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PlayStation Cuts Nearly 90 Jobs, Citing 'Global Transformation'

saintjules

Member

Sony PlayStation has laid off upward of 90 workers in its North American offices, as it eliminates numerous sales and marketing positions.
  • The company is shutting down its “merchandiser” team in the U.S. Roles in that group included PlayStation Representatives, whose jobs often involved going to retail stores to prime them to sell PlayStation products and ensure staffers were knowledgeable about them.
  • It’s also cutting many retail marketing jobs.
  • Sony PR reps did not reply to multiple requests for comment.
Between the lines: The cuts, made at a time when the PlayStation business is thriving for Sony, were attributed by leadership to a “global transformation” of the company’s sales and business operations.
  • One worker who was affected by the layoffs told Axios they were disappointed the company had not told the department about the cuts sooner and felt Sony could have done more to find people alternate roles.
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Not surprising, how many people still go to shops and buy games? I order all my physical games online nowadays.

I guess Covid confirmed their decision.
 
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ParaSeoul

Member
Episode 2 Whatever GIF
 

yurinka

Member
Yes, the market is shifting from retail to digital a lot. They are hiring a lot of people in other areas, but it's normal that they move resources from a place to another as the market changes.
 
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kingfey

Banned
I have been there myself.

Worked 2 years for a company. All of us got laid off, because they were moving to a different state.

Its shit feeling. But we have to move on.

Sometimes, we might get better jobs that way.
 
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Fox Mulder

Member
Must have been an easy job with the global shortages though. You go to any retail store and the PlayStation section is bare as fuck even out of controllers and shit.
 
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AmuroChan

Member
Sony employs some 110,000 employees. I would be surprised if there aren't at least some layoffs every quarter.

Also, I think it would be good to mention how many new hires occurred as well. Considering all the acquisitions Sony made this past year, I think it's safe to assume their employee count is up YOY.
 
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If it's related directly to in-store merchandise/swag then I can understand the shift. I maybe go into a game stop once or twice a year? Only to be disappointed that they don't have the edition of the game I want (GT7 25th anniversary edition was the latest one for me). Half of their store is now swag/toys.
 

Bryank75

Banned
If anything they need more and better merchandising.

I dunno what they are thinking here but I also don't have a good picture of the internal situation..
 

kingpotato

Ask me about my Stream Deck
I left the games industry because of the endless waves of layoffs I could only avoid for so long. Every time I look at studio jobs I remember the vicious cycle and it snaps me out of it. Hope everyone comes out of the situation okay.
 

Ladioss

Member
Seems a rational move with the shift away from brick & mortar stores and to digital stores I guess ?

Too bad the people Sony needs to fire first and foremost is their DEI department.
 
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If anything they need more and better merchandising.

I dunno what they are thinking here but I also don't have a good picture of the internal situation..

They've had people on the payroll for 2+ years essentially doing nothing and their roles are never going to be as needed as they were pre-pandemic.

So much of sales is digital now so the need for tradeshows and retail sales/marketing people is greatly diminished. The reality is they got a free ride for 2 years, so they are lucky to a degree this happened now and not 2 years ago.

90 employees is extremely expensive. Let's be conservative and assume their salaries are at a minimum average of 70K a year. This is 6.3 million dollars per year plus benefits. And that's being conservative. Shift their average salary to include more senior people to say 90k a year and now you're looking at 8.1 million dollars per year plus benefits and probably even some level of per diem.
 

sn0man

Member
Sony employs some 110,000 employees. I would be surprised if there aren't at least some layoffs every quarter.

Also, I think it would be good to mention how many new hires occurred as well. Considering all the acquisitions Sony made this past year, I think it's safe to assume their employee count is up YOY.
Might as well get some fresh recruits at $38k a year. Old people are expensive with their cars and clothes and stuff. /s
 
Freaking sucks that people lost their jobs. It's a horrible thing to deal with for any company in any industry.

It's totally understandable from a business perspective why retail marketing-focused roles have become increasingly redundant.

Hope everyone let go lands on their feet though.
 
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It’s always admirable how understanding some of you are when Sony lays off people. Now if only that applied to everyone else some of the discord might be healthier.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I bet the jobs will still exist.

They will just be outsourced to brokers who do this type of thing.

When it comes to retail reps hustling for sales at store level, only the biggest companies may have their own retail team. Often times, it's outsourced to other companies to handle. My company doesnt have an in house retail team either. Outsourced.

Other kinds of outourced jobs are the sample lady or demo kiosk dude. 99% chance it's not actually an employee from the company setting up a booth. Outsourced.
 

SCB3

Member
Its weird, I had an interview with PS this week, but for a Software role,

This is all retail, maybe they're focused on all online from now on
 

CamHostage

Member
Must have been an easy job with the global shortages though. You go to any retail store and the PlayStation section is bare as fuck even out of controllers and shit.

Naw, it's done. There was a "golden era" of retail, in the highpoint of game and DVD and CD sales, where businesses came in with authority over the shops they visited (and stores sold them the space on shelves) and they groomed the sections to stand out against the competition and put up posters or graphics to make each aisle scream out for their products.

Those days are mostly over and stores have shifted (for reasons I'm not quite clear on, actually?) towards generic plan-o-grams. (You still see promotional spots today in endcaps or stand-alone shelving, and some thriving markets like cellphones still buy the shelves for their own space, or the demo kiosk for testing games, but Best Buy for instance is more interested in convincing you how great Best Buy is than promoting PlayStation, for better or worse.) Stock can be managed more readily now that every product is tracked not just by quantity on a shelf but often by units registered in a nationwide and easily-accessible system to purchase through the website for in-store pickup, and quality of presentation is no longer an emphasis because the stores themselves are struggling to get people to come in and witness how well it's presented.

So these Merchandisers used to hold court in their stores, but their power is gone and unlikely to come back (and in this case decidedly it's over).
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
They are big in big-box retailers like Target, WalMart, Best Buy
im not trying to be an asshole here, but 90 people seems...not alot? if its like what you said above.

Since PS5 is still in short supply, and if thats what they do, i guess no point staying there is there is no console to sell.
 
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