Japanese company Sony said on Tuesday it would cut around 8% of its staff from its PlayStation video games division and close a studio in the United Kingdom.
Jim Ryan, who is set to retire in March, attributes the decision to changes in the way the video game industry develops, distributes and publishes its products.
Difficult decisions have become inevitable.
In addition to the closure of the London studio responsible for developing virtual reality video games, the layoffs will also affect US-based studio Insomniac Games, which worked on games such as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Naughty Dog Team behind The Last of Us series. Netherlands-based Guerrilla Games, which signed the Successful Horizon series, is also affected by layoffs.
Jade Raymond's Montreal studio Haven, the first Canadian company to join the PlayStation family in 2022, did not immediately respond to a request for information from Radio-Canada. It's impossible to know whether Sony's announced job cuts will impact this team.
Sony also did not respond to a request for comment from Radio-Canada.
A difficult start to the year
Video game studios are struggling at the start of the year. Sony joins Microsoft, which has laid off around 1,900 employees in its video games division, including 42 at Beenox studios in Montreal and Quebec.
Riot Games, owned by Tencent, which itself cut 11% of its employees earlier this year.
Montreal studio Behavior Interactive, which developed the horror game Dead by Daylight, has cut 40 jobs. And video game giant Embracer lost 97 people at its Eidos-Montreal studio.
The global video game market grew just 0.6% last year, according to the Observer. Newzoo $184 billion (C$249 billion), which is still better than a decline of more than 5% in 2022.
The PS5 console is in decline
Sony announced earlier this month that it expects a gradual decline in PS5 sales starting next fiscal year and has no plans to release major titles in the franchise in the next fiscal year.
The device has sold more than 50 million units since its launch in late 2020, after a few sluggish years due to supply shortages caused by the pandemic, which limited the entertainment giant's device production.
With information from Portal