PlayStation has been keeping busy for the last month. The purchase of studios and the reveal of a new PS Plus has caught the attention of the public. Now, today it has been revealed that the company has laid off 90 employees from its public relations division in the United States.
Under the direction of Jim Ryan, CEO of SIE, PlayStation has focused on a global market. This has meant the change or closure of several divisions, the most notable case being the modifications that were carried out in Japan Studio. Now, according to Axios, this week saw the layoff of 90 workers from the PlayStation offices in North America, these are related to sales and marketing positions.
PlayStation has eliminated its sales team in the United States. Roles in that group included representatives from PlayStation, whose jobs often involved going to stores to prepare them to sell company products, and make sure the staff knew about them. That’s not all, as they are cutting a lot of marketing jobs.
While there is currently no official response from PlayStation about these layoffs, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Previous company reports have indicated that a large part of its sales are carried out through digital stores, so severing your relationship with physical branches makes sense. Along with this, the marketing and sales management will be focused on direct communication with the consumer, thus eliminating the stores in between.
On the other hand, there is also the perspective of the workers. One person told Axios that they are “disappointed” with how the company failed to report on timely dismissals, and criticized Sony’s lack of initiative in finding alternative jobs for these employees.
We can only wait and see what will happen with this new approach in marketing. In related topics, you can learn more about the new PlayStation Plus here. Similarly, the company will not abandon single-player games.
Editor’s note:
Although this decision was made with the aim of focusing more on digital sales, and thus creating a new relationship with the consumer through this means, the dismissal of employees could be avoided by reassigning workers to new divisions, or at least reducing the number of people in this area, not eliminating it.
Via: Axios