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Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

sonyinteractive.com

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Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#91

Post by WorldMaker »

jl6 wrote: post #27

What I would dearly love is for Microsoft and Sony to recognize that nobody wants to release platform-exclusive titles that cut the audience in half, and pivot the console industry away from being mutually-incompatible bespoke devices and towards being a blessed open PC configuration that gets battle-tested, mass produced, and LTS-supported. Architecturally they’re 90% of the way there having AMD CPU+GPUs under the h…

Microsoft earlier this month announced four more previously "Xbox Exclusive" games, including Sea of Thieves often considered an Xbox flagship, were going to launch on PS5 soon (and the multiplayer titles will include PC/Xbox/PS5/Steam cross-play). Microsoft may be hinting that they see the console "war" coming to a close in the near future and software/services again more important than controlling the hardware. Or Microsoft may just be trying to prove to the courts that letting them eat up Activision Blizzard King was a good idea given most of the debates in the courts were about console exclusive windows and multiplatform launches. Time will tell which side of that fence Microsoft is actually on.

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#92

Post by glimshe »

diggan wrote: post #73
this_user wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They only recently announced that the PS5 is rapidly reaching its EOL. It is seemingly not selling well at all. The early issues with supply and the lack of actually interesting games that are not just remakes has clearly not helped.

> It is seemingly not selling well at all. Yeah, it's only the 15th best selling console after all :/ Sounds like something else might be wrong if you can sell +50 million units and still not consider it "selling well" or making a profit.

The Atari 2600 sold more units 40 years ago in North America than the PS5. They expected a lot better than the current numbers.

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#93

Post by bluefirebrand »

xp84 wrote: post #53
fooqux wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do not include a concrete reason why they are reducing their workforce They're always one of two things: 1) the company is failing and we need to do this to stay afloat; or 2) the board thinks we can make more money by doing a round of layoffs and have determined that the negative repercussions of this are worth that money. I wasn't able to easily find revenue numbers on SIE, just on Sony as a whole, but it seems p…

> a few extremely rich people There are a lot more than 900 shareholders, though. Including probably many of those laid off. > losing their livelihoods I know that this is a real expression, and you’re using it correctly of course, but the caliber of employees we are talking about here are not ending up begging on the streets. They’re being forced to interview for other jobs where their talents might be put to better…

> They’re being forced to interview for other jobs where their talents might be put to better use

Speaking as someone who has in the past been laid off in a down economy, when you get laid off while all of the other companies in your industry are also doing layoffs, the world looks bleak as hell.

You can interview as much as you want, but chances are you have more competition for fewer jobs than you ever have before.

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#94

Post by scioto »

this_user wrote: post #14
neocritter wrote: post #4

Is this one of those "we're doing great, you're fired" situations, or is there a real market reason? The PS5 seems to be selling well.

They only recently announced that the PS5 is rapidly reaching its EOL. It is seemingly not selling well at all. The early issues with supply and the lack of actually interesting games that are not just remakes has clearly not helped.

Tiny data point to support: when the PS5 first came out and for what I perceived a long time afterward it was hard has heck to get one, so I lost interest and put together another Windows gaming machine.

Never came back on my radar.

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#95

Post by hbn »

this_user wrote: post #14
neocritter wrote: post #4

Is this one of those "we're doing great, you're fired" situations, or is there a real market reason? The PS5 seems to be selling well.

They only recently announced that the PS5 is rapidly reaching its EOL. It is seemingly not selling well at all. The early issues with supply and the lack of actually interesting games that are not just remakes has clearly not helped.

> They only recently announced that the PS5 is rapidly reaching its EOL.

They didn't "announce" this, I don't know why people keep parroting it. Why would a company say that about the console they're still trying to sell?

They said it was entering the latter stage of its life cycle. In other words, it's at the halfway point. And yeah, we're almost at 3.5 years which is the halfway point of the typical 7 year console life cycle.

