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SCEE may lay off 10 percent of staff
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe may be tightening its belt in the coming days, with a layoff of up to 10% of its workforce (about 160 employees) on the horizon. GameDaily BIZ has confirmed with SCEE spokesman Nick Sharples that the firings are in the works. Sharples' tone suggests that the layoffs are all but a certainty. The exact number of pink slips to be handed out, drawn from GameDaily's anonymous tipster, is still unconfirmed. Sharples chalks up the downsizing to the company's need to streamline operations and reduce costs, which seems like as good a reason as any to lay off some of your staff. There will obviously be temptation to lump this together with negative PS3 sales reports or price drops in the UK, but we'd rather not turn the firing of 160 humans into flamewar fodder. Here are the facts: 1) The company's game division lost around $446 million last year, a drop of more than $1 billion from the year prior. 2) Companies hate losing money. 3) There is no number three. Our sympathies go out to those who might soon be jobless. May we suggest PC gaming as your next endeavor? Romero says it's going to be huge.
Many territories are lacking PS3 online store
Our apologies to PlayStation 3 owners in Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Slovenia, among many others. According to SCEE Director of Corporate Communications Nick Sharples, many of the over 102 territories in the region have no access to the PlayStation 3 Online Store. Different currencies and languages were cited as reasons for the delay. "Stores will reach some territories in due course," he told Games Industry.No dates have been given for upcoming store launches. Sharples also said that some territories will not get a store at all due to other factors such as broadband penetration. "The PS Store may not be accessible in Azerbaijan, for example," he said. We don't have console sale data for each of these countries, so we would love to hear from PS3 owners gaming sans online store how much they care about it, if at all.[Via PS3 Fanboy][Update 1: Fixed a misrepresentation of Sharples' quotes.]
