PlayStation Lays Off 900 Staff - IGN Daily Fix

Hey everybody .

Brian Tanno here and in today's gaming news , Sony has announced significant layoffs affecting several Playstation studios .

More new Pokemon games are coming your way .

And a company called Game Scent wants you to be able to smell your video games .

What could possibly go wrong ?

It's the daily fix .

If you thought the soul crushing bloodbath of games industry layoffs that have been a near constant in 2024 were going to stop any time soon .

I once again , bring more bad news .

Sony has announced a significant round of layoffs affecting around 900 staff members equaling roughly 8% of its global playstation workforce .

The layoffs affect a number of Playstation studios including Insomniac makers of Spiderman , naughty dog , makers of Uncharted and the last of us , Gorilla makers of the Horizon franchise fires , Sprite makers , several high profile PSVR and PSVR two games and most significantly playstations now completely shuttered .

London studio makers of Blood and Truth , the Get Away franchise and more alongside the layoffs .

A number of in development games have been canceled in a blog post .

Soon to be happily retired .

Si E boss , Jim Ryan issued an update on what he called a difficult day at our company .

We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall head count globally by about a percent or 900 people subject to local law and consultation processes .

Ryan said employees across the globe including our studios are impacted .

These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success and we are very grateful for their contributions .

However , the industry has changed immensely and we need to future , ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead .

We need to deliver our expectations from developers and gamers and continue to propel future in gaming .

So we took a step back to ensure we are set up to continue bringing the best gaming experiences to the community .

Ok .

So before I read more from a puffy pr statement from a guy who's about to ride a golden parachute into the sunset and spend the rest of his life at the beach .

I'll just say it .

This sucks .

It sucked when Xbox did it a few weeks ago , it sucked when it happened a riot recently in IOS Montreal and Sega and Twitch and Discord and people can fly and tons more studios and it keeps happening and it isn't stopping and what it does , it always impacts the average employee and not the C Suite CEO S who tend to announce record corporate profits within weeks or even days of these layoffs , they don't even call them layoffs .

They say we're refocusing our shift potentials or downscaling our output divisions or changing the way we approach the evolving economic landscape , which is a bull speak way for rich people here to get to keep their jobs .

And the people who actually make things get kicked to the never ending curb and the games they spent years on will never see the light of day .

Meaning years of their work just vanishes under a stack of non disclosure agreements leaving a massive black hole at the top of their resumes .

Forever fun stuff .

Cool , great .

No notes playstation recently announced that the PS five had surpassed 50 million units sold was outpacing the sales of the PS four .

Recent data suggests the PS Five was outselling the Xbox series consoles 2 to 1 .

Insomniac games which have this morning uh include several Dus where humans were sitting yesterday , announced last year that their massively successful game Spiderman two was the fastest selling playstation game ever made .

Naughty Dog , which now includes several empty Z as well where humans used to sit also announced last year that the last of us franchise .

Now , an award winning television show on HBO has eclipsed 37 million game sales sold so far .

And you're probably wondering , is anyone safe and is any of it ever good for anyone ever ?

And the answer is probably no , unless you're Jim Ryan or Bobby Kick or Phil Spencer and you can weather the storm and pump the burden on to anyone and everything underneath you .

I don't have anything fun or clever or inspiring to say here .

I just want to say , I hope it stops and it doesn't feel like it will anytime soon .

Jim ended his statement by saying , thank you for your understanding .

During this difficult period .

Please be kind to yourselves and to each other .

Great something to think about while you're having an existential crisis in the unemployment line today .

Thanks Jim .

Moving on for now .

At least until we have to read another one of those gruesome stories tomorrow , which we probably will .

Several new Pokemon games are announced this morning .

Although you won't get to play the biggest of them until 2025 .

The Pokemon company just held the first Pokemon presents event of the New Year lasting nearly 13 minutes with news and information on the popular franchise for the foreseeable future .

Aside from new terror raid events coming to Pokemon , Scarlett and Violet and A between Pokemon Go and the new Netflix animated show , Pokemon Horizons .

