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Sony's Gaming Division "spared" in massive lay-off plan

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MagicWithEarvin

Member
If you recall, Sony's planning to cut 10,000 jobs (6% of their workforce).

Develop is reporting that Sony will not bury the axe into its gaming division (obviously, because Sony's gaming division has been quite successful).

http://www.develop-online.net/news/40570/Games-studios-spared-in-Sony-mass-layoff-operation

Information of the company’s restructuring operation suggests that the television, marketing and chemicals business will bear the brunt of the cut-backs.

Sony declined to comment when approached by Develop.

Targeting a six per cent reduction of its workforce (about 10,000 employees), it is believed that Sony will remove about 5,000 workers through the sale of its chemicals and LCD business.

New CEO Kaz Hirai, who has a mandate to slash operating expenses by a third within twelve months, said that Sony’s focus will be on three divisions: Digital imaging, phones and games.

But within these sectors, certain jobs (particularly outside of development) are still expected to be vulnerable.

A new report published today on Brand Republic claims that Sony Europe will cut about 1,000 staff – predominantly in marketing and sales roles if their jobs are connected to weaker divisions of the business, such as TV, or if their role is duplicated elsewhere.

According to Brand Republic: “A Sony spokesperson has confirmed the official 90-day consultation is likely to heavily impact on sales and marketing-related roles as Sony seeks to cut-out ‘duplication’ as part of its new plan”.

Sony Computer Entertainment would not comment on the matter of downsizing its Europe marketing and sales arm.

The company is battling, and in some cases outright denying, rumours of layoffs at certain facilities such as a broadcast cameras factory in Pencoed.
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"Sony has decided that all future games will focus exclusively on sequels to Dark Souls."

Stock price raises 10000%
 
earvcunanan said:
Develop is reporting that Sony will not bury the axe into its gaming division (obviously, because Sony's gaming division has been quite successful).
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I thought it was because they already made some cuts, such as shutting down zipper and halting projects at studio liverpool.
 
Sony-related news, they're still buying assets.....

Sony-led consortium won EU approval for their purchase of EMI Music for 2.2 billion

Sony is now the biggest music publishing company ahead of Universal and Warner Music


BRUSSELS — A Sony-led consortium won EU approval on Thursday to buy EMI’s music publishing business for $2.2 billion, on the condition that it sell the worldwide publishing rights of artists including Robbie Williams and Lenny Krativz.

Sony, with Blackstone Group, Abu DhabiÂ’s Mubadala Development Co. Raine Group and music and film mogul David Geffen, won the bidding for EMI Publishing last year in a deal that will put Sony top in global music publishing.

European competition regulators approved the deal after the consortium proposed selling the rights to four back-catalogues, including the musical works of 12 contemporary artists.

The catalogues to be sold are Virgin UK, Virgin Europe, Virgin U.S. and Famous Music UK and include artists such as Gary Barlow, Ozzy Osbourne, Ben Harper, Placebo and The Kooks, as well as Lenny Kravitz and Robbie Williams


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/enterta...zzy+Osbourne/6485508/story.html#ixzz1sie0JoCQ
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Well, Kaz at least knows where the money is right now.

Edit: Wait, they bought EMI, but not their catalogues? Surely some of those would make money. Oh well, I'm not a businessman.
 
There's absolutely nothing in the OP's article that wasn't in the original 6% (10,000) statement. Develop appears to be surmising (logically) that focusing the company around a few core areas means that the cuts are likely to be outside those core areas, but there's not actually a source or statement that's confirming or expounding on that.

I think Develop has a journalistic responsibility to clarify what kind of "information" they have, or if it's simply a deduction on their part.
 
Wouldn't it be awesome if in ten years Sony got their shit together so much that we wonder how they got in this state in the first place? A sucessful Sony only benefits us all.
 
are they selling columbia pictures?

this is kind of good news for gaming fans, hopefully they will refocus their resources into making a great ps4. I do like my vaio though.
 
TacticalFox88 said:
Wouldn't it be awesome if in ten years Sony got their shit together so much that we wonder how they got in this state in the first place? A sucessful Sony only benefits us all.
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though I suppose technically their bastardisation of NPD figures was due to them not being successful.
 
Politically, it would make sense for Hirai to avoid implementing layoffs in the division he came from.
 
neptunes said:
It would be stupid to streamline one their more profitable divisions. The Gaming side was the least of their problems.
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Yep. It makes logical sense, but that's not always the way these things go down. Lots of the time in larger corporations, "blood" needs to be given from all areas, regardless.
 
JB1981 said:
What a shame :(

Love Sony TVs :( :(
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The TV sector had years to get their shit together. It may be unfortunate but you can't leave a loss leader going on for that long. If the Playstation brand stagnates for another 3,4 years I'm sure we'll see it face the same fate. Only thing I can really see Sony ever not dropping would be radios, considering that's how they got their start.

Highly unfortunate that they're performing better as a finance company than anything else.
 
Quite an odd situation. They may not have 3D TVs on the market anymore pretty soon but still push the feature in PS3 games for use on a rival's (Samsung's) TVs.
 
I'm guessing they're sticking with phones because of the recent Ericsson acquisition because I can't think of any reason why someone would give a shit about Sony phones.
 
Stumpokapow said:
There's absolutely nothing in the OP's article that wasn't in the original 6% (10,000) statement. Develop appears to be surmising (logically) that focusing the company around a few core areas means that the cuts are likely to be outside those core areas, but there's not actually a source or statement that's confirming or expounding on that.

I think Develop has a journalistic responsibility to clarify what kind of "information" they have, or if it's simply a deduction on their part.
Click to expand...

Came to post this.
 
Phones I get.

Gaming I get.

Digital imaging? Really? Aren't point and shoots a dying market? Can DSLRs really be considered one of three pillars of a company that massive?
 
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