Following news of lay-offs at Sony Santa Monica, Microsoft is wasting no time in diving in to scoop up some of the talent. The developer behind many PlayStation exclusive games, including the God of War series, has let an “undisclosed number” of staff go, claiming that it “is necessary to make changes to better serve the future projects of the studio”.
Sony confirmed the lay-offs in a statement:
“SCEA can confirm that we have completed a reduction in workforce at Santa Monica Studio. This is a result of a cycle of resource re-alignment against priority growth areas within SCE WWS. We do not take these decisions lightly. However, sometimes it is necessary to make changes to better serve the future projects of the studio. We have offered outplacement services and severance packages to ease transition for those impacted.”
Only a few hours after the announcement, Vice President of Microsoft Phil Spencer took to Twitter to confirm that he has already approached some of those developers with view to recruiting them for Xbox 360 and Xbox One projects.
@GGhalid Like the #helpDEVS tag. Keep that one going. We’ve reached out and are engaged in hiring.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 26, 2014
While it’s good to see that talented developers may not go to waste, it’s obviously a concern that Sony Santa Monica feels it necessary to lay-off team members, especially when we’ve only just hit the start of the PlayStation generation.