Sony San Diego has seen a large number of layoffs – thought to be in the region of 40 to 50 employees – but the MLB The Show team has been unaffected. Despite being one of the Japanese giant's lower-profile exclusives, the baseball series sells strongly every year in the United States – and is widely considered one of the better sports simulations on the market.
The developer had been starting to spread its wings a little of late, however, pushing free-to-play titles like Guns Up and Kill Strain. In a statement to Polygon, the manufacturer has said that the latter will continue to be supported, while Drawn to Death production will also proceed as planned – but we can't see it pushing out many more freemium forays in the future.
In fact, once such anonymous source told the aforementioned publication that an unannounced project was cancelled as part of today's news. "We continually evaluate teams and programs at SIE Worldwide Studios to ensure we have the proper resources in place to deliver innovative products within a competitive landscape," a spokesperson for Sony said.
It's never nice to hear about people losing work, so while this round of redundancies isn't anywhere near as bad as first rumoured, we'd still like to share our thoughts with all of those currently out of a job. Hopefully everyone bounces back soon, though, and Sony San Diego continues crushing it with its annual baseball games.
[source polygon.com]
Comments 11
All of the best to those out of work. Horrible news.
That said, Kill Strain is one of the worst games I've played this year... I know that sounds like a really awful thing to say, but honestly, I can understand why Sony may think the free-to-play adventure San Diego's been on may be coming to a close.
@get2sammyb
There are rumours that Sony wasn't pleased with MLB the Show being finished exactly on schedule every year; it was the constant rejection of one of Sony's core values when it comes to releasing 1st party exclusives, that set the whole thing in motion.
@Boerewors
Obviously very sad that people lost their jobs, but selfishly I'm happy to hear MLB seems unchanged, its the only sports franchise I buy annually.
Such a shame, can't blame them for attempting something different with their work on F2P productions but it sounds like it hasn't worked. Maybe Drawn to Death might keep an audience due to David Jaffee and it's artstyle. San Diego will no doubt just be the MLB studio going forward which is not the worst position to be in.
Also there's been some layoffs at Sony London too after PS VR Worlds finished development in mid August. But the studio will move onto their next VR game.
Hopefully a quick bounce back for those effected by the layoffs.
Like others have said, it's always unfortunate when people lose a job. That's the most important thing.
That being said, I definitely wasn't happy when I heard the original news that The Show may get discontinued. Video game wise, that'd be about as bad as it gets for me. I get it every year and love it every year. That's my Call of Duty, haha.
@Boerewors best comment 😂
Free to play just doesn't work on console, people buy $400 machine to play AAA games, not free to play games. The exception is good port of moba games that's already on pc.
@Boerewors So true
@Boerewors
Killstrain and guns up, meh. They need to make MLB VR
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