900 employees have to leave – Sony announced this yesterday. Hermen Hulst, head of Playstation Studios, has now confirmed that some ongoing projects are apparently also going over the cliff.
Evil. A whopping 900 people will lose their jobs at Sony Interactive Entertainment, including at successful studios such as Insomniac, Naughty Dog and Guerrilla Games, and the London studio will also be closed. Following the unpleasant announcement, Helmen Hulst also commented on the topic and confirmed that some ongoing but not yet announced projects will be stopped. This should also include a co-op game that is being developed by the said London studio.
“PlayStation 5 is in its fourth year and we are at a point where we need to take a step back and look at what our business needs. At the same time, our industry has experienced ongoing and fundamental change that impacts how we develop and play all the games,” said Hulst.
“To deliver the compelling, narrative stories PlayStation Studios is known for at the quality we strive for, we must re-evaluate the way we work: delivering and sustaining online social experiences […]as well as publishing games on additional devices such as PC and mobile require a different approach and different resources.”
That would confirm what has been heard from Sony in the last few days. As part of the last quarterly report, there were a number of statements that Sony wanted to expand its offering to other platforms, especially PC.
“We have looked at our studios and portfolio, evaluated projects at various stages of development and decided that some of these projects will not proceed. I want to make it clear that the decision to stop work on these projects has nothing to do with the talent or passion of the Team members have to do. Our philosophy has always been to allow for creative experimentation. Sometimes great ideas don’t turn into great games. Sometimes a project is started with the best of intentions before changes in the market or industry cause a change in the plan .”
So it could be that the coming Playstation months will be quite lean. There are some smaller first-party releases like Rise of the Ronin coming up, but there are no releases for major Playstation brands in sight in the next twelve months.
The rumor mill is now busy speculating which games could be affected. In addition to the title from London Studio, it is already clear that The Last of Us Online has no future and it is rumored that the twisted metal title from Firesprite is also going over the cliff. Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Online does not appear to be affected, according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier.
In a trailer, Sony presents some of the upcoming top highlights for the PlayStation 5 in the new year 2024.
