Sony cuts jobs at games arm
Sony will axe almost 10% of staff across its Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) division, despite chief executive Howard Stringer praising European sales of the PlayStation 3 console for bolstering the whole company.
It is understood that Sony European chief David Reeves told SCEE’s 1,900 European employees yesterday (Monday) that the company is seeking to make 160 redundancies. It is not known whether the cuts will affect the marketing teams across the UK and Europe. The redundancies are still at proposal stage although Sony has confirmed that jobs will go.
In a memo from Reeves, Sony staff were told: "SCEE has successfully faced a number of challenges throughout its history to become a leader of the videogame industry. However our industry is in the middle of a transition where some of the fundamentals of our business are changing.
"In order to further our market leadership we sometimes have to make difficult business decisions. The management of the company has concluded that we need to change our structure, streamline and strengthen our business operations – and that our cost base needs to be significantly reduced.
"In order to achieve the necessary cost reductions it is possible that there will be up to 160 redundancies in total across SCEE offices in the UK, WWS (World Wide Studios) in Europe and in the Territories."
Staff affected by the proposals will be sent letters tomorrow (Wednesday) and a consultation process will kick off to decide which jobs are to go.
