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Procrastinato on 19 March 2009
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wfz said:
NJ5 said:
Procrastinato said:
I know quite a number of hardware and software companies having to do with assorted portions of the XBox 360, PS3, and Wii doing everything from laying off 15% or more of their workforce, to chopping everyone in the company's salaries by 10% AND axing all bonuses.

In my opinion, Sony is really holding it together well, all things considered. They hold together as a family, which is cool, in my book. I assume its a Japanese company thing, whereas the American companies are more into layoffs, which is lame. I'd rather take a 10% pay cut than see 15-20% of my team/friends get laid off, and having to work weekends for the next couple years to make up for their absence.

The fact that Sony is simply in a hiring freeze, not handing out raises, and is cutting bonuses only partially is a frickin miracle. You wouldn't believe how many companies in the tech industry would love to be that generous.

I suppose you didn't read this:

Sony to lay off 16,000

 

Shh, don't ruin his image of Sony. It's such a beautiful homely family image!

 

You're gonna make me post the MS layoffs, and include the contractors, as is included in that 16K number?

If we're talking game divisions, one of those two divisions has axed thousands, and closed a myriad of studios over the past year.  The other... 0.  I know people who work at Sony, MS, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, Atari, and a myriad of other game companies, as well as people at AMD, IBM, nVidia, HP, etc.  None of those places is anywhere near as pleasant to work at today, thanks to the economy, and Sony is doing admirably well for the awful situation they are in -- SCE in particular.  If they have to make any serious cuts, it'll be a loss to Sony, and the industry as a whole, since many of those people will probably not find decent jobs in the game industry for several years (although independant studios are hiring like crazy, since all the big studios layoffs has made tons of "sweatshop" work for them to scramble for), and thus, will leave for good.

The end result of the big publishers being hurt by the economy is that games lose budget, get rushed out quicker, and are made by lower quality teams.  Good times behind, for gamers.