The biggest announcement from today's Pokemon presents was a teaser trailer for the new Pokemon Legends game .

While no game play was shown , we do know that Pokemon Legends c will be set entirely in the city of Lumio .

The name of that city should sound familiar to Pokemon fans as it's the major city in the Carlos region .

Now I'm not a Pokemon guy as you can probably tell by the way , I butchered some of those names back there .

But it's awesome that this map looks like a huge pizza and that the game has the word Z A in the title because that means I get to call this game Pokemon Legends Pizza for as long as I can while several of you get annoyed at me .

I'm sorry , this means there's no new Pokemon console games coming to switch this fall .

Like there have been every year since like 2016 .

Also means the Nintendo switch just got its first confirmed 2025 game .

Ok .

Now , interestingly enough , this game will be coming to quote Nintendo switch systems .

Huh ?

Now , that can mean the switch switch light , the switch OLED .

But as far as I can tell , I don't really remember any game studio calling all those things systems in the past , they usually just say coming to Nintendo switch and it's assumed that the game will work everywhere .

This adds fuel to the fire when it comes to the switch to launching in 2025 rumors and makes me think this new Pokemon game could even be a switch to cross platform launch title .

We'll see either way if you are looking for a new Pokemon game to play this year , I'll be it one based on a very old Pokemon game .

The Pokemon company also announced Pokemon Trading Card game Pocket , which is the new mobile game that brings the popular Pokemon trading card game into the digital world via I Os and Android .

So yeah , get ready to collect and trade Pokemon cards on your phone .

Pokemon trading card game pocket is set to launch at some point in 2024 .

It's a collaboration between Pokemon company , Dina and Creatures Inc .

The latter of which has a long history of working on the Pokemon series and is developer of the ongoing Pokemon trading card game .

Players will be able to open two booster packs per day for free , complete with immersive cards that showcase special digital effects .

You'll be able to buy more packs , battle against each others and do a whole bunch of other stuff that will definitely cause the game to be banned in elementary schools and possibly also CD Las Vegas gambling circles .

Good luck out there .

And finally , if you thought our first story today stunk this last one smells even worse .

Uh Game set is a new product that uses A I to release a smell that correlates to the gameplay on your display .

In a press release .

The company says that its patent pending adapter allows the device to use real time audio cues to dispense smells like the smell of rain during a storm or gunfire in a first person shooter that corresponds with the game you're playing .

It's a small box compatible with P CS consoles and VR headsets and the device can plug into either an HDM I or a 3.5 millimeter audio jack game sense features swappable cartridges to keep the sensory adventure going according to the company .

But there is a clean air neutralizer that removes sense after a gaming session .

So you don't have to worry about the smell of a smoky explosion in your house hours after you finish playing in case you're trying to get a quick game of hell divers in before bed without your parents or your significant others wondering why it smells like burnt aliens in the living room ?

Great .

And because this is a video game product being sold in 2024 game scent has micro transactions .

That's right .

You'll be able to purchase DLC smells .

I can't believe I said that in the future like sports arena , fresh cut grass and blood .

Yeah , blood .

I can't even begin to imagine what they're putting in the canisters for that one game .

Scent is available now for a launch price of 100 and $50 .

But if you want to wait and smell it for yourself , be sure to head on down to packs East next month where it will be on the show floor .

Ah , yes , a packed video game convention in Boston , the best place to smell stuff .

And that's your daily fix for February 27th .

If you're looking for more stuff to watch IgM put up fan fest over the weekend , which was a massive celebration .

Of all things , video games , movies and TV .

It involved in interviewing celebrity guests and announcing new games and a billion other things .

So , scroll down our youtube page .

If you missed it , there's 100 videos there for you to watch .

Thanks for watching .

I'm Brian Tanno .

Uh I'm , I'm Italian , which is why I move my hands around a lot in the air .

Uh I hope you all have a great day .

Um , and it goes better than the news that I read at the top of the show .

For all your gaming news .

Keep it locked to IGN .

Thanks for watching The Daily Fix .

Chow .