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#96

Post by FpUser »

dirtybirdnj wrote: post #76
FpUser wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"God I just wish one executive had the balls to say, "yeah we're culling 8% of our staff largely randomly because we estimated our dead weight is greater than that." It would at least treat employees as adults that can have adult conversations and take bad news." Employees could see things for what those are. Spelling it out will not make any difference for them. For executive statement like this could be reason to…

> Spelling it out will not make any difference for them. For executive statement like this could be reason to join that terminated crowd. So because "it already happened" we should just "get over it and stop making a big deal?" Unless the executive is stepping down and taking responsibility for the employees losing their jobs, it's empty platitudes. The C-level folks that made these mistakes will do it again. And mor…

>"So because "it already happened" we should just "get over it and stop making a big deal?""

You can keep making your "big deal" as much as you want. They do not give a flying fuck. They just have to be legal and that is it.

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#97

Post by xp84 »

dirtybirdnj wrote: post #77
op00to wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> none of the people swinging the axe face any pain for their bad decisions You think there is not one manager involved in layoffs that faced personal grief over firing people?

> You think there is not one manager involved in layoffs that faced personal grief over firing people? I am 100% confident that the people who feel "personal grief" over this are extremely well compensated. They have a secure housing situation where they are not afraid of "where will I sleep, where will my next meal come from?" Trivializing the damage these people are inflicting on others for no reason other than "th…

Again I have to question: why do you feel like most of these experienced, skilled white-collar workers are housing insecure, and worried about their next meal upon getting laid off with severance?

The only alternative to having layoffs be a fact of life and business is for companies to provide “jobs for life” regardless of profitability or business results. Businesses who do this don’t exist outside of uncompetitive state-owned firms which need to be propped up by state spending (taxpayers).

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#98

Post by Tiktaalik »

jodacola wrote: post #44

Ah, more layoffs! Setting aside the things I'm feeling when reading this, I'm trying to piece together a picture, for my own curiosity, of this trend, and I'm left with many questions, among those: * Are all these layoffs meaningfully based in some hard economic data (e.g. end of ZIRP and some real analytical assessments of the direction of the economy)? * Or, is this some form of corporate herd mentality? There's no…

There's been lots of discussion about how games companies staffed up during pandemic yada yada, but it's likely that these are a reflection of more long term issues. I've read elsewhere that even long before the pandemic, like 2018/2019, there were companies discussing broader industry trends that were unfavourable for AAA games and live service games.

Re: Sony Interactive Entertainment lays off 900 people

#99

Post by xp84 »

dirtybirdnj wrote: post #52
xp84 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t seem like you’ve gotten to know anybody who’s implemented a RIF. I have and every manager involved right up to the CEO fucking hates the whole thing. It makes you sick to your stomach, and they realize that no matter how much they hate doing it, many of those affected will still think they’re callous jerks for it. It’s just business.

it's not the action it's the lack of accountability for the action none of the people swinging the axe face any pain for their bad decisions. people under them working as hard as they could face the consequences of decisions made above their head and out of their control. no contrition, no sincerity, no humanity. the C level has failed us and we keep celebrating their narcissism and psychopathy. we cannot keep celebr…

CEOs get ousted all the time. Yes, most are rich enough that they won’t be ruined financially, but anyway, if you want to live in a society that doesn’t believe anyone should ever be allowed to be rich, just say so. Or, should they be imprisoned? What would sufficient ‘accountability’ look like?

CEOs have reputations, and they do better with their future opportunities when they “turn around” a company or grow it, vs liquidate one. And ‘growing’ includes the situation where the 90% who aren’t laid off share in that success.

But it’s weird to me to imply that executives should be godlike in their ability to predict the future such that downsizing in any form isn’t ever necessary (and that any failure to do so is a sin that needs to be punished). If a ship encounters rough waters and is in danger of not making it to their destination (in this case, ROI), the captain and first mate shouldn’t automatically jump overboard in contrition. (yes, in this metaphor, they are throwing a few of the crew overboard, but I think severance = lifeboats so I’m ok with it). They should do what it takes to preserve the ship. That’s their job. (And neither in the metaphor nor real life is “eliminating most of the crew” something they do, everyone accepts that the crew are valuable, and to be preserved)

I think it’s unrealistic to expect any corporate governance to meet your apparent criteria, that in the event of any RIF the C-suite must all be sacked and their personal wealth set to the median wealth of the rank-and-file at that company.

Nobody is stopping anyone from setting up such a company and having that in contractual agreements with all their executives, though. It would be an interesting experiment.

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