Reeves: No plans to cut European staff
PlayStation boss won't be axing games jobs despite 8000 lay-offs at Sony Corporate
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves has said that the company will not be cutting jobs in the PlayStation division, despite Sony Corporation looking to axe 8000 jobs by April 2010.
Last week, Sony Europe said that the PlayStation business in the region was not immune to the redundancies planned for the wider company – but Reeves has now made assurances that games staff are safe.
"We're certainly not planning to cut back in personnel at all. Half of our personnel are in the development of the games, that's an investment. We're not scaling down at all," Reeves told Dutch TV station RTL.
He also said that there are no plans to cut back on development of software in the coming months either.
"To my knowledge, no one is cutting back on the R&D side of the projects we're working on now. Sony live and die on the innovative projects they bring out.
"In our division we're still continuing to develop the products which we put in our mid-range plan six months ago, one year ago."
He added: "As long as we plan prudently, I think we will be fine. We have a good business model. People will continue to buy the hardware, continue to buy the software. I'm convinced of it."
However, Reeves did say that videogames aren't immune to the economic downturn, and he expects next year to be tougher for Sony as it will be for almost all businesses.
"It's not recession proof. I don't think any industry is and eventually we may see a downturn. For the moment, we're seeing our sales of both hardware and software are hitting projects in most countries in Europe."
While the economic climate puts the squeeze on consumer spending, Reeves said that videogame sales were still meeting expectations, and he found it difficult to explain why games are seemingly riding out the credit crunch.
"[It's] difficult to explain, it could be that parents don't want to disappoint their children in buying PlayStation's, or whether it's the competition as well. Or maybe it that people are spending more time at home and this is a safe haven."