PlayStation announces plans to lay off 900 people, will close London Studio

PlayStation has announced plans to lay off 900 people from its global workforce, as part of a reduction of the company’s overall headcount by 8%. Several PlayStation-owned studios – including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, and Guerilla Games – will be affected, with PlayStation Studios’ London Studio set to be closed entirely.

This news is the latest to break in what’s been a terrible year for games industry layoffs so far, with Microsoft having laid off 1,900 staff from its video game division in late January, and Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games having joined an ever-growing list of individual studios letting staff go just yesterday.

In a blog post on Sony Interactive Entertainment’s website, SIE President & CEO Jim Ryan confirmed: “We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8% or about 900 people, subject to local law and consultation processes. Employees across the globe, including our studios, are impacted.”

He goes on to acknowledge that those being let go are “incredibly talented people”, and says regarding the resoning behind the layoffs: “the industry has changed immensely, and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead.”

The post includes a copy of an email Ryan has sent to PlayStation staff outlining the scope of the layoffs. In it and a separate post from head of PlayStation studios Hermen Hulst, it’s confirmed that a number of PlayStation Studios will be affected by the proposed layoffs, with Europe specficially seeing PlayStation Studios’ London Studio “close in its entirety” as well as both Horizon Forbidden West developer Guerrilla Games and Firesprite studio seeing “reductions”.

Over in the US, Hulst says that both Marvel’s Spider Man developer Insomniac Games and The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog will be “impacted by a reduction in workforce”, in addition to PlayStation’s “Technology, Creative, and Support teams” based in the region.

In his post, Ryan confirms that employees across all of the regions the company has a presence in – including Europe, the Americas, and Asia, will be affected and says that: “Affected employees will receive support, including severance benefits.”

Founded in 2002, London Studio developed plenty of first-party PlayStation titles over the years, including the SingStar series and several PSVR titles, such as Blood and Truth and PlayStation VR Worlds.