This afternoon, Gamesindustry.biz reported on an internal letter sent out to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe employees, warning them of potential job losses. As usual, streamlining is to blame. From the letter, attributed to SCEE boss David Reeves:
"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.
Regrettably, we must also now look at the possibility of making compulsory redundancies in the UK offices, in WWS studios in Europe and in our territory offices." Staff "across all areas of the business" are likely to be affected.
"I also appreciate that what I have just announced will have come as a major and unwelcome shock, and it is something we have fought hard to avoid. However, the business targets that we face have regrettably made it unavoidable."
Reeves estimates that there might be 160 jobs lost throughout Europe. Another tricky story for Sony, and another indication - following the removal of the PS2 hardware from European machines - that cost-cutting remains high on the agenda in these difficult early days of the PS3 business.
