ago due to the company's $6.4 billion loss in the 2011 fiscal year - adding to several consecutive years in the red. With almost 10,000 jobs to be cut, how would this effect the games division within Sony?

It's never a good thing to see companies letting go employees due to financial losses - something all too common in the video games industry - but according to one rumor, those within the gaming sector Sony may walk away untouched when it comes time to layoffs.

Typically, when companies start losing money, marketing is the first to go, which is true in Sony's case — according to Brand Republic. An unnamed spokesperson at Sony has confirmed that at least 1,000 employees will be let go over at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, which mainly consisted of sales and marketing personnel. Along with the cut backs at SCEE, the television and chemicals divisions will also be seeing cut-backs in other parts of the globe.

It is very lucky for the gaming division that CEO Kaz Hirai wants to place more focus on video games as part of a restructure in the organization's priorities. As the newly appointed CEO, Hirai was left with a hefty load to bear, and he stated that Sony's needed turnaround wouldn't be easy. But if the rumors from Develop Online are true, folks who work on all the games we love can breathe a little easier now.

PS3 sales have been dropping, but the company seems to have a plan to bring the Move into the spotlight as they prepare to emphasize and showcase new content this year at E3 instead of new hardware (i.e. no PlayStation 4 inbound).

Lifting the weight of potential unemployment off the shoulders of the game developers within Sony should help them relax a bit to focus on the future. Hopefully, Sony can put together some great stuff in the coming year to stay in competition with Nintendo and Microsoft.

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Source: Develop, Brand Republic [Via VG 24/7]