It was not the Friday morning some employees were expecting at the North American PlayStation offices. According to documents leaked by Axios, 90 employees have been let go from the sales and marketing departments.
After Axios' report, VGC was able to verify the claims and revealed it's a total of 93 employees let go, which according to them, included "virtually the entire retail marketing channel." So far, PlayStation has yet to respond to any request for comment. Still, current employees shared internal memos circulated to employees and the move was labelled as necessary for part of a "global transformation."
Here are some details that Axios shared:
"The company is shutting down its "merchandiser" team in the U.S. Roles in that group included PlayStation Representatives, whose jobs often involved going to retail stores to prime them to sell PlayStation products and ensure staffers were knowledgeable about them. It's also cutting many retail marketing jobs. Sony PR reps did not reply to multiple requests for comment."
All indications are that Sony is looking to make a heavy shift to direct-to-consumer marketing and cutting out the middle man everywhere possible. Sony is currently enjoying over half of its sales in the digital market directly to gamers.
