A new report claims that Sony is gearing up to cut around 250 staff members from the tech conglomerate’s “recordable media business” division. While these alleged layoffs aren’t necessarily related to PlayStation, they could indirectly impact the trajectory of Sony’s gaming division in the long term, possibly leading to a future that many hardcore gamers may not like.
The tech landscape has been hit with devastating layoffs over the last few years, especially when it comes to the gaming industry. Back in 2023, Microsoft eliminated an eye-watering 10,000 jobs across several of its subsidiaries, only to follow that up by cutting an additional 1,900 positions from the company’s Xbox branch in early 2024. Meanwhile, fellow console manufacturer Sony announced a few months ago that it, too, would lay off around 900 employees across its PlayStation division. These two corporations are far from the only companies to exercise brutal layoff practices, though, as nearly every other major video game publisher has recently announced sweeping job cuts of some sort, from EA, Take-Two, and Ubisoft to Sega, Square Enix, and Embracer Group.
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The video game industry continues to face unexpected layoffs, with the developer of Sackboy to be among the latest to announce cutbacks.
Unfortunately, it seems that these layoffs aren’t ending anytime soon, as a report from The Mainichi — a major Japanese newspaper — alleges that Sony Group Corp. is gearing up to eliminate around 250 positions, or 37% of the 670 staff members, “from its recordable media business’ key manufacturing hub in northeastern Japan.” Essentially, this suggests that Sony is cutting down on its in-house production of physical media, likely in regard to movies and TV shows. The Mainichi purports these “planned job cuts come amid a decline in demand for traditional storage formats, such as Blu-ray discs, with streaming services now the norm.” Considering that rumors have recently swirled around major retailers like Target abandoning the distribution of physical media altogether, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
The Mainichi’s report also claims that Sony will “gradually cease production of optical disc storage media products, including Blu-ray discs,” according to its sources. Although the tech giant’s gaming division isn’t outright mentioned here, one has to wonder if these alleged plans will also impact the distribution of physical PS5 titles. After all, every physical PlayStation game is printed on a Blu-ray disc, so if Sony is indeed looking to abandon internal production efforts for the media format altogether, then that could suggest that physical discs might have to face the reaper in the future.
Recent reports from analysts have suggested that physical game sales have been declining year-over-year, so Sony’s potential decision to sunset its Blu-ray manufacturing division, including the in-house production of PS5 discs, would make more sense in this context. Regardless of whether this ends up happening or not, these job cuts at Sony, combined with the recent layoffs at Xbox’s physical retail teams, seem to point towards the all-digital future inching closer and closer to becoming a reality.
