Dozens of Employees Reportedly Laid off from Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe

By Sean Carey,

Sony has reportedly laid off "dozens" of employees from Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe (SIEE) in London, according to Video Games Chronicle (VGC). The layoffs were announced to employees at the same time that Sony released new information about their next console, the PlayStation 5. In a now-deleted tweet, one affected employee said, "I hate that this is going to be drowned by the PS5 announcement.”

VGC was told that the North American Division, Sony Interactive Entertainment America (SIEA), has grown in influence in the past year and is moving towards centralising some of the different regional branches. SIEA is restructuring several areas, including marketing and PR.

Regional departments were previously able to act independently from SIEA and could set their own marketing budgets while using their knowledge of the region to sign games they thought would do well in their area. Now it's believed that SIEE will have less influence over its market during the PS5 era.

According to VGC, PlayStation's State of Play live streams are produced by SIEA and SIEE is often left in the dark about their content. SIEE was also not informed about the release of the PlayStation 5 details on Tuesday.

The news comes off the back of Shawn Layden, chairman of Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment, leaving the company, seemingly out of the blue.

Source: VGC

Industry News

Written by Sean Carey

Hey, I’m Sean! I joined both TrueAchievements and TrueTrophies as a staff writer in 2019. I’m a big fan of the Metal Gear Solid series and love a good narrative adventure. Most evenings you’ll find me failing to get a win in Call of Duty: Warzone.