Two days ago, Sony announced the closure of two PlayStation Studios: Firewalk, maker of Concord (reported to have cost over $200 million and shut down mere days after its launch), and Neon Koi, which would have attempted to bring some of Sony's prized IPs to mobile.
Now, the CWA (Communications Workers of America) has released a rather scathing statement accusing Sony of furthering its gaming monopoly with the layoffs. They also plan to share their concerns with antitrust regulators. Here's the relevant excerpt from the statement:
Related Story Wolfire and Dark Catt’s Antitrust Lawsuit Against Valve Given Class Action Status
This devastating news comes on the heels of record layoffs across the video game industry. These decisions by highly insulated video game CEOs are creating perilous working conditions for video game workers by eliminating their job stability. Last month, former Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President Chris Deering suggested that laid-off game workers should “go to the beach for a year,” further demonstrating the lack of respect executives have for their workforce amid layoffs.
Alongside these layoffs, Sony’s decision to dissolve studios outside their walled garden of PlayStation-exclusive content rather than making games that have to compete in the highly diverse and competitive mobile game market should be a cautionary warning sign of Sony’s interest in furthering its monopoly position in the video game industry. CWA plans to raise the anti-competitive impacts of Sony’s increasing monopoly and monopsony power with the appropriate antitrust regulators, policymakers, and stakeholders.
The CWA previously signed a labor neutrality agreement with Microsoft and favorably hailed the company's acquisition of Activision Blizzard (which, however, came with its own heavy cost in layoffs).
Sony is about to launch a new console, the PlayStation 5 Pro, on the market. We've recently interviewed two game developers (Tower Five and Nexon) to hear their impressions on the hardware.
Today, Variety published an interview with Hideaki Nishino, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment's Studio Business Group. In the conversation, Nishino discussed Sony's vision for the PS5 Pro:
We have done Pro in the last generation. We learned a lot from there. When we were selling PS4 Pro, in addition to the PS4, 20% of customers actually got the PS4 Pro. It was high-end, premium tier. There are potential users acquiring those kind of units. Interestingly enough, it was not just about highly engaged users; actually, new users came to PlayStation to get PS4 Pro as well.
We started working on PS5 Pro even before PS5 launched — it was another five-year project for us. There was a conversation around whether we wanted to do another Pro or not. But the main thing was, there are technologies we can grow up in three years or five years. The innovation and technology advancement is quicker in the modern world. Phones are updating every year, PCs are updating every year. I don’t think we’d go every year updates, but there are things we can package together to bring the greatest things into game console segment range. That’s the vision.