On the day Sony revealed PS5 details such as its possible release date and specifications, the company also laid off a number of employees at its European and US offices, impacting multiple divisions including PR and marketing. What’s more is, the European operations for PlayStation as well as PS5 plans for the region may come under Sony’s US team.
According to a report from VGC, the PlayStation North American arm, Sony Interactive Entertainment America (SIEA), has seen its influence grow significantly in the past year with Sony further moving towards a centralised global structure resulting in layoffs. The Mako Reactor can confirm that Sony India’s PlayStation operations have not been affected by these redundancies at the moment.
In the past, PlayStation’s regional offices had a degree of autonomy in setting up marketing budgets and signing their own games. Last generation, India benefitted from this. It resulted in several locally-developed titles such as Hanuman Boy Warrior and the Street Cricket series.
This approach allowed Sony to cater to specific audiences in each market. Gravity Rush and its sequels weren’t pushed heavily in India compared to other Asian markets while Driveclub had a larger share of voice in the country than it did in other neighbouring regions.
With restructuring in progress, it’s safe to say that Sony’s strategy would be the same globally. Tragic when consider a bulk of the success of the PlayStation brand outside of the US can be attributed to its unique tone in each region.
Considering how this approach has failed Microsoft with the Xbox One, it will be interesting to see if Sony is blind to pitfalls it should avoid or not.
That said, the move to lay off employees during the week details of the PS5 emerge is sickening to say the least even if it may not have been intentional.
